I live in Rossland and ski at red.
The backcountry here is really accessible and fun, you can get to the peaks of 4 different mountains within about 45 mins from halfway up the mountain and there is SO much other bc terrain in the area if you are willing to drive a couple kms.
Rossland is a pretty awesome place to live (ive never lived anywhere else), I think there’s like 3500 people maybe 4000. In the winter, pretty much everyone just skis but there are also beer league hockey teams, curling, bars, and a pretty sweet swimming pool just 10 mins down the hill in Trail. In the summer you can hike tonnes of mountains, bike (really good biking in and around Rossland), golfing, and 3 super pimp lakes within an hour drive. The people here are for the most part really nice and there is a good solid vibe in town. For jobs, the ski hill always hires a bunch of liftees who actually have it really good, cant really help with other jobs. Rent for an apartment is about 700ish amonth and for a house about 800-900, houses are around 250000-300000avg. To buy.
Red is a really fun place to ski the whole season (beginning of dec-april) Really, really good tree skiing, open glades, theres some super gnarly steep stuff, steep groomers with fun rollers, couloirs, shitty moguls, sick pillows, and some mellow stuff. The park is kinda shitty, but really we only ski that in the spring when its slushy, its still really fun though. Most of the time, theres not very many people skiing except for American holidays and spring break, and you can find sick pow like a week after a dump.
i think there are graphs or something on the red website about annual snowfall and how much it snows a month.
and feel free to pm me if you have any questions, check out my pictures for some shots from the park and the mountain.