The resort has 16 square kilometres (6.2 sq mi) of skiable terrain (second largest in Canada), and receives an average of 5.6 m (18 ft) of snow per year.

On 16 May, Munro, Whyte, lawyer Reginald Humphreys, ski resort operator Sam Warmington, and doctor James Osborne once again drove to Whitecroft.

Ahead of them lay the Crystal Bowl, pristine and bearing ideal geological features for a chairlift and ski resort.

In early 1961, construction commenced[3] on the original Burfield (at the time called Tod Mountain Ski Lift) chairlift.

[citation needed] In July 1968, seven years after the opening day, a crew was conducting maintenance work on the top terminal of the Tod Mountain Ski Lift, when a spark from a welding job flew into the sump pump, causing the wooden building housing the machinery to alight.

The fire ignited the diesel drive which was directly linked to the bullwheel, causing the entire lift line to part from the wheel, dropping to the ground.

[2] Peter Pocklington, the then-owner of the Edmonton Oilers hockey team, purchased Klapstock Holdings' shares in 1974, and a small percentage of his total cash was allocated to Tod Mountain.

Pocklington's prominent standing among the bureaucracy, the Royal Bank of Canada loaned him and Petric Recreation money, which enabled Tod Mountain to maintain their status until the 1976–1977 season.

[citation needed] In 1979, the Crystal Chairlift was installed east of the Burfield, a three-person fixed-grip lift in operation for the 1979–1980 ski season.

In this event, skiers "tuck" into a special, aerodynamic position and ski down the daunting, black-diamond difficulty Headwalls Run.

[6] In late 1992, the new owners held a renaming contest for the resort, using ballot boxes, as "Tod" in German translated to "Death".

On Tod Mountain, the Shuswap double was retired and replaced by a bubble high speed quad, named the Sunburst Express.

In 1994, the Tod Mountain Road was paved over its entire 33 km (21 mi) span, increasing the safety of the journey and cutting travel times from about 45 minutes to 25–30.

[9] This is in addition to a luxurious 18-hole golf course (completed in 2005), a massive residential/guest oriented ski-in village, and many more amenities built under the guiding eye of Nippon Cable.

In 2006, the Elevation fixed grip quad was constructed on Tod Mountain, running from a point midway down 5-Mile to an unload location adjacent to Sunburst Lodge.

The Austrian National Ski Team signed a five-year contract in 2005 to train at Sun Peaks in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

[10] In 1998 the Neskonlith Secwepemc people appealed to Masayoshi Ohkubo, then President of Sun Peaks Corporation, to respect their title and rights.

They also appealed to the Federal Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, Rover D. Nault, who claimed that the land dispute with Sun Peaks fell under provincial jurisdiction.

[12] Secwepemc land defenders argued that clearcut logging on three mountains to expand the resort ruined the habitats of deer, moose, bears, beavers, lynx, bobcat, cougars and wolverines; that traditional foods and medicines the Secwepemc have relied on no longer grew in the area; and that lakes and rivers had been polluted by chemicals used to make artificial snow and maintain golf courses.

[11] In 2001, RCMP arrested a number of land defenders at the Secwepemc MacGillivray Lake village while enforcing a trespass order, including youth.

[10][14] In 2001 Neskonlith Indian Band Chief Arthur Manuel held negotiations with the province through BC Attorney General Geoff Plant, which Manuel explained as failing due to Plant insisting that the Skwelkwek'welt Protection Centre at Sun Peaks and land defence camp at McGillivray Lake be dismantled.

[13] The Secwepemc Native Youth Movement also protested the installation of Nancy Greene Raine as first chancellor of Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

[12] In 2003, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights visited the Skwelkwek'welt Protection Centre.

The Orient lift starts across from the base of Morrisey Express, and runs to a point just uphill of the East Village Ski Way, and improved ski-back access from the Mount Morrisey side of the resort while also providing ski-in-ski-out access for hundreds of homes in the East Village, as well as opening up large possibilities for future expansion.

In early 2022, Sun Peaks Resort started the application process for a high speed quad in the West Bowl.

Construction on the West Bowl Express took place primarily over the summers of 2023 and 2024, and the 1.58 km (1 mi) chairlift opened for the 2024-25 ski season.

In addition to skiing, Sun Peaks also operates a downhill mountain bike park with over 2,000 vertical feet of terrain.