Best of the three mountains. What it lacks in vertical, it makes up for in vibes. Rains a lot, foggy a lot, but then those magical snowy nights make up for all the bad days.
Watch out for grease drips on the chairs. Got the back of my North Face Gore-tex Pro jacket smeared with it. Response from their customer service was to go get it dry cleaned and they would pay for the cleaning. Who dry cleans Gore-tex fabric? It ruins it. Not impressed.
We have been pass holders at Seymour for 5 years. It's our local, low-key, family-friendly mountain and we love it like you love a scruffy, eccentric old relative. The best thing this year has been the restrictions brought in to limit numbers during the pandemic - usually we cannot get near the parking lot during the winter holidays, but with pre-booking ski time and parking, we have skied more often. Don't come here if you expect snow-makers, perfectly groomed slopes, luxury dining and retail; its a few functional buildings at the top of a mountain and its a lot of fun!
Love this place! The only complaint I have is the parking and on busy days you have to wait in line at the bottom of the mountain in your car. But I guess that helps keep the crowds in check.
They seem to get more snow than the other two local mountains. Not sure how that works but when there's snowfall and I check the reports, they always get a few more CMs, which is great. And even though there are less runs, I find them in better shape.
They have a wide variety of options to get on the slope for cheap. 3-ski day or night only pass, night only season pass that includes weekends, and so on. Many options on the lessons too if you or your kids need to take lessons.
Oh, and the Lodge chair can get very busy which is why I end up mostly avoiding it. Don't know what they can do to fix that. But I do love the wide, long, blue run at the beginning to practice going down steep blue slopes with lots of space for error.
Best bang for buck skiing or snowboarding in Vancouver. Seymour is all natural snow. Seymour gets the most powder out of the small mountains. They recently upgraded their main chair lift to a quad fast chair. Making line-ups better. Seymour has the best terrain parks to learn on out of the small mountains off Vancouver.
Main disadvantage is that the resort is a provincial park that is run by a family during the winter. This creates a situation where the family does limited investment in the growth of the winter capabilities.. And the province washes it's hands from any significant investment in infrastructure and recreation for it's citizens. Leaving the mountain in a management limbo... It could be so much better.
Ski more or stand more?
We bought a family season pass here for the first time. It may be our last season. We came on Feb 23 for 2.5 hrs and spent 1.5 hrs in lines. If you don’t have lessons or are not in a ski race, forget about getting on the lift in a reasonable time.
At Seymour you stand more. Go somewhere else if you want to ski more.
I paid $100 for a group lesson only to watch 1 out of a 7 person group get a private lesson because they were ill-matched to the group. When I reached out for a refund or to reschedule my session I was told that they wouldn't take care of the lesson and I'd have to pay more if I wanted to come up again.
Not worth it IMO.
[note from editor: names of individuals not included in reviews.]
Mount Seymour is the smallest of the 3 local mountains. They do not have any snowmaking so they might not be open when the other mountains are. Seymour and Grouse have a smaller elevation than Cypress which does not matter too much but It might affect snowfall. *Mt. Seymour is 1,265m, Grouse is 1,231m, and Cypress is 1,440m. I personally like skiing at Cypress the best but I haven't skied at the other mountains for a long time. Cypress has the biggest amount of terrain over Grouse and Seymour. I get that some people really like skiing at Seymour because it is a smaller mountain and a more tight-knit one? So that is my opinion on Seymour.
I first skied here in the 70's and then didn't return until 2013 when I moved to Deep Cove and bought my first early bird senior's season pass for 100 bucks. I love this little mountain. I can get here and be on the lift in 30 minutes, do 2 to 2.5 hours of cruising and call it a day any time I like. Whistler is not a value proposition for me now since it costs more for one day than my entire season at Seymour.