Whitewater Ski Resort has made it through the first round of competition in this year's Ski Town Throwdown.
The local mountain collected 801 votes, far surpassing the 360 logged for Kelowna’s Big White Ski Resort in the first of five head-to-head competitions Whitewater will have to win if it wants to hold onto the championship title it won last year along with Red Mountain.
The next chance to vote for Whitewater in the competition is October 31, when it will be up against Revelstoke. The length of the voting window will grow as the competition progresses.
In the first two rounds voting is open for one day only. That increases to two days in rounds three and four. The semi finals will also last two days, while the final round of voting is a full week long.
This is one of several changes to the competition since last year. There are also twice as many ski towns in the running — 64 this year, compared to 32 last year. And communities that were grouped together last year, like Nelson and Rossland, have been split up.
The way the two hills have been seeded within their division, dubbed the Great White North/Spread Eagle division, Red Mountain and Whitewater won’t have to face each other until the fourth round, if both communities make it that far.
Several more Canadian ski resorts are in the competition for the first time this year, including Kimberley, Panorama, Kicking Horse, Silver Star, Cypress Mountain, Mount Washington, Banff and Castle Mountain.
Competitions between ski hills are happening daily. To vote for your favourite ski hills, go to facebook.com/powdermag and scroll through the news feed for posts about the current competitions.