Mountain Spirit Resort & Spa

The next morning was bound to be great skiing. Kimberley Alpine Resort doesn’t get skied out in a day. And there was a possibility it had snowed more too!

And it had.

So we had more freshies in the sun. Magma was groomed, Flapper wasn’t but was excellent. Lots of soft fresh snow for all to enjoy.

It was also the first annual Beer Festival. It turned out to be a great fun family day with fun activities for kids, live music inside and outside in the plaza. International beer was available (I noticed the Belgian blonde beer Leffe in the plaza!).

Here’s to more freshies in the sun before the end of the season!

It was like waking up on Christmas morning as a kid. Instead of rushing to the Christmas tree to see if Santa had been, my hubby kept peeking under the blinds to see if it was still “powing” outside. And it was!

By 8:30am I was in the line up for Kimberley Alpine Resort’s high speed quad.

I knew where I was headed… to the Easter chair by the fastest possible route (Rung).

I was third in the line up.

Being a snow boarder, it usually takes longer to get my bindings sorted when I get off the quad.

I’d have to be super fast not to lose my prime position in the lift line for the Easter.

Thankfully most of the skiers were excited for skiing the main in powder and weren’t planning on the runs with a steeper pitch on the “back side”.

A couple of minutes later I was on the Easter Chair, panting and excited after having floated my way down Rung and Caper.

Happy faces after fresh tracks all morning!

We’re delighted to share the following news with you:

For Immediate Release
December 2, 2009

CBT SUPPORTS FLY YXC EFFORTS TO BOOST REGIONAL ECONOMY Delta Airlines continues service into and out of Cranbrook; benefits for residents and business.

Supporters of the FLY YXC Alliance Society gathered for CBT

(Cranbrook) - Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) is providing the FLY YXC Alliance Society with up to $300,000 over the next two years to secure Delta Airlines for service into and out of Cranbrook.

“We are pleased to support the FLY YXC Alliance Society in continuing the Delta Airlines service as it will have a positive impact in the community and the region, providing long-term economic benefits to residents and business,” said Neil Muth, CBT President and CEO. “The Society presented CBT with an innovative plan which brings in air service that creates an opportunity for economic development for this region, and CBT is committed to assisting Basin communities with planning for future prosperity.”

This service has been made possible through the work of the FLY YXC Alliance Society, which was created to better market the Canadian Rockies International Airport as an attractive new air servicing region.
The Society has more than 50 members and is comprised of various resorts throughout the East Kootenays, developers, recreation and tourism attractions and businesses.

“This is the second year of the highly successful service that saw the spectacular Kootenay Rockies Region of British Columbia and its entire world class ski and outdoor adventure offerings made easily accessible to virtually every major city in the United States,” said Andy Cohen, Chair, FLY YXC Alliance Society. “We are very happy to have support from CBT for this initiative.”

American travelers can leave their homes in the morning and have lunch on the slopes of the incredible Canadian Rockies later that day. For Canadians traveling south, Salt Lake City flights are less than two hours, where more connections to any of Delta’s 500 destinations are convenient and economical.

“This is an opportunity for winter sports enthusiasts from all over the United States to enjoy an experience of a lifetime,” said Chris Dadson, President of the Kootenay Rockies Tourism Association. “The region boasts eight alpine ski resorts, 30 heli-ski and snowcat lodges, four National Parks and the best scenery in Canada.”

Delta Airlines will be flying into the Canadian Rockies International Airport three times a week starting December 19, with the service running through March 28, 2010. Delta is taking reservations now, and tickets can be booked through any travel agent or online at www.delta.com <http://www.delta.com/> .

CBT delivers economic, social, and environmental benefits to the residents of the Columbia Basin. To learn more about CBT programs and initiatives, visit www.cbt.org <http://www.cbt.org/>  or call 1-800-505-8998.

-30-

For more information contact:
Rachel Lucas
Communications
Columbia Basin Trust
1.250.426.1103
rlucas@cbt.org

Well, aside from the obvious new addition of the newest and classiest resort, there have been some cool changes and additions to the experience you can have in Kimberley Alpine Resort this winter:

A Good Brush Cut is Great for Skiing!: Over ¼ million spent on run improvements with extensive brushcutting and mowing on core runs this summer will result in making the trails even more skier and rider friendly with smoother terrain and wider trail points and also creating the largest gladed skiing area in Canada!

No Fables of Great Skiing in the Black Forest Glades: The adventures in the Black Forest Glades are never ending. This area is accessible off the Tamarack chair and offers fun and secret powder stashes for all levels of skiers and riders to enjoy! New glade widening makes this area accessible even for the novice. Overall, Kimberley Alpine Resort has the largest gladed terrain that offers continuous adventure for everyone!

Gear Up!: For those who think the gear makes the skier, Kimberley can now make you the best with the option to take our new high performance HEAD ski rentals out for a spin. The resort proudly adds this new equipment to the fleet, helping make a day on the mountain even better!

Season Pass with Extra Benefits: New to the resort facilities is the exclusive season pass lockers conveniently located behind the Stemwinder Bar & Grill. Season Pass holders can now enjoy not only the benefit of skiing every day but also getting out there faster with the quick and easy convenience of their own locker room.

New Exciting Events: A jam packed schedule of events is planned for the season with returning favourites such as the annual Family Festival (Feb 13-14) and Bavarian Iron Legs (Mar 27-28) as well as brand new events including Beer Fest (Mar 13-14) and the Mountain Storm Mountaineering Race (Mar 6).

Follow the Lights of the Night!: If you haven’t had your fill of skiing and riding while the sun is up, Kimberley is home to one of North America’s longest illuminated runs, making it a night-time hot spot. If the skis have been hung for the night, however, enjoy a spin around the skating pond magically illuminated with bright lights or enjoy a delicious s’mores by the bonfire while you watch the skaters waltz to the music.

North Star Racers Settle In: The North Star Racers Society known as the Kimberley North Star Racers have settled into a new home base facility at Kimberley Alpine Resort. The new club house will help the racers continue their efforts “to bring to the community fun, challenge, and opportunities for personal excellence through participation and competition in alpine ski racing” through their fall and winter programs that are offered to developing ski racers from ages 5 to 19 at the resort.

Paralympic Training Centre: In February 2009, Kimberley Alpine Resort proudly hosted the 2009 IPC Alpine Skiing NorAm Cup with 52 paralympic athletes from 9 different countries competing. Starting from a dream to create the best Race Training Centre possible for Paralympic Athletes, Kimberley Alpine Resort has a long history of supporting Race Training that dates back to the 60’s and 70’s. With a dedicated training run, the Dreadnaught, and plans to provide a complete state-of-the-art facility, Kimberley Alpine Resort in proud partnership with the City of Kimberley and Province of British Columbia, holds strong and true to athletic excellence and a dedication to enhance the community of Kimberley while providing athletes the opportunity to train at home.

This information appears on www.skikimberley.com 

This article appears on the RealEstateChannel.com

http://www.realestatechannel.com/featured-columnists/real-estate-news-grupo-del-sol-isla-saboga-gva-associates-mountain-spirit-resort-spa-kimberley-alpine-resort-1657.php

The Smoothest of Highways… The summer long $11m project to resurface the highway 93/95A through Kimberley and replace and beautify sidewalks is completing, much to the pleasure of visitors and locals alike. The project also included replacement of underground drainage pipe networks and should complete this month.

Other local initiatives are progressing nicely including the Peak to Platzl trail project, providing a paved biking and walking trail from just outside Mountain Spirit Resort right down to the city centre.

The Rails to Trails project is also approaching completion, which will mean walkers, bikers and even roller bladers will soon be able to enjoy a paved trail along the previous railway line, all the way from Kimberley to Cranbrook.

It’s been a long time coming… finally the City of Kimberley has announced the go ahead for the construction of the 500 person capacity Conference Centre and Paralympic Training Centre in Kimberley Alpine Resort, just a few hundred metres from Mountain Spirit Resort and Spa.

This is superb news for Kimberley as a whole. Conferences will tend to be held during the quieter parts of the year (the shoulder season) and the associated business travelers typically spend two to three times what an average tourist spends. Owners at Mountain Spirit who opt to join the rental program will also be pleased. Mountain Spirit was designed to include studios and one bedroom suites in addition to two and three bedroom suites, with the future business travelers, who travel alone, in mind.

The construction is anticipating to start soon by New Dawn Developments, the same construction company who constructed Mountain Spirit Resort and Spa, and many other resort properties in Panorama and Fernie Alpine Resort in their porfolio. New Dawn is recognised for the high quality workmanship and in their preference for local trades and staff.

Read the full article in the Kimberley Daily Bulletin online by clicking here.

This article which appeared in the Vancouver Sun on Friday, highlights the imminent development of a 500 person conference centre and paralympic training centre at the base of Kimberley Alpine Resort, just a few hundred metres from Mountain Spirit Resort & Spa…

Kimberley builds a global reputation

By Bruce Constantineau, Vancouver Sun, August 28, 2009

The small East Kootenay town that morphed into the Bavarian City of the Rockies in the 1970s wants to become the Paralympic training centre of Canada in the new millennium.

Kimberley expects to have Paralympic ski teams from Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and other countries training on a dedicated run at Kimberley Alpine Resort just before the Paralympic Games next year.

The Dreadnaught run was developed to accommodate downhill, slalom, giant slalom and super-G events, with safety netting from top to bottom and new communications and timing equipment.

The facility is fully equipped with ski equipment required by disabled athletes and International Paralympic Committee World Cup events were held there in 2005 and 2007.

Now, city officials hope to capitalize on the run’s international reputation by building a $6-million Paralympic Training and Conference Centre at the base of the mountain by late 2010.

“International teams are talking to us now about the possibility of coming here and training in the future,” Kimberley Mayor Jim Ogilvie said. “So throughout the Olympics, we’ll make it known we’re going to have this centre available.”

The provincial government committed $3.9 million to Kimberley’s Paralympic vision four years ago and the city has used some of those funds to help develop the ski run and to make its civic arena and curling rink more accessible for disabled athletes.

The arena’s players’ benches and penalty boxes now are at ice level, allowing for smooth transitions on and off the ice for sledge hockey players, while dressing rooms have been renovated with automatic doors, accessible washrooms and showers, wide benches and equipment boxes.

Curling venue upgrades include covered ramp access and automatic doors leading into the building. The city’s two-year-old aquatic centre is also wheelchair-accessible.

“What we’re saying is come here and train here because we really do have the complete package,” Ogilvie said.

The package won’t be totally complete until the new ski-in, ski-out training and conference centre is built next year, but he said most of the project funding is already in place — including $2.5 million left from the provincial grant, another $2 million in federal-provincial infrastructure funding and $1 million from the city.

The facility will have training facilities, change rooms, meeting rooms, audio-visual equipment and conference space for up to 500 people.

Kimberley didn’t send delegations to previous Games, but Ogilvie noted several international sport federations found out about the city’s Paralympic aspirations at the B.C. Pavilion in Turin in 2006.

He credits renowned Canadian ski instructor Jerry Johnston for giving Kimberley so much credibility as a centre for training disabled athletes. The 73-year-old member of the Order of Canada moved to Kimberley from Alberta in 1980 and brought his groundbreaking training skills with him.

He began training disabled skiers in the early 1960s and he and his wife, Annie, established Canada’s first disabled skiing program; they created the Canadian Association for Disabled Skiing in 1976.

Johnston helped establish the Japanese Handicapped Ski Association and headed the disabled skiing exhibition at the Olympic Winter Games in Calgary in 1988. He’s not an active trainer these days, but he remains an important consultant in Kimberley’s Paralympic plans.

“Paralympic skiing in Kimberley has been very successful,” Johnston said. “Things have really opened up for a lot of teams to train here and they don’t have to run around looking for equipment for speed racing.

“A lot of resorts won’t shut down a hill, but we have an agreement that we can do that for training.”

Kimberley will continue to attract high-level competitions for disabled athletes, he said, but it will be hard to become a permanent fixture on the IPC ski circuit because so many countries want to hold the events.

“It’s good to move the events around because that helps increase the popularity of the sport,” Johnston said. “Disabled athletes still aren’t respected at all in some countries and we have to change that. People thought we were crazy the first time we went to Japan but they really accepted the sport when they saw what the athletes could do.”

Kimberley Alpine Resort representative Matt Mosteller said the proposed new training centre will become a year-round facility for able-bodied and disabled athletes, with fitness and dryland training taking priority in non-winter months.

“The sport has been a very big positive for the community,” he said. “Athletes come to live and train in the area and there’s an economic win when you create and host events.”

Kimberley will host a Nor-Am competition for able-bodied snowboarders just before the Olympics in February next year, then hold a Nor-Am event for disabled skiers before the Paralympics begin in March.

The city expects to attract disabled curlers to its curling venue before the 2010 Paralympic Games and the Canadian men’s sledge hockey team is scheduled to play against an international opponent in the Kimberley Civic Centre on March 1.

Steve Bova, an instructor who runs a disabled ski academy at the resort, noted the Canadian snowboard team trained on the mountain last year and the Nor-Am snowboard event will attract snowboarders from all over the world.

“The main thing is to market what we have now and get the people here,” he said. “From a coach’s point of view, the venues are what’s important and we have them.”

bconstantineau@vancouversun.com

ECONOMICS OF THE OLYMPICS

The third in a four-part series looking at the economic impact of the 2010 Winter Olympics on communities throughout British Columbia:

Aug. 7: Comox Valley

Aug. 14: Prince George

Aug. 21: Kamloops

TODAY: Kimberley

Congratulations to Stan Salikin and his team; the City of Kimberley and the Kimberley & District Chamber of Commerce. The float representing Kimberley featured our favourite Kimberley icon, Happy Hans!

We look forward to the floats at the July Fest Parade on 18th - 19th July! Click here for more information on July Fest 2009.