Sun Peaks is an alpine village about 40 minutes from Kamloops, best known for its winter downhill sports opportunities.
The Sun Peaks tourism department is attracting attention for its summer opportunities by offering big-name music acts this year, with a full schedule of mountain biking and hiking as well as festivals and a Sunday Farmers' Market to draw visitors to the resort.
Some people compare Sun Peaks to Whistler in its early years and Christopher Nicolson, president of Tourism Sun Peaks, would like to assure residents (there's 500 year round) and visitors alike that the village characteristics that make Sun Peaks so tranquil will not change.
The newly-designated municipality won't deviate from the plan in place.
"The vision is we now have a significant number of full time residents, a fire department, a school starting and there's definitely a sense of community and a desire for autonomy," Nicolson said. "Part of the benefits of being a municipality is within the province there is a designation for mountain resort municipal status that had some additional opportunities for funds to go toward different kinds of tourist programming and in our case it was summer event planning."
Sun Peaks offers three music events. The first was Kevin Costner and Modern West July 7, where 4,300 people watched the event and total residency at Sun Peaks came to about 6,000 for the weekend.
Next up is Retro Rock weekend August 17 to 19, and then another headliner event is September 1 when Matthew Good takes to the Sun Peaks stage.
There's also a new Oktoberfest event September 29.
The Sunburst chairlift started up for biking and hiking June 29. There are at least 16 hiking trails including two new rancher trails that can be explored called Tod's Backside, encircling Sun Peaks' tallest mountain, Mt. Tod, the and Gils Trail that runs along a backcountry ski area.
The views from the village as well as from the mountain vistas are breathtaking. Temperatures vary from lower elevations. While Kamloops crested recently at about 39 degrees C, Sun Peaks enjoyed 26 degrees with a steady breeze.
The view from the chairlift encompasses mountain ranges, the village nestled in the valley and wildlife, with mountain bikers following a trail that zigzags under the chairlift, down the slope. During the ride, deer and a bear were spotted, a reminder that Sun Peaks is a wilderness area.
Accommodation within the village is in keeping with the look of an alpine village, with some modern twists added in, like the new steel construction condo Kookaburra Lodge.
