Uplands: Skiing and Snowboarding in Greater Toronto

Welcome. We are glad you’re here to share in the adventure. Today we look at the Uplands Golf and Ski Club resort in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).

We intend to visit every ski and snowboard area in Ontario over the next five years (2025-2030). If you operate a resort in Ontario and would be able to host us please get in touch.

Our experience of night snowboarding at Uplands

Big thanks to the management and staff of Uplands for their hospitality.

This is our first review of a ski – snowboard resort in Ontario. We intend to visit all of them in the next few years.

We enjoyed our evening at this amazing small resort in Thornhill, just inside the northern limits of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). We drove forty minutes from Toronto and were rewarded with a fun night of snowboarding. The sunset was special as you can see in these images. This resort is a family friendly spot with a range of runs suitable for beginners and intermediate skiers and riders. Read on for more pics and info!

Located in the Don Valley which is a famous river route in Toronto, the resort is formally known as “Uplands Golf and Ski.” The staff are friendly and the grounds of the resort are beautiful. They offer night skiing and weekdays, and day time service on weekends. There is a cafe, rental shops and plenty of instructors if you want a lesson.

Above: the view as one enters the top of the main run. Two intermediate/advanced runs are found on the right of this shot. This beginner run is flat at the top and requires some skating and pushing from the chairlift. Lower down the slope there is a carpet lift which serves the main beginner area.

Facilities and Lifts

Staff are very friendly at this four seasons resort which offers 9 holes of golf in summer. We were impressed by the comfortable snack bar, shop and ticket desk, and delighted by walking across the path and bridge that lead to the hills.

The food was a reasonable price: we enjoyed burgers, soft drinks and hot chocolates. There is plentiful seating for a pretty big group though we got lucky and beat the dinner crowd by going for our food at 6:45. By 7 pm a sudden rush of people came through the doors and the place filled up.

There are only two lifts and four runs. I could not find a trail map which disappointed me slightly. As a child when exploring Ontario resorts I always studied the maps that identified the lifts and runs at each resort. In my mind naming the main run “Beginner Lower and Beginner Upper for example would be handy. Some other names could be ascribed to the other 3 runs.

All the lifts were reliable and staff was attentive to safety. the carpet lift was uncrowded. At one point I stumbled with balance at the top and within a second the lift was turned off. They waited until I was okay and pushing ahead before turning it back on. Similarly the lift attendants pay attention at the chair, yelling “bar down” if we waited more than a few seconds to lower the safety bar.

Pros and Cons

At 100 vertical feet Uplands Golf and Ski is small but it’s so convenient to the city that we give it a strong rating for the “worth your while” category. Particularly, beginners can access awesome terrain for learning to control their edges and after they graduate from the carpet lift (also called conveyor lift) they can easily make use of the quad chair.

A huge pro as discussed throughout this review is the advantage for beginners. A resort like this must focus on amenities and beginner runs. And Uplands succeeds with the beginner area. The carpet is long enough to take you significantly far up the hill so a beginner can try to link 8-10 turns and really get their feet wet (or snowy?) as the expression goes.

While we enjoyed the snow conditions and gorgeous sunset we did have a few (minor) complaints. One, the top is too flat. It’s about 30 meters from the chair to the top of the main beginner run. For skiers and snowboarders it’s awkward getting across. However we always consider this part for the course so we rate this as a small inconvenience. We would suggest long-term they adopt a Mt. St, Louis approach and elevate the top chairlift runout with some extension so extra vertical is added and patrons can more easily glide to the runs. Increasing the vertical by 20 feet in this manner would be awesome.

We were surprised to find a terrain park. Actually it’s a nice bonus. As you might imagine it only had a few rails and bumps, but considering the overall size of this mini resort this is a minor quibble. But if you are more advanced and want more challenge you may need to go further outside the GTA to perhaps Dagmar or Lakeridge in the east or Glen Eden in the west. Those are 3 resorts we hope to visit soon.

Rates

this place is very affordable. Now it obviously will not satisfy the needs of advanced skiers and those who would prefer the value proposition of $100 lift ticket but much more variety and vertical (such as Blue Mountain), but we think for a family or early season warm up or perhaps for anyone looking for a close to the city value, this spot hits just right.

Here is the lift ticket price chart including seasons pass for 2024-2025.

This is a screenshot from their site. For current rates always visit directly: https://golfnorth.ca/ski/