The Silver Star Ski Resort has a charming magic about it. The village area of the Silver Star Canada has quaint colourful buildings and the resort is a bit like a mini Disneyland for skiing and snowboarding. Combined with lots of child friendly amenities and activities, it’s no wonder that Silver Star Ski Resort is a really popular choice for a family ski holiday.
Pros and Cons of Silver Star Ski Resort
Pros
- Silver Star Canada is really family friendly and has lots of kids’ activities and events.
- There is plenty of lodging that’s ski-in ski-out or very close to the slopes.
- The cute little pedestrian village centre is ski-in ski-out.
- A Silver Star ski holiday is usually reasonably priced.
- Silver Star Mountain Resort provides access to an abundance of cross country ski trails.
Cons
- The Putnam Creek area for advanced skiers and snowboarders has only one chair lift and the ratio of time spent on steep slopes versus cat tracks is not high enough, and cat track déjà vu ensues.
- Silver Star has some fabulous intermediate terrain, but more blue runs could be groomed.
- The village is small, so there’s not a big choice of shops and restaurants, and the nightlife is reasonable sedate.
Silver Star Ski Resort Terrain
Silver Star might be a cute ski resort, but don’t be fooled into thinking that this is just a little wee ski hill with a few beginner runs for the kids. The lay-out can provide the feeling of compactness because it’s reasonably easy to keep track of the family, but with 3,282 acres (1,328 hectares) and 132 marked runs, the size of the Silver Star Mountain Resort is definitely not small.
For such a large ski resort, surprisingly Silver Star Mountain only has 7 lifts, which includes 2 high speed quad chair lifts and a gondola that’s somewhat superfluous because it runs parallel to a high speed 6-pack.
The trail statistics are 15% beginner, 40% intermediate, 35% advanced, and 10% expert, which aptly describes the spread of terrain. Strong intermediate riders in particular will love
Silver Star Mountain Resort for the many blue runs as well as some of the black runs, and the resort also caters very well to beginners.
Putnam Creek on the backside of Silver Star Ski Resort has lots of terrain for advanced riders, although with only one chair lift (and a T-bar) servicing the area, the ingress and egress to many of the runs is repetitive. This area has several double black diamond runs that are reasonably challenging, although expert skiers and snowboarders will probably find much better
Canadian ski resorts to visit.
Silver Star Snow and Weather
The location of Silver Star Mountain is ideal for great snow. The ski resort receives 7 metres of snowfall on average, and the quality of the Silver Star snow is generally rather dry and 100% all-natural.
The temperatures are perfect; cold enough to keep the snow in pristine condition, yet mild enough that you don’t freeze your butt off!
Compared to
Big White Ski Resort (aka Big White Out!), the weather and the visibility are much better at the Silver Star Resort, and the ski area is largely below the treeline which affords protection from the elements.
Where is Silver Star Canada?
The Silver Star ski resort is located in the Okanagan Valley, 22 km (14 miles) northeast of Vernon in BC. Silverstar is 464km northwest of Vancouver and 574km west of Calgary.
Kelowna International Airport is the main gateway airport for the Silver Star Resort, only 65km (40 miles) away. From the airport there are various shuttle services available.
Big White ski resort is located 125km away, and is also easily accessible from the Kelowna airport.
Silver Star Accommodation
Silver Star Ski Resort lodging consists mostly of condos and vacation homes. There are also a handful of Silver Star hotels that are centred around the small mid-mountain village and are conveniently ski-in ski-out.
The rest of the village is rather sprawling and whilst other accommodations are ski-in ski-out or close to the slopes and the Silver Queen chair lift, you may need to catch one of the shuttle buses to get to the central village once you’ve swapped your skis for your après boots.
Silver Star Accommodation Listings
Ski Resort Facilities
The village is very unique, very colourful, covered in fairy lights, and it looks like it is from a film set. It’s sort of quaint! The car free village is mid-mountain so it is conveniently ski-in ski-out, and it’s very compact so it’s easy to navigate.
The village only has a handful of restaurants and shops and it has the required resort facilities such as equipment rentals, ski school, and a child care centre. There are also a couple of pubs, but this mountain is not party central and has a reasonably quiet nightlife.