The ski weather report in the NW made us “Head North” for our Trip #2. We drove a different route north and followed Hwy 97 thru the valleys from WA to Penticton, BC, in 6 hours. Penticton is around 900' and the base of Apex is 5200'. We purchased the reduced tickets from Liftopia. The 2 tickets were $42 each. It was deserted with about 35 cars in the parking lot when we left. It has a base of 5200 feet and summits at 7200 feet. They were running the high speed quad and a triple chair. The snow pack starts at 1500 feet and was in great shape for tree skiing at the resort. They received only 1”overnight. The temperature was in the 20's; the snow was cold powder off trail and the groomers were fantastic. I was impressed with the wonderful job the groomers did.
We have not been here in 12 years, and I correctly remembered great terrain. I noticed the right side of the mountain is all expert terrain. At the top of the quad is the Grandfather Traverse that returns to the base. A nice idea is you can look at the top part of a run and then look at the base of the run from the traverse which has a sign so you know what it looks like at the end. I looked at the base of a couple runs that were signed and thought “Shit, I am too old for that!”.
The top of the mountain has mainly expert runs with 2 blues and 1 green. It is well worth a visit.
