The Collingview

Guide · Ski and winter

Planning a ski weekend for ten people.

Most of the ski hills on this escarpment are private member clubs. Almost nothing written about skiing in this region mentions it, and it is the first thing you need to know.

Who owns which hill

Six hills, one of them public.

The Niagara Escarpment runs north-west from Collingwood toward Georgian Bay, and almost every skiable face on it has a club or a resort cut into it. From a distance they look interchangeable. They are not: five of the six are private, and the photographs in a rental listing will not tell you which is which.

This is the list, as the clubs themselves describe their access. Guest rules change from season to season, so if a member has offered to host you, check with them rather than with us.

Blue Mountain Resort
Public. Day tickets, season passes, rentals, lessons and night skiing, with a village at the base. On the Ikon Pass. The largest ski area in Ontario and the default for anyone visiting the region.
Georgian Peaks
Private member club, on the escarpment just outside Thornbury. Around 250 m of vertical, the highest in Ontario. No day tickets.
Craigleith
Private member club on the same escarpment face, toward Collingwood. No day tickets.
Alpine Ski Club
Private member club, strongly focused on racing and youth programmes. No day tickets.
Osler Bluff Ski Club
Private member club, inland of Collingwood. No day tickets.
Beaver Valley Ski Club
Private club inland, on the valley the Beaver River runs through. No day tickets.

None of which makes this region a worse place to ski. It makes it a place worth arriving informed about. Blue Mountain alone is bigger than anything else in the province, and knowing the rest are closed to you before you leave home is better than learning it in a ticket queue.

The rooftop hot tub with the sky turning gold over the tree line beyond the glass railing

A method that works

How to actually organise it.

Written for whoever ends up doing it — which, in every group of ten, is one person.

  1. Fix the dates before you canvass opinions

    Propose two weekends and ask people to rule one out, rather than asking when everyone is free. A group of ten is never all free on the same weekend, and open-ended scheduling is how February disappears.

    Holiday weeks — Christmas, New Year, March Break, Family Day — go months earlier than everything else and usually carry a longer minimum stay.

  2. Book the house before the lift tickets

    Accommodation for a group is the scarce item; lift tickets are not. A large house that suits ten people in this region is a handful of properties, and they book out first. Tickets and rentals can be sorted a week out.

  3. Collect the money at the point of booking

    Divide the total by the number of adults and collect it when you book, not when you arrive. This is the single most reliable way to keep a group trip pleasant, and every organiser learns it the hard way once.

  4. Ask the ability question out loud

    Somebody in a group of ten is a beginner, and somebody else is planning to ski from first lift to last. Book the beginner a lesson on day one rather than assigning a friend to teach them, and agree in advance that the group splits on the hill and meets for lunch. Groups that try to ski together all day generally enjoy neither the skiing nor each other.

  5. Plan one thing that is not skiing

    Somebody will be tired, somebody will be injured, and one day may be a write-off for weather. Scandinave Spa sits in the woods below the escarpment — outdoor hot pools, cold plunges, steam, and a silence rule — and it fills up on winter weekends, so book before you arrive. Scenic Caves has trails on the escarpment itself. The Georgian Trail runs flat between Collingwood and Meaford and is used all winter.

  6. Sort the gear-drying problem

    Ten people arriving at four in the afternoon produce twenty wet boots, ten sets of outerwear and a hallway nobody can walk through. Somewhere to put boots, a laundry on site and more than one bathroom matter more to a ski weekend than any other feature of the house. Ask about all three before you book.

Getting here in winter

Snow belt, and it behaves like one.

Southern Georgian Bay is roughly two and a quarter to two and a half hours from Toronto in normal conditions. The phrase doing the work there is “normal conditions”.

Cold air crossing open water off Georgian Bay picks up moisture and drops it when it hits the escarpment. That is why this region has reliable snow when southern Ontario has none, and it is also why the last forty minutes of the drive can look nothing like the first ninety. Roads are cleared and cleared well. Proper winter tyres still matter here in a way they do not around Toronto, and a Friday-evening arrival in weather takes longer than any route planner will tell you.

Two practical consequences for a group. Do not schedule anything for the arrival evening that cannot slip by an hour. And if some of the party is arriving separately and late, make sure they are not the ones carrying the keys, the food or the lift tickets.

What is actually around hereSki and winter stays at this house

House or hotel

Where the difference actually shows up.

Cost per head
For six or more people a whole house is usually cheaper than the same number of rooms nearby, and the advantage grows with the length of the stay. Below four people it often is not.
Breakfast and lunch
A kitchen is the real saving on a ski trip. Two breakfasts and two packed lunches for ten people is the difference between a cheap weekend and an expensive one, and it is faster than queuing at the base.
The end of the day
This is the part hotels cannot solve. Ten people who have skied all day want one room with a fire in it, not five rooms with a television each.
Wet gear
A house with laundry and somewhere to put boots beats a hotel room with a radiator, every time.
What a hotel does better
Nobody cleans, nobody cooks, and nobody has to organise anything. If your group is three couples who want a weekend off rather than a shared house, book rooms and enjoy it.

Ask about a ski week.

Tell us the dates and how many are coming. We will come back with availability, and a straight answer on whether this house suits the group you are bringing.

Check winter availabilityThe other guides

Keep reading

Ski weekend questions

Which ski hills near Collingwood can I buy a lift ticket for?
Blue Mountain Resort. It is the public hill in Southern Georgian Bay — it sells day tickets, season passes, rentals and lessons, it is on the Ikon Pass, and it runs night skiing. Georgian Peaks, Craigleith, Alpine, Osler Bluff and Beaver Valley are private member clubs and do not sell day tickets to the public.
Can I ski Georgian Peaks without a membership?
No. Georgian Peaks is a private member club. Non-members can normally ski only as the guest of a member, accompanied, and under whatever guest rules the club sets that season. The same is true of Craigleith, Alpine, Osler Bluff and Beaver Valley. If nobody in your group is a member, plan your weekend around Blue Mountain.
How many days do you need for a ski weekend in Ontario?
Two nights and one and a half ski days is the minimum that pays for the drive from Toronto. Arrive Friday evening, ski Saturday and Sunday morning, leave after lunch. Three nights is better for a group, because it removes the pressure to ski on the arrival day when everyone is tired and the gear is still in the car.
What is the drive from Toronto to Blue Mountain like in winter?
Around two and a quarter to two and a half hours in normal conditions, and longer than that whenever it snows — this is snow-belt country and the escarpment generates its own weather off Georgian Bay. Roads get cleared, but proper winter tyres matter here in a way they do not further south. Leave earlier than the map says on a Friday.
Is it cheaper to rent a house or book hotel rooms for a group ski trip?
For six or more people, a whole house is almost always cheaper per head than the equivalent number of hotel rooms in the same area, and the gap widens the longer you stay. The bigger difference is not money — it is that a house gives you a kitchen, a laundry, somewhere to dry gear and one room everybody sits in at the end of the day.