The Big White mid-mountain village is somewhat compact and home to most of the ski resort facilities and services. Many of these are contained within an enormous day lodge building (Village Centre Mall). The well developed amenities at Big White include on-mountain eateries, ski and snowboard rentals, child care, and a ski school with a fantastic kids’ program.

Big White Ski Rentals

The Big White equipment rentals for adults are housed in the Village Centre Mall building, whilst for kids the equipment rentals are incorporated within the Big White Kids Centre across the way. The rental shops provide a decent range of skis and snowboards; both standard and high performance. The Big White ski rentals shop also hires out cross-country skiing equipment, snowblades, snowshoes and helmets. The equipment rental rates are about average for a western Canadian ski resort.

Facilities for Children

Big White ski resort has one of the best kids’ programs in Canada, and has first class evening entertainment. Activities available include ice skating, hockey, tubing, fireworks and live entertainment. There are also regular family events such as carnival nights.

Tot Town Day Care is for kids aged 18 months to 5 years and includes both indoor and outdoor activities. A daycare plus program is also provided which combines day care with skiing for young children who can’t ski the whole day (and need a nice nap!). Children ages 2-3 can have a 1 hour private ski lesson, whilst 4-5 year olds can have a 2 hour group lesson. Rates for Big White child care are pretty average for a Canada ski resort.

If you want a night out on the town, the day care centre can hook you up with babysitters who will come to your accommodation.

Big White Ski School

Big White offers a large variety of ski school programs including private and group lessons, special improvement programs, terrain park lessons and race camps. The Big White ski school programs are all very reasonably priced.

In line with being a great family resort, the ski school is well developed and very experienced at providing children’s lessons. Kids group ski lessons are provided for ages 4 and up, and snowboard lessons for ages 7 and up. These are either in a half day or full day format, and arts and crafts activities are incorporated in the morning and at lunch time.

The ski school base is in the centre of the village which makes for easy access, or the Big White ski school provides a “pick-up” service where one of the instructors will come and pick up the kids from your accommodation.

Eating On Mountain

There are a few on-mountain eateries at Big White for grabbing a snack or lunch between runs.

There’s the Ridge Day Lodge at the bottom of the Ridge Rocket chair lift that has self-service dining with the usual ski resort cafeteria fare.

The Westridge Warming Hut is located at the bottom of Gem Lake. It’s much more than just a warming hut; it’s more of a small day lodge. They sell coffees, basic lunches and snacks, but it’s not self-service so on peak weekends queues to buy something can develop.

At the bottom of the Lara Gondola is the Happy Valley Day Lodge which has a very family friendly cafeteria.

Considering the Big White village is ski-in ski-out, there are plenty of options for lunch or a snack at any of the eateries. The village mall offers a yummy bakery and a coffee shop, and there are more formal Big White restaurants as well.

Even though lunch is pretty inexpensive in most places, you might also find yourself at home eating the previous night’s leftovers. When the majority of the Big White accommodation is so conveniently located, why wouldn’t you go home to put up your feet over lunch?