Nick Faldo is hitting it big. Really, really big.

In life, of course, because he’s a six-time major-champion golfer who recently took his dry English wit into the broadcast booth to become television's premiere golf analyst.

But mainly because today he’s slamming golf balls into low earth orbit.

The scene is the outdoor patio of the ski lodge at Revelstoke Mountain Resort on a hot August afternoon, the sort of day that makes you wonder how this place could also double as one of the snowiest regions on the planet. Faldo is here to announce that his golf course company, Faldo Design, will be carving a championship-standard resort course out of the towering cedar forest at the base of the ski hill, scheduled to open by the spring of 2011.

And the reason Faldo is hitting them so long is because his makeshift driving range is on the mother of all elevated tees, looking practically straight down upon the Columbia River.

“First hole, 1,170 yards, straightaway,” jokes Faldo, who then mashes a utility club that seems to fly forever, almost as if it will make it clear down to the flats, where the existing gondola is being extended to an all-new base area. There, the Nelsen Lodge, RMR’s flagship hotel designed by Vancouver green-architecture guru Raymond Letkeman, is furiously coming together. Not far beyond is Revelstoke Airport, where Faldo flew in this morning on the resort’s gleaming Cessna Citation. When he pulls a driver, someone in the crowd of 150 international golf writers and local celebrities pipes up, “Watch out, Nick. You don’t want to hit the jet.”

All in all, it’s a pretty big day for Revelstoke, too, the B.C. interior city at the heart of the Selkirk-Monashee snowbelt. Going big is something Revy has had to get used to ever since a handful of international investors zeroed in on Mount Mackenzie, a formerly nondescript locals-only ski area with exactly one small double chair.

The Inevitable Development of Revelstoke

Citizens have been rightfully nervous about on-again, off-again plans for development, largely because boom times, followed inevitably by busts, have dogged the town since it was first plotted by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. In fact, the city was born during a near-catastrophic downturn—it was actually named for Lord Revelstoke, the British financier who stepped in to help the CPR stave off bankruptcy and complete the trans-continental dream. But the tidy city known for its Victorian downtown and houses with steep, snow-shedding metal roofs rode its last economic wave during the frenzied dam-building of the 1970s and ’80s. Its population then actually declined for a decade and a half.

Skiing has always been a key, if understated, part of town history. Using what were then called “Norwegian snowshoes,” pioneers formed the Revelstoke Ski Club soon after the advent of the railway. A ski jump on nearby Revelstoke Mountain became the country’s epicentre of the sport, and local phenom Nels Nelsen (for whom the new base hotel is named) held Canadian records from 1916 to 1932. By the turn of this century, a combination of its location and low-priced homes made it the residence of choice for young mountaineers and their families, many of them professional ski guides or helicopter pilots staffing B.C.’s booming mechanized backcountry ski industry.

Right up to the resort’s announcement in 2005, a renovated 1,200-square-foot family home hovered around $150,000. Robert Powadiuk, a Toronto-based commercial real estate developer and longtime skier, is the investment partner credited with the audacious notion of turning Mount Mackenzie into a megaresort some 20 years earlier.

Asked on the ski lodge’s balcony how he got the idea, Powadiuk merely waves his arm skyward. “Just look at that mountain,” he says. “Fifty-six hundred feet of vertical, or 1,800 metres if you like. This lift extension makes it the tallest resort in North America. Have you ever seen better skiing terrain?”

Frankly, I have not. Few people have—a fact reinforced by the breathless reports that came from the mountain when it opened on a textbook deep-powder day 11 months ago. “One of the best lift-based days of skiing I have had, ever,” declared a hasty e-mail from my pal, Steve Threndyle, a B.C.-based ski writer who has skied all across the continent.

The Investment in a Ski Resort

The word got out fast among skiers, which was exactly what management had intended. For its first season, RMR spent $16 million and installed an eight-passenger gondola, as well as a high-speed chairlift. Although a small figure compared to the $1 billion projected to be spent on a 20-lift, 5,000-residence resort development in the next 15 years, it was money that they knew wouldn’t be recouped for some time. However, it served to chum the waters, and the sharks dutifully turned up. RMR had hoped to have 50,000 skier-day-visits in the first season. Instead, it saw double that, mostly helmet-and-backpack, hardcore riders—what marketers might call “taste leaders.”

Joe Lammers is typical of the pilgrims who have been lured here to start a new chapter in their skiing life. A former professional freeskier and host of television’s Pontiac World of Skiing, Lammers left a comfortable job as a mountain patroller in Whistler and now does the same work at RMR.

“I kind of took a gamble coming out here a few years ago,” he recalls. “I did manage to buy a house at a good price, but there was a period there where things were a little unclear. We started to wonder, ‘Is this thing really a go?’”

But the hurdles toppled, and the lifts did go in on schedule. Indeed, there was an expediency to the development that surprised many industry veterans. Tourism developers are accustomed to bureaucratic foot-dragging, but B.C.’s Gordon Campbell-led Liberal government has been gung-ho on all things tourism, promising to double the province’s industry revenues by 2015. Fast-tracking projects, especially those like RMR that dangle world-class skiing products before an international clientele, is a key part of that pledge.

Not Everyone is Happy with Revelstoke Mountain Resort

Of course, not everyone is happy. Non-homeowners, in particular, were the first to feel the crunch. When trailer park residents were evicted by a landlord with designs on a pricy condo project, it served notice that Revelstoke was about to endure the fate of many a mountain town before it. Last April, the city’s planning director, Hap Stelling, quit his job, saying he could no longer afford to live in Revelstoke. Indeed, city administrators are now fighting a rearguard action to ensure a source of affordable housing persists in the heady years to come, and they are making progress. Meanwhile, on the streets, there’s a bustle not seen since the heyday of B.C. Hydro construction.

I had a chance to ski RMR for a couple of days late last April, and it more than lived up to the hyperbole. The upper chairlift, aptly named The Stoke, dumps skiers off on a perfectly tilted, above-treeline ridge with multiple powder bowls easily accessed by riders traversing from the lift, or, beyond that, by RMR’s tracked passenger vehicles. With its acquisition of the cat-skiing operator that formerly used this high-alpine tenure, along with Selkirk-Tangiers, a well-established local helicopter skiing company, RMR is the only ski resort in the world to offer all three modes of uphill conveyance in one mountain complex. Plans even call for premium homes in the $2-million range that will have their own helipad.

This is, needless to say, highly ambitious, and already rumours have circulated that RMR may seek to divest from these acquisitions. In any event, access difficulties—specifically, Revelstoke’s remoteness and weather-related question marks about its airport—are an inevitable challenge to the resort’s sales pitch.

But who needs helicopters anyway? We power-lapped the chair all morning, cascading through glades and tree shots that, were it a regular powder day, would be on par with any heli runs in the land. Later, we trudged around the mountain to the sort of north-facing chutes you see in Warren Miller fantasies, and the deep snowpack still felt mid-winter fresh. Below that, locals pointed out the site of Chair 14, the high-speed quad slated for this season, one that is entirely devoted to the sort of roller-coaster intermediate cruising that had been lacking.

There aren’t yet a lot of runs on the mountain. It’s so vast that it will take years to chop out the spider web of undulating pistes on the master plan. All we could tell, though, was that it took a long, long time to ski back down to the lodge, popping off rollers and laying huge, carving turns. And the descent contained a double feature that will undoubtedly come to be the resort’s trademark: the hero snow of winter on the upper half, followed by the giddy ride of corn snow on the spring-like lower slopes.

And to think that if this were three years hence, we could unsnap from our skis and head straight onto a Faldo-designed gem of a golf course. Maybe even Nick himself will be around on that stellar day of recreation.

“I’ve never skied once,” Faldo admits. “But now I guess I’m going to have to learn.”

One thing is for sure. If Faldo ever does manage to learn how to rip down a mountain the way he pulverizes golf balls, he’s certainly found the right playground.

Future Canadian Ski Resorts

Everyone is buzzing about Revelstoke these days, but plenty of B.C. resorts are coming on line in the next decade (real estate agent contact info not included.)

Coquihalla Pass Resort

THE PROMISE More than 10 metres of snow every winter. Need more reasons? Easy highway access near the summit of the Coquihalla Highway, 250 kms east of Vancouver, and excellent terrain in a previously logged valley. 

THE REALITY Still in the early proposal stages, but enviro and recreation groups are already concerned about water use, grizzly bear habitat and recreational access at the proposed four-season resort.

Jumbo Glacier Resort

THE PROMISE The former heli-ski tenure near Invermere, B.C., could soon feature Canada’s highest lifts on global warning-defying glaciers with 5,500 feet of vertical in the winter and 2,300 feet of summer glacier skiing. 

THE REALITY On the eve of full approval, conservation groups blockaded access to the area this summer demanding the provincial government and developers deal with environmental, First Nation and local
concerns first.

Garibaldi at Squamish

THE PROMISE The ambitious plan to put three gondolas and 22 lifts on Brohm Ridge above Squamish promises quality skiing closer to Vancouver than Whistler. Plus, the upgraded Sea to Sky Highway means easy access (landslides aside).

THE REALITY Garibaldi has languished in legal limbo for decades, a result of ongoing financial difficulties and ownership controversies. The proposal is back in the works, but no one is holding their breath.

Fairmont Hot Springs Resort

THE PROMISE New owners are planning a billion-dollar investment at Fairmont ski resort, south of Invermere. Real estate is already for sale and a gondola is promised.

THE REALITY As one of the driest regions in B.C. it’s hard to imagine Fairmont skiing taking off when Calgarians can hit established resorts like Panorama, Fernie and Kicking Horse in the same driving time.

Kicking Horse Mountain Resort

THE PROMISE A new draft master plan would improve lift infrastructure in Golden, B.C., a chief complaint from riders forced to ski all 5,000 feet almost every run. Bigger, better-aligned, and new lifts are planned.

THE REALITY Since the original master plan’s lift expansion timeline was largely ignored, locals aren’t quitting their pre-season quad workout just yet. 

Ski & Ride Smithers

THE PROMISE The northern B.C. ski hill cut a run and a lift line this summer, removing stumps and preparing cabin sites.

THE REALITY A long way from the rest of B.C., the expansion at the four-lift ski hill will mostly excite locals and dedicated road-trippers.

Crystal Mountain Ski and Golf Resort

THE PROMISE Awaiting final approvals, the expansion of the resort near Kelowna includes an 18-hole golf course, real estate and 12 new ski lifts. Unlike most ski hills, Crystal is advertising lots of sunshine, mild temperatures and easy skiing.

THE REALITY The resort is testing uncharted waters with its plan to appeal to boomers and families looking for groomed skiing, instead of the powder hound dragging along the rest of the brood.

Mount Baldy Ski Resort

THE PROMISE A partnership with the Osoyoos Indian Band helped fast-track expansion plans at the south Okanagan resort. The first of 10 planned lifts opened last winter.

THE REALITY Like Crystal, Baldy lacks expert terrain nearby. Even at full build-out, it will likely remain a family-focused “hidden gem.”  —Ryan Stuart

Photo: Dan Stewart