Silver Star Mountain Resort

Our Take

Silver Star Mountain Resort near Vernon, BC has one of the most unusual base area aesthetics in North American skiing: a Victorian-era themed village with brightly painted gingerbread-trimmed buildings that was designed to evoke late-1800s mining town architecture. The result is genuinely charming rather than kitschy, and the village design -- completely ski-in/ski-out with minimal vehicle access -- creates a car-free ski experience that larger resorts spend hundreds of millions trying to achieve. The skiing is 3,282 acres across two main faces: the steeper Putnam Creek and Entree areas on the front side, and the Powder Gulch back-country side that's tree-dense and holds cold Okanagan powder exceptionally well. Silver Star sits in the BC Interior, east of the Coastal Mountains, in the same Okanagan snowbelt as Big White -- cold, dry air combining with Pacific moisture to produce lighter-than-coastal snow. The resort has no major pass affiliation, which keeps it primarily on the radar of BC residents and a small group of Americans who've discovered it through word of mouth. The 235-inch average snowfall and the back-side tree skiing make it worth the discovery.

Nerd Stats

Fun Facts

• Silver Star's Victorian village aesthetic is deliberately designed around 1890s mining town architecture -- the colorful gingerbread buildings are entirely intentional.
• The resort has 105 kilometers of cross-country ski trails at the base -- one of the largest Nordic networks in BC.
• Silver Star sits in the Okanagan Highland where winter inversions keep the valley foggy but the mountain in sunshine -- called 'Blue Sky Silver Star' by locals.
• The Powder Gulch back side holds cold shadow snow through weeks of otherwise consolidated conditions on the front face.