WATCH: Why night skiing is such a big deal at Big White

• What does Big White have planned for 2022/23
• Can they get the staff?

Ski season has only just ended but Big White is already announcing the return of night skiing for the 2022/23 season - provided they can find the staff.

After a two-year pause because of the pandemic, Michael J. Ballinghall said the resort will have folks back on the floodlit night time powder next season.

“The phones have been ringing off the hook and social media just blew up. Clearly people want this,” the senior vice president told Kelowna10, following the announcement Wednesday.

The night activity on the slopes was dropped in March 2020 because of staff shortages, and Ballinghall admits that’s an ongoing challenge even as the world recovers from COVID-19.

“We’ve been short 50 per cent of our [regular] staffing and night skiing needs about 80 people alone just to do that. We have to find beds for all those people because it’s a night product and you don’t finish work till about 10 p.m. The hardest thing is going to be finding 80 staff in a world staff shortage climate."

Ballinghall said he is chasing staff all over the world for the summer season, as well as for next winter, and they are starting to see more applications come through. He hopes the government’s working holiday or temporary foreign worker visa program process will be easier for everyone.

Night skiing is where it all begins for some

As for night skiing, it’s where a lot of people get on skis for the very first time.

“[It’s] our schools program. The local school district doesn’t allow its students to take sanctioned trips up to the mountain during the day, so we deliver them at night. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Hopefully, we’ll have enough instructors to run the program for kids this year,” Ballinghall said.

That program includes return bus trip, rentals, lesson, and food, and has quite the pedigree attached to it.

“There’s tens of thousands of people in the central Okanagan that started that way. Our very own Kelsey Serwa, Olympic gold and silver medalist, started and was in the night school program.”