 Poster: A snowHead
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Where: Banff (Norquay, Sunshine Village, Lake Louise)
Who: Me and my husband, both 30, both intermediates, I ski, he boards. First time in Canada and spent 5 days in Vancouver before heading to the rocky mountains.
TO: Did some of the trip DIY but also used American Ski Classics as they were coming up with prices cheaper than I could get for hotel/lift pass combos, even cheaper than skibig3. Excellent customer service, would happily use again.
Flights: Flew BA London to Vancouver for our city break, then booked DIY flights with Westjet to Calgary, then BA Calgary to London. Both Westjet and BA allow you one free bag, and this bag can be a ski/board bag so we just did that, no having to pay extra but it did mean fitting 2 weeks worth of stuff plus skis into one bag and under 23kg.  Westjet were very relaxed and friendly, with the stewardess keeping us entertained with jokes.
Transfers: Used a local company 'Banff Airporter' and had great service, very easy and efficient. Our outward driver 'Bill' was particularly friendly, pointing out interesting sights on the drive and telling us stories of his family. The transfer took about 1hr45min to reach Banff. They have a desk in arrivals at Calgary where you can hand over your bags and they load them onto the bus, so you can wander the airport bag free until departure time.
Hotel: Banff Aspen Lodge. We had a superior room, which is their standard double room. Breakfast was included, with hot items alternating days with ham/cheese, and every day there was toast, fruit, yoghurt, ganola, porridge, eggs, cakes/muffins. A few plus points of the hotel are the open air hot tubs in the hotel courtyard, fab to sit in while it is snowing, plus the ski bus stop for all resorts is just outside the next hotel on the street. Location wise, it is about a 5-10 minute walk to reach the heart of Banff Avenue, close enough to be an easy walk each evening, yet far enough out to be quiet.
Resort: Banff itself is a very tourist focused town, with lots of places to eat and drink, plus plenty of shops some good some 'tat'. We liked the feel of the place. There are plenty of banks but be warned that few banks/atms accept visa cards. We had to walk to the end of the street to CIBC, next to the river, to be able to withdraw cash. Places we enjoyed are 1. Magpie and stump for informal mexican themed food, interesting cocktails and deep friend cheese cake. 2. Mapleleaf for high end canadian cuisine, bison, scallops, salmon - all delicious, and with attentive yet relaxed service 3. Bear street tavern for informal pizza and cocktails are great value prices, its cramped and bustling yet somehow cool. 4. Grizzly house for good value 4-course fondue menu, including soup, cheese fondue, meat hot rock and chocolate fondue. Phone at every table so you can call other guests and an eclectic theming inside (alpine meets totem pole??).
Snow conditions: Despite being mid April we were very lucky with conditions, with 4 powder days out of the 8 we skied, and the rest having good piste conditions, a bit of sun and snow, some falt light/low cloud/poor visibility. The weather was very changable and we could have all these conditions within the space of a day.
Skiing: Having never skied in Canada before, we really enjoyed the fact that the whole area is inbounds so you don't have to stick to marked runs. We also liked that they didn't groom many runs, so bumps build up on blues and helped us improve our skills rather than having to just head straight for a mogulled black.
Norquay: Should have been shut by the time we arrived but had extended their season due to good snow. It is a small resort, with a little day lodge for food/drinks and a handful of lifts. Pistes are all on the face of one hill, and cover the full range from green to double black. It has a real family/local feel, and the day we went was a powder day plus the customer appreciation day, cue free breakfast pancakes, live music in the lodge and lots of locals skiing in cowboy hats. We've heard that the resort can be a bit icy, and under the powder we definitely felt some of this, but it was great fun in the powder and hardly anyone about. We skied lots of runs over and over again, each time finding new little tree diversions or little side jumps to play in. It looked to have a good park, and also a good place for beginners to learn. Plus they have ringos! Some of the area was closed due to avalanche risk, and we saw helicopters carrying out protection measures during the day.
Sunshine Village: A medium sized resort, accessed by the gondola which takes just over 20 minutes to reach the main resort station. There are a few lodges serving food, coffee, beer, etc. The area is divided into three sections; Standish, Lookout and Goats eye.
Standish has three lifts accessing mostly short but varied terrain. Strawberry lift accesses greens and blues and is a great area for beginners to progress to. I spend a morning on this when I did a day on a board. Standish lift accesses a green (very flat), a blue (good little jumps and features to play on) and numerous blacks through trees, over bumps, etc. This area is great for playing in the natural terrain but not great if you want a piste cruise. Wawa lift accesses a green (flat at the very top but then a nice cruise through trees), a couple of blues (short, edged with trees but a good warm up) and a few blacks, some though the trees, some narrow, some wide pistes. we especially liked shaken not stirred, a narrow, not too steep cutting though trees.
Lookout has three lifts, two arrive about two thirds of the way up (angel, teepee town) and the other goes to the top (divide) and also accesses Delerium Dive freeride area. The top section is above the trees, so suffered from poor visibility. this meant we didnt ski all the runs we would have liked as we couldnt see them! The lower half is tree lined and mostly gentlre terrain. There is also a terrain park here.
Goats Eye has just one lift, although there is a low altutude are between lookout and goats eye that has two short chairs and short runs from green - black, plus a little park. Goats eye was our favourite mountain, the top of the hill has no trees but the lower two thirds did, and has a full range of runs. We didn't do any double blacks (not good/brave enough, especially in the flat light/snow) but really enjoyed some of the blues and blacks. Wildfire and Scapegoat were nice blue piste cruises with good views, glade runner and rollering thunder were fun black cruises. We really loved the black tree run goat chicken glades.
We spend four days at Sunshine, one day was piste cruising with sun and snow and very flat light, one day on blue skies when I was on a board, one day or sun and sonw when my husband did a day on skis and then one day of fab powder, where the whole place became a playground when the clouds lifted for half an hour every so often.
Lake Louise: The largest of the ski areas with a couple of lodges at the base area and one small lodge on the other side of the hill. There is a choice of gondola or two chairs to take you up the front side, which is mostly tree lined cruises from green - black, and some good parks from small to very large! The back side of this hill is the podwer bowls, accessed by two slowish chairs. The third area is Larch, a small tree lined area that is less crowded and lots of variety for such a small area. When there is not fresh snow, the snow doesn't hold as weel here as at Sunshine, and on weekends there are more people here, it feels less local and busy, but still only looking at 30 second wait for a chair. We were lucky enough to have 2 powder days here, where the back bowls really come into their own, although poor visibilty did limit our exploring as there are few trees.
Other things: We also did a half day trip to Johnson Canyon, walking on ice and looking at the frozen waterfalls and lovely scenery, well worth a look.
Overall we loved our trip and Canada.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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carettam, Thanks for posting. Sounds great  How did you find the bus journey every day?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I was there a couple of years back bus times are 10mins to Norquay, 25 to sunshine 40 to LL. They're well run, efficient and regular, free on the liftpass too.Frankly the journey times really didn't seem to matter,the scenery is pretty good so stare out the window a while, chat to a friendly local and you're there before you know it.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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carettam, thanks so much for posting this. We are toying with he idea of going in 2015/2016 for either Christmas / New Year or Easter as that way we have two weeks off school. We looked briefly at next year but decided to delay it another year so that our girls will be 6 & 9 as we feel that would be better from a travel perspective (plus gives us longer to save!).
Would you / others recommend this as a base for having kids with you?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Not been to CA with the kids myself, but have been there with plenty who have. Banff pretty kid friendly with things to do other than ski, and most restraunts have kids menus. Transfer from Calgary to Banff is pretty quick - about 90 minutes iirc and no twisty winding roads so quite kid friendly. The coach trips to the mountains aren't that onerous and run regular services with stop pickups along the main roads in Banff - if one coach gets full, they radio for another one to carry on the pickup.
Personally I always preferred Sunshine to L.Louise, probably as we always seemed to get there for the best conditions, and I preferred the runs there and had found a few powder stashes and tree lines.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| NickyJ wrote: |
| Would you / others recommend this as a base for having kids with you? |
We've done 4 trips to Banff with our son (aged 7-12) and would recommend it. There are a couple of museums in Banff, as well as skating,the hot springs etc, so plenty to do on a day off.
The ski tuition we have always found to be good, although it is important to note that it is different to that we've experienced in Europe. We have used both the "Big3" ski school and Sunshine's own. They don't tend to work towards specific awards (a la ESF), but operate a more workshop style. Whatever they have done, our son has always looked forward to it. The Big3 do a full day (including lunch if you want) at each of the three hills in rotation and it's a 3 day program - in one fortnight holiday he has done 3 of these programs (his request). We've also been impressed with the amount of feedback from the instructors at the end of each day.
On our last trip, we stayed in Canmore and he had a couple of lessons at Sunshine - we booked him into the Kids Black Diamond group but when we got there he was the only one; they gave us/him the option of being in a group of 1 or moving to an easier group if he preferred - the result was a few hours of 1-1, for the group price!
There are lockers at each day-lodge so there's no problem bringing snacks or extra clothes.
The whole place is very child friendly - the lifties and patrolers have always been good. We would go every year if we could.
While the bus journeys do sound a bit of a drag, most peope snooze or chat but there's the scenery and we've also seen a fair amount of wildlife - including wolves - from the road!
Easter is a good time to go, because it's a bit warmer, which may make a difference with smaller children, and we wouldn't go for less than 10 days, but a fortnight definitely gives you time for a couple of other activities.
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Glad you enjoyed your trip - we go every year for either two or three weeks and see it as our 'home snow'. For those who haven't been, you will enjoy it most if you don't go with the idea that you want it to be like Europe. Embrace the differences and you will get the most out of it. We ski in Tignes/Val mostly in Europe and love that too, but Banff is a different mindset. You even get to look forward to the bus rides as it is some of the most staggeringly beautiful scenery around. Check out Freshtracks lessons at Lake Louise. There is a special early bus and you get two hours on the mountain before it fills up with people. Absolutely fantastic! Enjoyed reading your TR and made me wish I was there now...
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As others have said, the buses really were not an issue. I mostly snoozed or stared out the window at the stunning scenery. No it's not quite as convenient as ski in/out but we still had plenty of time on the slopes.
I'd also agree that Canadian ski resorts have a different feel to Europe and you need to embrace and enjoy these differences. Piste grooming and marking is minimal, but freedom to explore is maximised. We found for the first couple of days were were very piste orientated but as we got used to the 'oh year we can just cut though here and then hop over there' mind set, we enjoyed it more and more. On a groomed piste, I look like a controlled skier who knows what they are doing (I hope) but here, not so much as the variety of terrain and conditions really pushed me to develop my skiing skills further. It was challenging and fun!
Regarding suitability for kids, the ski resorts have good instructors and a wide choice of terrain. The lodges all serve standard kid friendly fare of chips, sandwiches, chicken strips, burgers, pizza, poutines (chips with cheese and gravy - suprisingly tasty). Banff itsef has a few things to do.
I'd recommend going at Easter as it will be milder. We had a couple of days at about 15c (Banff) or 5c (ski resorts), but at night it was often -5c with two nights still getting to -12c, so I can only imagine how cold it is during January!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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When i was there in mid Feb 2 years ago it was around -10c most of the time and was -29c one day, wind chill on the lift took it below -40. This is going to sound odd, but it didn't feel as cold as you'd think. Maybe its a really dry cold?
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Great report carettam - thanks for sharing. Mrs MA and I love Banff and its skiing. Norquay is under rated, especially by the locals. We've been twice, on different trips, and had great snow both times. Our last time was one deserted New Year's Day.
If you're now a Canadian powder convert, you should have a look at some catskiing for your next trip. Pricey but worth it. Choose from day trips (eg Fernie Wilderness Adventures are brilliant) - or a wilderness lodge stay (eg Mustang Powder are out of this world) - there are loads of operators and it's great to combine catskiing with a road trip round a few ski areas.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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mountainaddict,
Norquay is NOT underrated by the locals - they just play it down to visitors to keep it a locals hill!
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