A development group in British Columbia has teed up a master plan for a four-season resort that will offer year-round snow skiing.
The resort will take shape on 2,500 acres just west of Valemount, a village in the Canadian Rockies that’s roughly 250 miles west of Edmonton, Alberta. Its developer, Valemount Glacier Destinations, Ltd., says the ski area will feature the world’s longest ski runs as well as the world’s biggest vertical drop – more than 7,800 feet. It’ll also have North America’s only ski-in, ski-out airport, vacation houses, hundreds of hotel rooms, a shopping area, places to eat and drink and a variety of recreational amenities, including an 18-hole golf course.
So far, VGD’s proposal has elicited strong community approval. “Backcountry skiers have long known that this area, so close to Valemount, is a ski mecca,” the village’s mayor said in a press statement, “but not many of us envisioned such an amazing project.”
VGD is hoping that local officials approve the master plan in 2014. If they do, construction could conceivably begin in 2015.