Sun Peaks Ski Resort

Sun Peaks in BC Canada is a ski resort with something on offer for everyone, but it’s particularly popular with families. Families love the well laid out slopes of the Sun Peaks Ski Resort, the convenience of the ski-in ski-out village, the child minding and ski school facilities, and the many activities on offer for kids. It’s all too easy!

Prior to 1993, Sun Peaks was known as Tod Mountain. Since that time the Sun Peaks Ski Resort has evolved significantly including the addition of more terrain, a purpose built village, and modern facilities and services.

Sun Peaks Resort has some similarities to the very friendly Whistler except that it’s on a much more manageable scale. You won’t lose track of your friends or family, yet there’s more than enough terrain to keep everyone entertained for at least a week.

Pros & Cons of Sun Peaks BC

Pros

• Sun Peaks Ski Resort is very family friendly.
• Much of the Sun Peaks accommodation is ski-in ski-out.
• The ski area is large.
• Sun Peaks Resort is perfect for intermediates and ideal for beginners.
• Compared to some of the trendy BC ski resorts, SP is relatively quiet.
• The cross country skiing offerings are very good.

Cons

• There are much better ski resorts in BC for experts.
• Sun Peaks Ski Resort doesn’t receive as much snow as other major BC ski resorts, yet the quality of the snow is usually very good.
• The village has a sedate nightlife, as you’d expect for a family oriented resort

Pro or Con Depending On Your Perspective

• The snow covered main street of the village is pretty and you can ski down it. The village is purpose built and it’s a matter of opinion as to whether you view the pretend Euro style buildings as quaint or kitsch.

Sun Peaks Ski and Snowboard Terrain

Sun Peaks has the second largest ski area in Canada (behind Whistler Ski Resort) with 4,270 skiable acres of terrain (1,728 hectares). Sun Peaks Ski Resort has 138 runs and 882 metres of vertical (1,255 - 2,080m), and considering the relative lack of crowds you can have many of the slopes to yourself.

The Sun Peaks ski terrain is spread across multiple mountains. Sunny Sundance Mountain offers mellow groomed runs for beginners and intermediates. Mt Tod features advanced terrain in open bowls, challenging gladed terrain, and long groomers, whilst north facing Mt Morrisey also has thigh burning cruisers as well as a few steeps.

The terrain split for Sun Peaks is 10% beginner, 58% intermediate, and 32% advanced/expert, so Sun Peaks has terrain for all abilities, but intermediates in particular will love Sun Peaks considering the abundance of fantastic groomed runs.

The ski and snowboard terrain is serviced by 13 lifts of which only 3 are express lifts.

On average Sun Peaks receives 6 metres (236 inches) of snow per season. This is less than various other Canadian ski resorts, but the powder is pretty dry (not the wet Whistler kind!).

Where is Sun Peaks Resort?

The Sun Peaks ski resort is located in the BC Interior only 58km (a 45 minute drive) northeast of the town of Kamloops. Sun Peaks is 409km northeast of Vancouver British Columbia, a 4.5 hour drive. There are daily flights to Kamloops Airport (YKA) from Vancouver and Calgary, and from the airport there are connecting shuttle buses to Sun Peaks. The other gateway airport is Kelowna (near Big White and Silver Star ski resort) which is a 2.5 hour drive away. There are also shuttle buses from Kelowna Airport.

You won’t need a car at Sun Peaks because the village is reasonably compact and it’s easy to walk or slide around the pedestrian-only streets.

Sun Peaks Accommodation

The Sun Peaks village offers a range of accommodations for 7,000 guests. The layout of the European style ski-through village makes everything really easy. Most Sun Peaks lodging is not far from the ski runs, and many accommodations offer the convenience of true ski-in ski-out access.

All budgets are catered for and Sun Peaks accommodation includes hotels, lodges, condos (apartments), townhomes, houses (chalets), and a hostel.

Sun Peaks Accommodation Listings

Facilities

The pedestrian village is reasonably well developed (it’s a far cry from the mega size of Whistler, but bigger than Silver Star or Big White) and has great facilities for those on a snowboard or ski holiday. The layout of the village makes it fuss free to get to a ski rental shop, child care, or ski school.

SunPeaks has various cafes, restaurants, and shopping opportunities. The village also has a few bars, but don’t have high expectations for a vibrant party scene. Sun Peaks is largely family-centric.

Sunpeaks Activities

As an alternative to downhill skiing or snowboarding, Sun Peaks also has cross country skiing on 34km of groomed and trackset trails.

Sun Peaks Resort has a myriad of other activities such as day spas, dog sledding, ice skating, snowshoeing, tubing, horse drawn sleigh rides, and snowmobile tours.