We are a family of skiers from Seattle who live part time in Snoqualmie Pass near the Summit at Snoqualmie Pass resort. The range in our family’s skiing is vast-I’ve become more of a fair weather skier lately where I am choosy about the snow and weather, my husband is just getting back to skiing from an ACL tear, and we have two teenagers who are also ski instructors with one just coming back from an injury and one having to be a little more cautious because he also plays soccer. With two teenagers in the house, it’s also hard to plan appealing family trips. One teen volunteered with a friend at Snowvana late last year and received passes to Revelstoke Mountain Resort and decided that was where we were going for the four days we had together for mid-winter break. So that is how we ended up on a 3 night family ski trip to Revelstoke Mountain Resort from Seattle.
How far is Revelstoke Resort from Seattle?
Theoretically the route from Seattle to Revelstoke can be about 7.5 hours going through the Canada/USA border at the Sumas crossing. We did not drive an electric vehicle for this trip and instead chose to drive our hybrid SUV. This helped limit our gas stops- we actually only stopped twice necessarily (and also because we took a longer route home to see family in Coquitlam BC). We left at around 11am and chose to fill up right before the border in Sumas (gas is typically less expensive in Washington than in BC) and then carried on to Abbotsford where we grabbed a late lunch at A&W (I know we have them in Washington but this is a Canadian chain) and even though it’s fast food the root beer comes in a frosted mug.
We continued from Abbostford right through to Revelstoke in about 7.5 hours due to our stops and a bit of a snowstorm (as well as a last 30 minutes drive in the dark where it felt a little trecherous at times at 100 km/hr and the dividing lines did not have reflectors like we are used to so I thought I’d make a note of this if this might affect what time you want to arrive.).
Another way to get to Revelstoke BC is by taking a flight from Seattle to Kelowna (Alaska Airlines has this route) and then drive 2 hours and 40 minutes from Kelowna to Revelstoke. A lot of people we met on the mountain and at our hotel came to Revelstoke from Toronto to ski and they had flown in from Kelowna and said the car rental is pretty straightforward and they were able to get cars with AWD. I feel like taking a flight from Seattle to Kelowna then picking up a car and driving to Revelstoke would take similar time from Seattle to Revelstoke in the end so it just depends on HOW you want to spend your travel time. This time we felt the driving the whole way gave us the most flexibility on where we stopped en route and we don’t have travel bags for all our equipment.
Where to stay in Revelstoke BC?
TheSutton Place hotel is right on the mountain and has condo style rooms but was already pretty booked up for the Family Day weekend (If you are at Revelstoke during a holiday check to see if there are any fun things happening-there were fireworks and a small festival at the base of the resort for Family Day 2026) . I also considered theFairfield Marriott Revelstoke (which might be something for you too if you also have Marriott status or a lot of Marriott Bonvoy points) and these are more like hotel style rooms. We ended up going with Basecamp Resorts Revelstoke (they also have two other locations in the area, one called Basecamp Revelstoke Suites and the other the Northwinds Hotel Revelstoke) because I could book a two bedroom dog-friendly condo with kitchen and 2.5 bathrooms (with teens having extra bathroom space to expedite getting ready has become helpful on short trips). The Basecamp Resorts Revelstoke was a 15 minute drive in the morning to the ski slope and we left around 7:45 am to get good parking a 5 minute walk from the gondola that opened at 8:30am. We didn’t end up bringing our pup thanks to my parents who looked after him and that was really helpful.
Booking Revelstoke Resort lift tickets and kids ski free March 15-April 12
There are many deals for lift tickets at Revelstoke Resort if you book your tickets ahead of your visit online. I remember reading that you can get the online price typically 48 hours or more ahead of time (but also we tend to wait and pay more because we sometimes need to cancel and don’t want to be locked in). I was given media tickets by Revelstoke Mountain for the purpose of my review during my stay and my family booked tickets where you could ski 2 days out of 3 and all we had to do was scan our ticket booking at a kiosk when we got to the mountain to pick up our preloaded passes.
Revelstoke Mountain loads up the main ski area of the mountain with two gondolas and a gondola is the only way up from the base area
At our local mountain we only have chairlifts but if you’ve been to Whistler you have probably used a gondola too. So just in case you might be a bit claustrophobic like me, I thought I’d mention they use gondolas on this mountain as well. I do not do gondolas very well. It was a bit foggy on our first day and I got a little panicked on the way up the ride. This was also because I forgot items that I usually bring with me to alleviate my fears. Things that help me in a place like a gondola are noise cancelling headphones (I put on a book to help me lose track of time) and a small bottle of water. Once I rode all the way up, I had no problems going down again and the next day I just brought my headphones and everything went fine.
How was the skiing at Revelstoke Resort?
This year is an incredibly horrible year for snow in mountains near Seattle (and I’m so proud of the Summit at Snoqualmie for doing so well with the little they’ve had) so the snow at Revelstoke was an absolute dream. We found runs suitable for the whole family, and we even skied a few together but also then our teens went on their own ways and my husband and I stuck to really basic green and maybe bluish runs and still had a fabulous time. The French fries and hot drinks at the little hut near the top of the 2nd gondola were tasty and although there wasn’t a lot of seating in the hut we didn’t have a problem finding seats when we went. The bathroom lineup did get a little long but also I think one of the days it might have been because they were doing free weddings at Revelstoke Resort for Valentine’s Day. The mountain was busy but we barely had lines and got so many runs in that we were pretty exhausted by early afternoon
And how delicious are all the Revelstoke foodie stops?
Make sure you get reservations if it’s a busy week. The first night we got there everything had over an hour wait so we just cooked dinner at home with food we picked up at the nearby Save on Foods and that was really convenient-it is so helpful to have a kitchen on a ski trip. There’s a new place called Alfred’s that’s apparently gets really booked up-we ate at the coffee shop Spilt Milk (it had really good coffee and food) and this place seems like it might be related-they had Alfred’s merch in the coffee line.
For Family Day I made one reservation at the base of the mountain at a place called Rockford Grill and all of us enjoyed our food. We also went to Kawakubo and had a great meal there as well (it was really busy too and we called on our first night and got on the waitlist for the second night of our stay) Our favorite meal of the whole trip was a lunch at La Baguette with bagels and French onion soup and I wish I had picked up some of the Montreal-style bagels to take home. We also had coffee and sticky toffee pudding at Little Spoon Bakery and Cafe.
So was it “worth it” to drive the 7.5 hours to Revelstoke from Seattle to ski?
Absolutely! The drive felt far, but there are so many travel days that take longer from home to the destination. In the past, we’ve used a four day weekend to go to Ireland, Paris and London and all of these places take at least 7 hours by air and then you have to add on the airport buffer times and then still get to a hotel somewhere on the other side. Our teens had fun on this trip and want to do it again and us grownups had a good time too. We all came home uninjured and inspired to ski more, so Revelstoke was a definite win.
PS it was pretty easy to plan our trip using the Revelstoke website as well as Expedia to book our hotel. (the only reason I use Expedia is because I’ve been using it forever and it has many cancellable options and the app helps me keep track of our bookings)
PPS if you are looking for other ski trips near Seattle with kids, we also have been to Whistler many times and my kids learned to ski on Mount Seymour (the same place where I learned to ski as a kid too).
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
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