British Columbia ski resorts had a banner year this past season. The president and C-E-O of the Canada West Ski Areas Association says 6.5-million people packed B-C slopes — beating the previous record set in 2007-2008 by nine per cent. Christopher Nicholson says the weak Canadian dollar and excellent weather conditions were the reasons for the increase. Nationally, he says visits were up 13 per cent from the previous year to 18.6 million — just shy of the record of more than 20-million also set in 2007-2008.