Don Whyte’s legacy lives on in a new run on Tod Mountain

With the West Bowl Express chairlift opening this winter, Sun Peaks Resort LLP (SPR) took the opportunity to pay tribute to Donald Whyte, one of the visionaries that have made Tod Mountain into what it is today. 

Among three new runs, Whyte’s Ride is the longest, skirting the boundary of the West Bowl.

“He absolutely loved skiing those big snowbowls,” his daughter, Robyn Wright said. “We used to call him the master of the carve.” 

In addition to skiing the slopes, Whyte rode horseback up much of the mountain during the founder’s first trip, two things that inspired the family when it came to naming the run.

Envisioning the ski hill

In 1959, the potential for a ski area besides the small Kamloops Ski Hill that existed at the time, in the area where Costco now sits, energized the entire town of Kamloops.

Just a little kid at this time, Wright spoke to her mom who shared that Whyte contributed to the Kamloops Ski Hill as well, by building the rope tow.

“He just had a real outdoor passion for skiing,” Wright said.

The events of 1959 included an expedition up Tod Mountain detailed in Sun Peaks Resort: An Evolution of Dreams by Kathleen Scherf. Whyte, his friend and forester Don Munro, Kamloops lawyer Reginald Humphreys, Kamloops doctor James Osborne and adviser Sam Warmington were taken up the mountain on horseback by Whitecroft rancher Robert White.

They strapped on skis and trekked the rest of the way up into the West Bowl when the horses turned around, staying two nights in the historical herders cabin that remains on the hill to this day.

Whyte and his co-founders saw the vision of a ski hill on Tod Mountain, and began working on the original chairlift soon after this reconnaissance mission.

The unique thing about Tod Mountain was an expanse of natural meadow land at the top, Wright said.

 “It was just a perfect snowbowl, that’s what attracted them, my dad and his friends.”

Tod Mountain Ski Resort opened in 1961 and Whyte was able to see his dream unfold into the now Sun Peaks Resort, before passing away in 2005.

Wright remembers lots of good times skiing with her dad, an avid skier until the end.

“I even got him over to ski on the Morrissey side before he passed away,” Wright recalled. “He was just ecstatic.”

About Donald Whyte

Part of Whyte’s legacy lies in surveying locations other than Tod Mountain.

“He was out traipsing around the landscape around British Columbia,” Wright said. “He helped lay out the town site of Kitimat.”

He began his surveying career in Kamloops, having lived there since his parents moved from Vancouver.

As a surveyor, Whyte spent a lot of time away from home, but Wright said when her father was home on weekends they’d be skiing Tod Mountain, and he loved sharing his passion with his family.

“The road was quite crazy at the time,” she said, thinking back to these trips. “There were a lot of times we went in the ditch and had to bail ourselves out.”

She remembers fondly looking down at the terrain they couldn’t access when her dad would lead the family across to the West Bowl and they’d have to veer back toward Seven Mile to get out.

“It’s going to be very nice to ski all that terrain now,” she said.