How far is The Collingview from Blue Mountain?

About 20 to 25 minutes by car to Blue Mountain Resort and the village at its base. The house is west of the resort, on high ground between Meaford and Thornbury, so you are close enough for a first-lift start and far enough that you are not staying inside a resort village.

Can you ski at Blue Mountain without a membership?

Yes. Blue Mountain Resort is the public hill — it sells day tickets, rents equipment and teaches lessons, and it is on the Ikon Pass. It is the only one nearby that works this way, which is why it is busy.

Which ski hills near Blue Mountain are private?

Georgian Peaks, Craigleith, Alpine, Osler Bluff and Beaver Valley are all private member clubs. You cannot buy a day ticket at any of them. If you are not a member and nobody is hosting you, plan around Blue Mountain Resort.

Is it better to stay in Blue Mountain Village or outside it?

It depends what you want in the evening. The village is walkable, has restaurants and bars, and is busy year-round — good for a first visit, less good if you have come for quiet. Staying twenty minutes out means driving to the hill, but it also means a private house, no crowds, and a view instead of a courtyard.

Is Blue Mountain worth visiting in summer?

Yes, and it is a completely different place. The village runs a gondola, a mountain coaster, a ropes course and a long list of things aimed at families, and the Scenic Caves and the Georgian Trail are both close. Summer is busier than most people expect.

The full front elevation at dusk: stacked charcoal steel and concrete volumes lit by warm soffit lights, with a round porthole window and a rooftop terrace above

Near Blue Mountain

A rental near Blue Mountain, and nowhere near the village.

The Collingview sits west of Blue Mountain on open country above Georgian Bay. Close enough to be on the first chair, far enough that the evening is yours.

Check winter availability

To the resort: About 20–25 min
Public hill: Blue Mountain Resort
Pass: On the Ikon Pass
From Toronto: About 2¼–2½ hours

The thing nobody tells you

Most of these hills you cannot ski.

Drive the escarpment between Thornbury and Collingwood and you will count six ski areas. Five of them are private. Georgian Peaks, Craigleith, Alpine, Osler Bluff and Beaver Valley are member clubs with waiting lists, and no amount of asking at the gate will get you a lift ticket.

Blue Mountain Resort is the public one. It sells day tickets, rents gear, runs a ski school and sits on the Ikon Pass. It is also, for exactly those reasons, where everybody goes — which is worth knowing when you are choosing a Saturday in February.

We mention this because people book a house near the escarpment assuming they can pick a hill in the morning, and that is not how it works here. If a member is hosting you, wonderful. If not, plan around Blue Mountain and buy tickets ahead.

The house at dusk from an angle, showing the cantilevered roof planes, cedar deck and planted terrace wall

The hills, plainly

Who can ski where, and how far it is.

Blue Mountain Resort: Public. Day tickets, rentals, lessons, night skiing, and a village at the base with restaurants and bars. On the Ikon Pass. About 20–25 minutes from the house. The default for any visitor.
Georgian Peaks: Private member club, and the closest to the house — it is one of the three things named in the property’s own 360-degree outlook. The longest vertical on the escarpment. Members and their guests only.
Craigleith · Alpine · Osler Bluff: Private member clubs along the same face, running east toward Collingwood. No day tickets.
Beaver Valley Ski Club: Private, in the valley south of the house. Smaller and family-oriented, and again members only.
Cross-country and snowshoe: No membership needed. The Georgian Trail runs flat and wide between Meaford and Collingwood, and Scenic Caves has groomed Nordic trails and a suspension bridge above the valley.

Village or country

What you give up, and what you get back.

Staying in Blue Mountain Village means you can walk to dinner and leave the car for two days. That is a real advantage, and if it is your first trip here it may be the right call.

What you give up is quiet. The village is designed to be busy — it is busy at Christmas, busy in March, and busier than people expect in July. Accommodation is mostly condominiums, which means shared walls, shared lifts and a small kitchen. For a group of ten that is a lot of negotiation.

Twenty minutes west, the trade reverses. You drive to the hill. In exchange you get a house on two and a half acres with nobody through the wall, a kitchen with a fifteen-foot island that a group can actually cook in, four bathrooms so nobody queues at eight in the morning, and a rooftop terrace with a fire and a hot tub for the part of the day that happens after the skiing.

Both are valid. We are only useful to you if you want the second one.

Not only winter

The hill in summer is a different hill.

Blue Mountain does not close in April. The village runs an open-air gondola, a mountain coaster that runs most of the year, a ropes course and a long programme aimed squarely at families with children who need tiring out.

Nearby, Scenic Caves is the better half-day: crevice caves you climb down into, a suspension bridge over the valley, treetop walkways and a zip line. The Georgian Trail runs thirty-four kilometres of flat old railway line from Collingwood through Thornbury to Meaford, which is the easiest cycling in the region.

Summer here is genuinely busy. If you are coming on a long weekend in July, book dinner before you arrive rather than after.

Planning a trip to the hill?

Tell us your dates and how many of you there are. We will tell you honestly whether the house suits the trip, including if the answer is that a condo in the village would suit you better.

Check winter availability

Keep reading

Drive times on this page are ordinary-conditions estimates rather than measured door-to-door times, and they stretch on a winter weekend. Ticket prices, pass rules and club membership policies change every season. Check the resort directly before you plan around anything on this page, and see how we quote for what a winter week here involves.