Season pass sales are up, real estate sales have slowed, and Revelstoke Mountain Resort may open before the scheduled Dec. 5 start date – that’s the word from the ski hill with a month to go before the expected opening day.

The Times Review spoke with Rod Kessler, the resorts vice president and chief operating officer, and Mike Vopni, the director of sales and marketing for resort real estate, to find out the state of operations heading into its third season.

Here is a look at what they had to say.

The skiing

The most exciting news to come out of the meeting, at least for local skiers, is that the resort may open earlier than scheduled.

“We’re going to open when we’re ready and we’ve got good snow pack. If we can open before Dec. 5, we will,” said Kessler.

As of Oct. 30, 71 cm of snow had fallen at the weather station located on the mountain at 1950 metres, with snow still falling over the weekend.

Returning skiers won’t notice any changes on the mountain.

“This summer we’ve primarily focused on mending the mountain from two years of very aggressive development and construction,” said Kessler. “We did some finishing grading, some final contour work, ditch work, stabilising areas with shot rock and stone, and then re-vegetating and securing work roads.”

For beginners, the ski hill will continue to remain a challenge but Kessler said existing terrain will be better signed to help novices navigate the ski hill better.

The biggest development is the opening of the Revelstoke Outdoors Centre, which will offer programs including avalanche skills courses, guided backcountry/slackcountry trips, Cat-Heli Prep sessions and specialty education options. It will also be the go-to place for the traditional ski school, and to book cat- and heli-skiing trips.

“Our history is quite steeped in the backcountry,” said Kessler. “We want people to be comfortable in the backcountry and we provide programs so you can be comfortable in the backcountry.”

Furthering the resorts big mountain reputation, the hill will be hosting the Freeskiing World Tour Canadian Championship from Jan. 6-10, 2010. The competition features skiers making their way down extremely challenging way in the manner of their choosing. Kessler expects the tour to provide a long-term boon to the resort, through world wide exposure of the event.

“The derivative of it is 45 million media hits that will result from the event over a three year period worldwide that will have the word Revelstoke in it,” he said.

Routes are currently being laid out on the mountain and will be announced shortly. All Kessler would say is they would be somewhere within the resort’s controlled recreation area.

There will be more food options too, with the opening of the Rockford Wok.Bar.Grill in the Nelsen Lodge and a new food outlet at the top of the gondola called Mackenzie Outpost. It will feature healthy, homemade food and drinks to “grab-and-go,” said Kessler.

Lastly, heli-skiing trips will now be offered straight from just outside the door of the Nelsen Lodge.

“If I could just send a message to all of our guests and local season’s pass holder and so forth, go to the gym, start running, get in shape, get ready because opening day is coming fast,” said Kessler. “We’re not going to sit on our heals and wait for the scheduled Dec. 5 date.”

The real estate

Real estate sales have continued at the resort, despite the economic down turn, though they’re still a long way off the pace they were on before the crash of 2008.

“Absolutely we’ve slowed down in our sales, as anybody would expect but we’re seeing the interest come back,” said Vopni.

In fact, 15 buyers of units in Nelsen Lodge 1, which has 59 units total, were unable to complete their purchases. However, Vopni said 10 of those units were re-sold by the resort over the summer at no net loss.

“We have not seen a correction in the market,” said Vopni. “Any resales are being listed at or above.”

But, he added, “There are a couple of people, like those who are unable to close, who needed to get out for their own financial reasons, so they dropped their price.”

At Nelsen Lodge 3, with 56 units, confusingly the second of three building being constructed, a small army of workers has been banging away, with the aim of finishing it during the winter. No specific date would be given, much to the chagrin of owners looking to book their vacations.

“We try to give people as fair an understanding of what that date is going to be without saying something that we can’t back up or live up to,” said Vopni.

Construction on the 104-unit Nelsen Lodge 2 is expected to begin at some point this winter, as Nelsen 3 nears completion. That will be followed next Fall by the construction of the Tangiers Townhomes.

All buildings are expected to be completed well ahead of their outside dates – the date in which buyers can pull out of their purchase agreements, said Vopni.

He attributed any delays in construction to the economic slow down and the change in ownership of the resort to Northland Properties from Don Simpson of Simpson Property Group Canada. “The new owners had to come in and assess what was going on and engage. Their background is construction and hospitality so they wanted to bring in their own construction teams,” said Vopni. “The timelines slowed down when the ownership changed. The good side is that it was a temporary slow down. Now we’re back into full construction but it’s always hard to make up missed time.”

This summer also saw the completion of the first private residence on Mackenzie Landing. Another home is expected to be finished by Christmas and three more by the Spring, said Vopni.

Only one lot on the Mackenzie Landing remains for sale, but on the resorts other lot offering, the Monashee Estates, 15 lots out of 24 are still on the market, at prices ranging from about $700,000 to almost $3 million and no homes have been built yet.

“Generally these are pretty big homes and it’s a pretty big deal to find the time to build your secondary home,” said Vopni.

To help, Northland Properties, which owns the resort, has given preferred builder status to three local companies they feel can “provide the type of service and finished product to our customers,” hesaid.

The business

“We’re a long way from being a profitable operation.”

Those are the words of Rod Kessler. However, he added, the ski hill operations could stop losing money in “three years, plus-minus.”

When asked how much money the resort was expected to lose this year, Kessler would not give an answer. “We don’t look forward to losses, period,” he said.

Kessler would not go into any specific numbers and would only talk in percentages but the magic number to break even is considered to be about 250,000 skier visits, though Kessler said he believes it can be done with less than that. In its first year of operations, the resort saw 97,000 skier visits. That number jumped by 52 per cent last year, to about 140,000. A further 15 per cent increase is expected this year.

Season pass sales so far are 20 per cent ahead of planned and still selling, said Kessler. The closest he would get to giving an exact number is they are “in the neighbourhood of 2,000.”

Likewise for day ticket and destination sales. No numbers were given, but he said, “all our indications across the board are up.”

Weekends and holidays are booking first, followed by February and March. December and January are slower.

Being ranked the fifth best ski resort in North America by Skiing Magazine provided a small uptick.

“There was an uptick immediately after the ranking that was material but the vacation detination market is booking later and later,” he said.

In terms of day ticket and destination skiers, Calgary is still the biggest market, followed by the Okanagan, Vancouver, U.S., U.K., and Australia/New Zealand.

“The world’s coming. We just feel so fortunate that kind of an increase in such a challenging economic time,” he said. “It speaks to the vitality in the community and the skiing experience.”

Meanwhile, development on the mountain is on hold until the economic climate allows.

“It will progress as soon as the economy starts to build strength and gets momentum again,” said Kessler.

One issue that will impact the resort’s bottom line is the upcoming HST, which Kessler said will cost the resort $750,000.

“The good news is that the retail community, the hotel community, and the restaurant community throughout British Columbia and Revelstoke has been addressing this directly with the finance minister. They are listening, there is dialogue,” he said.

On the real estate side Northland has begun looking at new developments, however those remain several years off.

“It’s my understanding that for them the money is not necessarily an issue,” said Vopni, referring to a recent conversation he had with Northland. “It’s making sure that – as any smart developer would do – is to make sure we determine the type of product that the public wants to purchase.”

Jan. 6-10, 2010. The competition features skiers making their way down extremely challenging freeskiing terrain. Kessler expects the tour to provide a long-term boon to the resort, through world wide exposure of the event.

“The derivative of it is 45 million media hits that will result from the event over a three year period worldwide that will have the word Revelstoke in it,” he said.

Routes are currently being laid out on the mountain and will be announced shortly. All Kessler would say is they would be somewhere within the resort’s controlled recreation area.

There will be more food options too, with the opening of the Rockford Wok.Bar.Grill in the Nelsen Lodge and a new food outlet at the top of the gondola called Mackenzie Outpost. It will feature healthy, homemade food and drinks to “grab-and-go,” said Kessler.

Lastly, heli-skiing trips will now be offered straight from just outside the door of the Nelsen Lodge.

“If I could just send a message to all of our guests and local season’s pass holder and so forth, go to the gym, start running, get in shape, get ready because opening day is coming fast,” said Kessler. “We’re not going to sit on our heels and wait for the scheduled Dec. 5 date.”