Dozens of skiers and snowboarders were stranded after more than a metre of snow hit the Mount Washington Alpine Resort on Vancouver Island.

An estimated 110 centimetres of snow hit the resort in a 24-hour span that began on Saturday afternoon, forcing many people to seek emergency shelter when they couldn’t get home that night.

The buildup of snow on the roads leading out of the resort left people stuck in their cars for hours.

“Beside the road, (the snow’s) six, seven feet high,” one traveller told CTV Vancouver Island. “Anybody who’s parked there overnight is definitely stuck. It’s right over the roof.”

To accommodate the stranded travelers on Saturday night, the resort opened up its lodge to anyone seeking a place to wait out the storm.

“We made sure last night that everybody was looked after,” said Peter Gibson, the resort’s general manager.

Among the stranded on the mountain: a Scout troop visiting from Victoria. They slept in the ski lodge after waiting on the roads for nine hours.

“There was a huge nacho party,” said Richard Purnell, whose son was among the scouts who didn’t make it home Saturday night. “It was apparently pretty epic.”

The resort shut down on Sunday due to a high risk of avalanche. The road leading to the resort was also closed Sunday, but in a response to questions on its Facebook page, the resort said the road was reopened on Monday.

The resort reopened four of its lifts on Monday, with 44 of the resort’s 81 trails available for use. As of Monday afternoon, the Vancouver Island Avalanche Centre is still advising against travel to the area.

“We just witnessed a massive blizzard that dumped huge quantities of snow,” the centre says on its website. “This snow will take significant time to gain stability and strength.”

In other parts of British Columbia, a strong wind storm left 65,000 customers near Vancouver and Victoria without power for at least part of Sunday. The ferries that connect Vancouver Island with the mainland were also closed for part of Sunday.

With a report from CTV Vancouver Island’s Gord Kurbis

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