Welcome to Sun Peaks

Meet Nancy Greene

by Willa O’Connor

Nancy Greene, Director of Skiing at Sun Peaks, picked up a piece of our heavy duffel and hauled it down the steps to the bus. All we could say was "Wow." We're sure coming back here!

When you are the world's fastest woman skier, what do you do for encores? Nancy Greene can tell you. She has it all. She and her husband, Al Raine, live in their own beautiful condo-hotel at the edge of the slopes in an award winning new ski area that has a top-notch ski and snowboard school.

Better yet, Sun Peaks at Tod Mountain near Kamloops, is in the powder snow area of British Columbia, north of Red Mountain at Rossland, where Nancy's parents helped build one of Canada's first chairlifts.

Nancy and her husband recognized the great potential when Whistler was being expanded, and built a famous hotel there. They recognized it again when Nippon Cable, a Japanese company, began investing millions in the Tod Mountain area in the early nineties. "We were thrilled with the new area, with its growth in the future", Nancy said. Also getting in on the ground floor of the new area were some German nationals who built two of the six big hotels. For awhile in the mid nineties, half of the customers came from Germany. Now they come from all over.

Also coming from all over are the 62 ski and snowboard instructors. Among them they can give you a lesson in any one of eight languages. Their director is Rob Wallace, who comes from Quebec. His assistant Ian Logan grew up in Scotland and worked most recently in Andorra, between France and Spain. Ten of the instructors are "two seasoners", commuting to Australia or New Zealand.

Nancy goes out almost every day to ski with all comers who meet her at the top of one of the three quad lifts. She has written a pocket-size 20 page book of ski pointers and cartoon drawings that is for sale in the lobby of her hotel.

Also in the hotel lobby is a glass case filled with Nancy's trophies-gold and silver metals in the '68 Olympics, '67 and '68 World Cups. She was winner of 14 World Cut) races. and was 7 time Canadian and 3 time US champion.

]For my money, Nancy is now champion of people skills. She makes every guest feel like a "valued friend." But than the whole Sun Peaks seems friendly. Whenever we sat down at a lunch place (there are more than a dozen of them), strangers would talk to us. One lady had just come from London. A young father was a local from Kamloops. Most people on the street said "hello." Quite a small town feeling for a resort with 3,300 beds!

What a big change from old Tod Mountain, where I once skied in the early 70's! It was famous for having the longest chairlift in America (which took you up to the steepest un-groomed hill). Since "tod" means "death" in German, I was told that the German speaking skiers got great bragging rights from saying "I skied Death Mountain."

The original Tod was minimally financed by local Kamloops skiers who used local logs to build the required warming hut. Many of the pioneers are still around to marvel at the wonders of the new development. They used to do the steep and deep but now they are pleased to cruise the Five Mile novice run from the very top. (Me, too!)

And just so you don't forget, Nancy reminds you that summer is pretty nice at Sun Peaks too, with great fly fishing, hiking, mountain biking, golf, swimming, tennis, or sitting in the sun looking at the mountains.