What Happens at Red Mountain, Stays At Red Mountain.

Jordan’s Bachelor Party at Red Mountain Resort

Just days before his wedding, evo copy-writer Jordan Sunshine, along with a group of friends, threw a bachelor party in a true evo fashion: with an epic trip to Red Mountain Resort in British Columbia! From fresh pillows to hot tubbing to roof drops, this sounded like a great way to enjoy those last few days of freedom! (Just kidding) Congratulations on your wedding, and we wish you a happy marriage!

Here are some highlights of the trip from Jordan himself:

Red Mountain Resort

On Wednesday, February 15th a group of my good ski and snowboard friends from college headed north to Red Resort in eastern BC for a long overdue trip. Seeing how I was about to get married and everyone would be coming into town for the wedding, this was the prime time to rally everyone together. Three Subaru’s, packed to the brim with four dudes each, tons of gear, and all the food and beer we could fit from Wal-Mart and Costco met up in Spokane and headed north to Rossland, BC.

We stayed at the ski-in Bear House. With 11 beds, 3 swanky living rooms, 4 bathrooms, big gear room, pool table, foosball table and hot tub (later to be known as “dude soup”), the Bear House was perfect for our huge group. Let the games begin… literally, we brought a lot of board games.

The forecast wasn’t showing anything special. But with a group of 12, and the spirit of being at a new and exciting mountain in another country, we were how the Canadians say, “stoke-ed.” Fortunately for us the storms started to roll in the next afternoon. There are two things I learned about the snow forecast at this humble mountain: unpredicted storms come out of nowhere and get trapped in this microclimate; and when they say they got 8 cm, they got 8 inches.

We spent each morning in-bounds; at Red the in-bounds terrain is no joke. The Motherload triple chair that takes you on a very long ride to the top of Granite Mountain, providing you with almost 1,000 meters of vert. (that is like 3,000ft!) From the chair you can see what an epic mountain this is: steep pillows to your left, open bowls to the right and big hero cliffs right under the chair. On the first morning, our enormous group of 12 did some long groomers and bumped up party runs, just wreaking havoc on the slopes. With the arrival of fresh snow on day 2 we hit up one of my favorite zones called The Orchards. Having been the venue for the 2008 Red Bull Cold Rush, this playground is loaded with drops and launches of all sizes, and it seems to go on forever.

On that first day I bumped into evo founder, Bryce Phillips, who was taking a day at Red before heading off to go heli-skiing near Nelson. Bryce made it clear that it was mandatory to hike up nearby Mt. Roberts to get the extra fresh goods. Better do what the boss says, so we headed out for an afternoon hike. From the top of Granite, Mt. Roberts is an easy skin up, or in our case, a fairly easy boot pack out the ridge. It was well worth it, getting the freshest tracks of the day as we worked our way through a mix of open glades and thicker woods.

With our ski-in chalet it was a breeze to stop home for a quick bite or to swap out gear. The second day some of us switched over to AT setups, splitboards, tele skis, and in my case: Salomon Rocker2 Skis, downhill boots and bindings, and some “kick” skins that I borrowed, which were about 80cm long and half the width of my skis. I knew I’d be working twice as hard as everyone else, but I couldn’t let that stop me. This time the mission was to Grey Basin with vast acres of open sidecountry to the other side of Granite. Another perfect skin track led us up the ridge to numerous drop zones on different mini-summits.

The beauty of Grey Basin is that you can work your way across it in a series of short hikes and descents. Apparently, the original plan for the resort was to build a lift up into this area. The lift was never built (at least not yet), but some trails were cut and now they serve backcountry goers. We smashed our way down the open cut trail. It was pretty sweet to ski the fall line of an open run this late in the afternoon and have it so untracked and all to ourselves.

Après at Red either means heading to the town of Rossland or hitting up the famous Rafters Bar in the loft of the Main Lodge for “jugs” of Kokanee Gold. We finished our days off with a dip in the “dude soup,” big meals, games, and some beacon practice in the back yard.

On our final day about half of our group went Cat skiing with Big Red Catson what was one of the best days the operation had had in weeks. All I have to say is that it was deep, cat skiing is awesome, and I was blown away by the quality of terrain Big Red has to offer. The part of our group that stuck to Red Resort said it was also all-time and that the locals were going big. Don’t forget, this is where a young Dane Tudor honed his skills.

All in all this was a short, but amazing trip. Good friends, good snow, and great terrain in a small low key place that’s all about the skiing. Red Resort, we will be back.