‘The Beauty’
“The beauty of Red is that we have Rossland, a real, historic, gold rush-era town at the bottom of the hill,” says Katkov. That town at its peak teemed with 7,000 people, 42 saloons, and the likes of “Popcorn Kate” and “Scrap Iron Nelly,” according to historical records at the local museum. Rossland’s one main street has preserved the architecture of that era but now sports a sushi restaurant, a trendy cafe and a gourmet supermarket.
“It’s this little gem of a place that no one really knows about,” says Jason Davies, a 45-year-old British snowboarder who invested in Red and has visited slopes all over North America and Europe.
“I can still find pockets of untracked snow 10 days after a blizzard,” Davies says. Of course, one can also experience that at Colorado’s Silverton Mountain -- by renting out the whole hill for $14,000 per day, the latest trend among the wealthy jet set seeking to escape crowds at the big resorts.
Crowdfunding investments in Red are tiered from as low as C$1,000 up to C$25,000. Along with the shares come perks like free lift tickets, custom-designed skis and, for those in the top tiers, free overnight stays in new mountain cabins to be built by the money that’s raised.
Red in recent years has worked to expand its offerings for beginner and intermediate skiers and to upgrade infrastructure to appeal to a broader clientele. This season, a renovated mountain-side lodge re-opens with heated flush toilets (goodbye pit latrines), a gleaming new kitchen and expanded seating. At its base, a Texas developer is building a 106-room luxury boutique hotel. The Josie is set to open in late January just steps from the chairlift, featuring a head chef nabbed from one of Canada’s top restaurants.
On a recent conference call with potential investors, Katkov parried a question about whether such luxury could alienate the resort’s core base. Plans are also in the works for a 92-bed youth hostel that would offer what Katkov calls “the young dirtbag skier” a place for C$40 a night that’s a two-minute walk to the chairlift.
Whistler Runs
On average, Red’s 4,200 acres of terrain gets 150,000 visitors a season; Whistler Blackcomb’s 8,171 acres, north of Vancouver, attracts about 2 million people. The Red Chair, the region’s oldest, was built by mining engineers from Cominco Ltd. who’d never actually laid eyes on one but mercifully began tugging skiers safely up the slopes in 1948 for C$1.25 a day. Adjusted for inflation, that’s less than what Red charges today for those going off-piste, hauling them 12 at a time on an oversized snowmobile, known as a cat, for backcountry skiing on gladed slopes for C$10 a ride.
“That’s one of the things we obsess about -- how to keep the sport accessible to people,” says Don Thompson, Red’s president and general manager.