Revelstoke aims high: British Columbia's resort is already rated among the best in the world

Again? You want to do it again?" asks our guide, Dave, checking his watch. It's almost three in the afternoon and a ski patrol is about to close the climb to the Sub Peak, which rises 200m above the top of the highest lift at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. On an average day our group of six would have been happy to clip in and head down for a drink but we're having too much fun. "Let's do it," we tell Dave, slinging our skis on to our shoulders for the fourth time that day.

We're heading to Revelstoke's North Bowl, perhaps the only part of the mountain with a prosaic name (other runs include the forested Glades of Glory and the tricky, under-the-lift vanity run, Kill the Banker). Largely sheltered from the sun and from skiers not up for the 15-minute hike, the bowl hangs on to its snow longer and is never visited by the resort's groomers. Dave, a local freeskier in his early 20s, says it offers some of the steepest skiing on the mountain.

A weird temperature inversion makes it a nippy 1C in town yet a balmy 1C up top. Pausing to shed a layer, we look down at the valley and another symptom of the unseasonal conditions: a thick layer of cloud carpeting the British Columbia valley and the town of Revelstoke itself. We feared the day would be a washout when we could barely see the chair ahead on the Stoke lift, but then, like a climbing jet plane, we broke through the murk to find ourselves squinting under cobalt skies as bright sunshine streamed through trees encrusted with snow.

Catching our breath at the top of the Sub Peak, we pick lines into the bowl, which stretches around like an amphitheatre. Routes from the upper circle are varied, offering cornices and cliffs for the adventurous. Paul, part of a group of four young Brits, and a man given to lunacy, launches himself off the most vertiginous section, barely putting in a turn before taking a second serving of air off a rock. The rest of us follow more modestly, powering through chopped-up powder on our fat skis. We regroup at the bottom of the bowl and, already picking lines through the cedars below, declare Revelstoke officially awesome.

That, of course, was the intention of the mountain men who for decades knew Mount Mackenzie could be the setting for a truly great mountain resort. There had always been skiing in this remote corner of British Columbia, 250 miles west of Calgary along Highway 1. Over the past 40 years, vast dumps of deep, dry powder (Revelstoke gets as much as 18m of snow in a single winter) and some epic terrain has turned it into the global centre for heli-skiing. But for riders whose shallower pockets confined them to the handful of tiny resorts that dotted the valley, it was tough to do the snow or the terrain justice.

The challenge had been to find enough money to go big on Mackenzie. When a booming real-estate market helped make that happen, the job of creating a resort from scratch fell to Paul Skelton, a former heli-skiing guide and resort manager at Whistler, the region's biggest resort and site for the skiing events at next month's Winter Olympics. He spent days in the summer hiking the forested slopes of the mountain, imagining himself on skis and plotting runs in his mind. A team of woodsmen, who became known as the "glade-iators", then sculpted the landscape to create pistes and ski-able tree runs.

Skelton has done astonishing work. Now in its third season, the resort has just three lifts – the two-stage Revelation Gondola, and the Stoke and Ripper chairs – yet the terrain they have opened is vast. More than 3,000 acres of skiing take in 40 runs, five bowls and a dozen areas of gladed trees.

And inside the perimeter rope it's all there to be skied, the lines between runs and off-piste blurred in a way rarely encountered in North America. Where the grooming machines do chug overnight, the wide, undulating pistes are supremely satisfying.

The key statistic for those marketing this billion-dollar resort is the 1,713m (5,620ft) vertical drop between the top of the Stoke and the bottom station. By that measure, Revelstoke is up there with the world's greatest ski areas. The longest run from top to bottom is the thigh-burning, nine-and-a-half-mile Last Spike, a green run that is among a handful of pistes to satisfy intermediate skiers.

And to think this is still early days for Revelstoke. The resort has already bought Selkirk Tangiers, a local heli-skiing outfit, and also offers cat-skiing, making Revelstoke the world's only ski area to have lift, cat and heli-skiing on its doorstep. The high-end Nelsen Lodge next to the base station is now open for guests, and the future promises more than a dozen new lifts, and even a golf course designed by Nick Faldo.

The economic downturn has, inevitably, opened crevasses in the masterplan. The real-estate crisis hit sales of plots for luxury condominiums, while skiers from Europe and elsewhere decided to save money and stay closer to home. But Revelstoke is weathering the storm and, as word spreads of this jewel in British Columbia, lift-ticket sales are picking up fast.

Those running the show aren't alone in hoping the resort will prosper. It promises to inject new life into Revelstoke, a charming but sleepy historic former mining town. A 10-minute ride to the resort by shuttle bus, downtown is home to our hotel, the comfortable and skier-friendly Regent Inn. Next door is the River City Pub, an all-Canadian watering hole with flat screen TVs showing ice hockey – and the best place in town to enjoy a Mt Begbie ale, the local brew.

A pitcher of draught was what we needed after our fourth and final North Bowl descent, which ended with a thrilling, snaking line through the trees of Powder Monkey Glades. Exhausted, we ride up the Ripper for our last run.

In Revelstoke, it's impossible to get lost – the entire ski area, clearly roped off at its boundaries, funnels to the base station – and so you just ski, plotting lines on the fly, popping off paths and rocks until your legs can take no more. It's challenging, fast and exhilarating. Some have said Revelstoke offers the best resort skiing in the world. When the masterplan is complete, there's no doubt that will be the case. Talk over nachos and beer at the pub suggest it may already be true.

Travel essentials: Revelstoke

Getting there

* Air Canada (0871 220 1111; aircanada.com ) and BA (0844 493 0787; ba.com ) fly direct from Heathrow to Calgary. Thomas Cook Airlines (0844 855 0515; thomascookairlines.co.uk ) flies from Gatwick and Manchester. Car rental firms operate at Calgary Airport (001 403 735 1200; yyc.com ). Staying there

* Regent Hotel, 112 East First Street, Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada (001 250 837 2107; regentinn.com ). Doubles start at C$194.35 room only.

More information

* Revelstoke Mountain Resort: 001 250 814 0087; revelstokemountainresort.com