West Bowl Express chairlift - Sun Peaks 2024/25 Season

The addition of the West Bowl Express chairlift was formally announced by Sun Peaks Resort in April, 2023 as the long-awaited replacement for the West Bowl T-bar. It will once again be supplied by Doppelmayr, but unlike the new Orient and Crystal chairlifts which were fixed grip quads, the new West Bowl Express will be a higher speed detachable quad and will come at a cost of around $12 million.

The West Bowl T-bar was originally installed at Sun Peaks in 1965, and was later moved to open up the beautiful West Bowl area in 1992. But after a temporary closure during the covid ski season of 2020/21, it never re-opened and was formally retired during the 2021/22 ski season when it was considered too old and expensive to continue operating.

Since then, the beautiful alpine area of Tod Mountain, which offers one of the highest elevation ski areas in Sun Peaks, was not regularly groomed and serviced and was only accessible to those willing to do a short hike.

The West Bowl area with powder-filled open runs and gladed areas has always been popular with locals but was generally under-utilized by visitors given its more remote location at the top of Mt. Tod. It has sunny, south facing slopes and generally offers great, untouched stashes of beautiful Okanagan champagne powder!

That will likely change though once the new 1,600 meter long higher-speed detachable lift (5m/second and just under 6 minutes to get to the top) with 1,000 vertical feet of elevation gain begins taking guests to the highest elevation area of Sun Peaks in time for the 2024/25 ski season.  The West Bowl Express will be double the length of the previous West Bowl T-bar, with new top and bottom terminals.

While it is within the current resort boundaries and won't open up any new terrain area, it will include new trails and will also create a nice increase in the length of the current runs in the West Bowl area.  

Click to read the West Bowl Express press release from Sun Peaks Resort.

As written in the related Sun Peaks News article, SPR’s chief marketing officer Aiden Kelly says the express chairlift will open up more terrain and increase access to existing terrain in Sun Peaks. The West Bowl provides a different skiing and riding experience because of its distance from the village.

“I think the thing that we’re probably most excited about is that there’s a bit of a different look and feel of in the West Bowl … you really get that sense that you’re out in the mountains away from it all,” Kelly said.

The area will provide easier access to bowl skiing, rolling groomers and technical terrain and is the third chairlift launched by the resort in the last six years.

        West Bowl Express Chairlift Timeline

The initial design, planning and site prep for the West Bowl Express was completed in the summer of 2022, and electrical and foundation work was done during the summer of 2023. At the end of the 2023/2024 ski season, the major parts for the new Doppelmayr lift had arrived and were being accumulated and assembled in the parking area.  The resort will be flying the new towers, crossarms and sheave assemblies up to the alpine for installation starting in May, 2024 and it is hoped that the lift will be operating near the start of the 2024/25 winter ski season.

This will be another great addition to Sun Peaks Resort and we can't wait to enjoy the new trails.

Click to view the Sun Peaks Resort West Bowl Express April 2024 update.

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