 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi all. This is my first ever trip report, typed out on an iPhone during travels or lunches and cleaned up a bit, so forgive me if it’s not great. But I try to put useful things in there. There are several references to money, as this is my dream holiday, with rental and lessons for 2 weeks, so I really scrimped on the luxury where I could - YMMV  I’ve just finished one week at Lake Louise and will go the second week there also, so my children don’t have to “learn” a new resort that would be Sunshine. This is my fourth trip to LL but the previous ones were around the millennium... For competence, I'm someone who'd do the occasional European black just to prove I could, and then hurry back to reds or blues before I did myself an injury.
Flew Lisbon-London-Calgary on a BA 787 in World Traveller; good VOD but seats not very spacious for a “Dreamliner” I thought (it's my first time in one). WT+ looked much more comfy, with a much more defined difference to WT than 15 years ago.
Immigration; even without producing our trial eTAs (careful in future everyone!), a doddle; we were through in 5 mins or less.
For transfer, the Banff Airporter booked in advance was a perfectly adequate comfy US "school bus” thing, taking 2 hrs and dropping us right at the hotel.
We stayed at Irwins Mountain Inn on Banff Ave, where I've stayed the 3x before, ever since I was introduced to it by a TO on my first trip to Canada. It seemed a little tired to what I remember (last there in 2002, duh!) but still a great price/convenience balance; my 9 yr old said it was "simple but comfy". I like it as they have suites, which allows us to sleep with our children but with a closed door between. And it is not so far down Banff Ave that walking to town centre is a pain, unlike very many other hotels. Spoke to other guests from UK who were also on their third time back, so it can't be that bad! Perhaps one disadvantage is the hot tub is only for 8 people for a 40-room hotel - but as we always got back early, it was no problem. It has a sauna next to the HT. There is apparently access to the neighbouring hotel's swimming pool but we didn’t use it. Sadly, breakfast in the adjoining restaurant is apparently not chargeable to the room, which is inconvenient over 2 weeks  (we soon switched to cereal and bread and jam in the room). However, there is free wifi (slightly juddery in the evenings), and the complimentary coffee in a thermos by the front door is very civilised IMHO. Ski lockers / storage downstairs. The ski bus stop is now one hotel further away, making it a whole 100m to walk in/with gear… I think you can leave skis at the resort overnight but haven't checked.
In Banff, there are plenty of restaurants and our average bill for simple food, with small appetites and no alcohol, was 40-60 cdn. But if you’re on a budget, the town centre Safeway offers several options including takeaway hot soups and whole hot roast chicken! Between me blowing the budget on a long holiday with many lessons, and jet lag, we hardly ever ate out except at lunchtime, so Safeway got most of my food money in Banff. And my favorite memory of Lake Louise, the Beaver Tails cafe at the base that sadly closed, is now open in Banff town centre, wooh-hoo! We had one nearly every day…
We rented gear in advance online from ski hub, a 10-15 min walk from the hotel in the town centre; but you can get gear fitted there and then they deliver it to the hotel, then collect at end of stay, no need to trudge through town with gear! It was even the same when we had to swap wife's boots end of day 1, and my skis end of day 3; we walked it back and dropped it at 1730, it arrives back at the hotel by 2100. Lift tickets were also delivered to the hotel and waiting for us.
The bus to LL is controversial for some, but personally I love it. It is a a comfy coach, sometimes with loo and free wifi. I work with, not against, jet lag from Europe to get up early (we would wake at 4-5am), breakfast in the room, get the 7.40 bus to be at LL by 8.30, wake up in a relaxed way en route (spotting moose a couple of times this week), and have a coffee and cake at the Starbucks at base, (or you can buy a cooked breakfast there), before lifts open at 9. On the way back, have a 30min sleep and arrive at hotel refreshed and ready for the hot tub and evening. We would get the 1530 bus back, rather than 1630 (or 1730) - that way we don’t get fatally tired at the end of the day, when injuries happen, and avoid the semolina snow. But the buses are punctual, so if you miss one it's an hour wait to the next one (unless it fills up - then it leaves when full and a second pulls up to collect anyone else).
Lake Louise; not so much snow this year, and there are some rocks or patches showing occasionally, but it’s fine for us. We might have had 8cm total fresh during the week, just enough to pretend it is powder... Temperatures relatively warm, -8C at night, +8C in the afternoon, so the front face would be scrapy corduroy in the morning but mushy lower down after 2pm (thus encouraging the early bus back). We went up Grizzly Gondola for the first ride on day 1 to get our snow legs; it was supposedly a Green down, but even the "easiest way down” (they are all marked so) had surprisingly steep bits at the top that challenged my 7 yr old (15 mins for 100m, lots of falls and a few tears). However, we took it easily and got down eventually. She was much better the next 3 goes, and only got better, see below. Apparently grading here is rather generalised, it's common to find a green or a black with blue sections. The back bowls are nice, plenty of steepish mogul runs going down if that’s your thing, but they could really suffer from flat light on non-sunny days. The Ski Friends system is wonderful; free mountain tours by ability. Apparently they started 30 years ago by a group of wives of ski patrollers who got bored waiting for hubby to come home. Long may they continue.
Eating on the mountain; in my opinion there is good quality food at North Face Bistro at the bottom in WhiskeyJack lodge, with big hearty soups and salads, carvery, or pasta with choice of sauces for 16 cdn. The bad news is that it shuts maybe once a week for functions (and they didn’t seem to give much notice, so turn up in a hurry to find a closed door); alternatives are the fast food joint in Ten Peaks, where we found a 15-min long queue for really nasty stuff at the end of it, or the posh Japanese up above which takes a while to serve. This speed is crucial if you’ve booked all-day lessons for children and you don’t pay for school lunch, as you only have an hour to get in, order, eat, then get out again. For this reason we didn’t try any places (e.g. Whitehorn) that were not at the bottom of the hill. There’s apparently one other place, Powder Keg, which we should try next week maybe.
Lessons: Lessons are 2hr morning, 2hr afternoon with no break. Adult group lessons only go up to level 5, which is what I took. They were all really technical, and my turns improved no end in 3 days (going from jumpy Zs to smooth carved turns, slowing with a final lean in with the hips to carve back uphill), excellent teaching. I can now get down a steep pitch without my thighs burning as I am no longer using brute force to stop. I was less happy that they have no concept of multi-day lessons so there is a new teacher getting to know the group each day, and all five days they all taught the same thing but with different drills; I will see if I can address that next week somehow. On all days except the public holiday we were 3 or 4 students in a class (Good Friday saw 7 I think). Children's classes are also great. Elder daughter did her first real parallel stop on Day 1, younger on Day 4, and they've learned more in 4 days than they did in 2 weeks in Andorra; this place really teaches. The younger, who fell over so much on a steep green on Sunday, was doing a black on Thursday. I told 9 yr old daughter about “pizza" and "French fries”. I also told her about "yard sale", but she preferred to continue the fast food theme, and called that a “milkshake".
Bad points at LL: some of the food; non-consecutive teaching; and generally between the school, lunch, and bus, the timings aren't great. Lessons start at 1030, ski friends start at 1015, so not easy for mum to drop the kids off then go to SF. End times are good (SF 1200, lessons 1230) though at lunch, if children are all day lessons, they only have one hour for lunch! Then lessons end exactly at 1530 which is also the time the bus goes - and the bus doesn't like to wait 5 mins. We’d get to the bottom early, wait and grab the girls 5-10 mins early in order to get the bus. One time we had to wait at the top of the gondola as the teacher wouldn’t stop the lesson 5 mins early. On a more personal level, a boarder wiped me out on Friday, I assume he’d come fast over the rise without knowing I was gently practising S turns below. All I heard was a scraaaAAPE-WHAM and I slid gracefully down the hill head first on my back. His mates gave back my poles and skis and he apologised. It was Good Friday, and there were clearly double the number of people on the slopes than there had been for the previous 5 days. Lift queues, which had been barely noticeable, were out in force.
Finally, is boarding dead? Certainly not here from my anecdotal observations. Helmets? My wife now feels self-conscious not wearing one.
We’ve just had the Saturday off and went to soak in the hot springs - my Boarded back no longer hurts - and we’ll go Sunday morning dog-sledding. Then back to the skiing on Monday-Thurs. A smart move to take the holiday weekend off, and avoid the lift queues, I thought!
Any questions for while I’m here, do ask! I will see if it is worth adding to this TR with my second week’s experience.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Glad you're having a great time, but don't you want to check out the local hill at Norquay? It's only 10mins away by bus, is wonderfully quiet and has lovely, undulating runs through the trees. It's small as well, so you don't get lost!
Also, don't miss out on Sunshine Village - me and my dad loved the runs around Wolverine, and the kids would enjoy Upper and Lower Canyon. I found the snow was better there as well.
If you fancy a treat, the Banff Springs hotel does an all-you-can-eat buffet some nights, and it's not expensive - worth it to get a nosy in Banff's poshest hotel.
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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'll add a vote for checking out Norquay, e.g. given its proximity, you can spend a morning at Norquay (beware icy pistes) and an afternoon walking around Banff - and I suggest walking all the way down-town, over the bridge, taking a left along the riverside walk (ignoring 'path closed' signs) to Bow Falls, and then having found the car park walk up a forest track into the Waldhaus Pub.
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Ditto for trying Sunshine. The snow is often better as @HoneyBunny says and there are some nice easy runs. It's a different atmosphere, but I think Sunshine Coast on Goat's Eye is one of the best blue cruisers in the business!
Re Norquay- ask someone local what conditions are like. We were there two weeks ago and it was very icy- just thinking of your younger one.
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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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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Orange200, when you say larger resort, LL isn't larger than sunshine is it? I didn't bother with Norquay at all when I was in Banff this time, just Sunshine and LL. Of the three my favourite is definitely sunshine and as Honneybunny said I found the snow to be better at Sunshine, the front face of LL always seems a little more solid than anywhere else.
Glad you're having a good time.
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@Orange200, glad to hear you had a good steak. I enjoyed my chicago style baseball steak at the Keg Steakhouse so much that I had a second - I knew I might not be there again for a long time.
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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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Banff is a favourite of ours, so much so we go every year for a few weeks. It feels like our 'home snow' and we very much like the whole experience. We too enjoy the bus ride to and from LL, and as I say, Goat's Eye is one of our favourite places anywhere.
Sounds like you are making the most of it - so nice that your kids get to experience it at this stage of their lives. Who knows, maybe they will come back and train as a ski instructor one day. It has happened to more than one family we know!
Looking forward to hearing how the rest of the trip goes.
Have fun!
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So, today Monday morning I went to the ski school and explained that Level 5 was getting a bit samey and I didn't want to do that for another three days. The lady happily gave me various options and so I've topped up the credit a bit and will now do 2x2hr privates on Tue and Wed mornings. She said they stopped the "European-style" same instructor with multi-day class when the Europeans dropped off coming; she said there used to be planeloads coming over with TOs but there aren't any more. Not sure why, possibly the rise of the independent. (But if people are still coming here, but by indie rather than TO, surely demand is the same?)
Went out with Ski Friends this morning on a "double blue" (??) skill rating - perfect for me, a bit of a challenge but nothing lethal. Told the SF on the first lift up that I was going on a private. "Oh, the best value for those are the early ones, starting at 8.30 or 9; you get a private lesson for a hundred bucks." What??!!  Oh well, next time... Meanwhile, the six Brits in the group said they had carefully planned coming over, and had managed to get 10 days cheaper here than in France - including plane tickets.
Another bad mark for food - the nice North Face Bistro has actually closed for the season  something about staffing levels. So now we tried the one other place that I mentioned above (Powder Keg); food was OK (we had nachos, girls had pizza) but it was rammed, and a 30 minute wait for food when you only have 1 hr to eat is not nice.
And for Sunshine fans - we just took a family decision and will spend our last, lesson-free day... at Sunshine 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Orange200, goo decision re: Sunshine. Don't miss Sunshine Coast on Goat's Eye. Really easy but fun run (top but is a bit blowy but soon calms down when you are around the corner). Great cruise for all the family. Say hello to it for us....and have a great time on the remainder of your trip.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Orange200, my husband and I both took separate "First Tracks" lessons a couple of weeks ago at LL - $99 each for an hour and a half - collected from Banff 6.30am, up on the mountain with our instructors before everyone else. The standard of teaching was excellent - my husband couldn't believe the difference in my skiing after just an hour and a half. My husband had his snowboard lesson in the park and on freestyle and had similarly excellent tuition - highly recommended!
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Right, so it's the last night in the hotel, the rental equipment has gone back, and we'll get on the Airporter tomorrow lunchtime. What to add?
The early private lessons; the downsides are apparently that not all lifts open that early (0830), so if you need certain terrain, your choice may be limited. And in "spring conditions", you may be doing a lot of your lesson on frozen snow. But it's still 1.5hrs for $99 though. Oh - and a Spring Pass, starting 1 March, seems to pay for itself in 3-4 days IIRC, plus with a few other discounts (was it 50% off private lessons?!) At least when I expressed my total confusion to the lady at the ski school she said "yes we struggle to work out what is the best VFM combo too..." I type all these things perhaps as it helps someone else, and perhaps as it helps me next time!!
I did two private lessons on bumps. I learned lots of things, including not to book two consecutive morning lessons on bumps. Oh my thighs. Great teaching though, thanks Patrick.
Powder Keg food was faster this time.
We had an envelope under our door. "Sorry about the noisy Spring Breakers - please accept these breakfast vouchers." (Approx value $40). This place really is great.
Sunshine Village - first impressions not good as we tried to get a coffee and a hot chocolate at base station. Yuk, really low quality. Then three coach loads all queue for the gondola. BUT then we got on the spacious, airy gondola and went up Goat's Eye, did the Sunshine Coast thanks @lynnecha, and what a huge easy cruisy run that is! Whaddya mean, blue, SV? That was easier than LL's greens off Grizzly! Snow fine on piste, but horribly patchy off it, they really have had a bad year. Then off to the Village and up Angel to hunt down a way into the Teepee Town Luxury (heated) chair, Just Because. The map looked a bit foreboding with only blues and blacks, but again, whaddya mean blue? And black My Jim Royle, they were blues! Lovely runs down between clumps of trees, just choose which route you want. Up Teepee Town (ooh, like heated car seats!), down the back of the Great Divide. Huuuuuge expanses of white, all soft snow, not the heavy stuff that we got on the front face of LL, and we started to play Ski Tag with the two daughters, as there is just so much space to mess around in. This was absolutely the highlight of the trip as they haven't been good enough to do it before now, we were all giggling like mad and zooming round trying to swerve and dodge. Did it a couple more times in the day. Into the Village and to have lunch - junk food on the ground floor but on the first floor is Spag Bol, fast Vietnamese Pho (Yeah!!), Soups and Pizza. Back out and up Mt Standish for a wiggle round more tree clumps and gullies to get back to SV, then again and this time back over to the Great Divide. Finally to the Gondola to download as we didn't want to miss the bus at 1545. So; good snow, good food, and good fun.
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You know it makes sense.
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So glad you enjoyed SS. It's just different to LL, both have their advantages and disadvantages, but we love them both( a bit like you can't have a favourite child!).
Safe journey home.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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The lack of continuity in group lessons in N America amazes me. To find somewhere that used to do it has dropped it is just stupid. I know the trip pattern is very different (domestics don't tend to do a pure Sat-Sat week) but I would have thought there are benefits to rostering the same instructor for at least 3 consecutive days.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Dave of the Marmottes wrote: |
| The lack of continuity in group lessons in N America amazes me. To find somewhere that used to do it has dropped it is just stupid. I know the trip pattern is very different (domestics don't tend to do a pure Sat-Sat week) but I would have thought there are benefits to rostering the same instructor for at least 3 consecutive days. |
Trip pattern is the main reason.
There ARE continue lesson plans. The mountain I teach at has a 6 week program! (and a 3 week extension to it too) It's essentially the equivalent of your week long lesson plan, but spread over 6 weeks, because our pupils are not on vacation for just one week.
Breckenridge, for example, has a season long lesson plan for a princely sum of a few hundred dollars! It's one day a week for some 10-12 weeks!
For the vast majority of North American who lives within a few hours of some snowy mountains, season long lesson plans work better. It leave time for the student to practice in between lessons. It's also a lot less expensive to do lessons near home, without paying hotels and hired cars. When they do go on holidays in "destination resorts", they just want to enjoy ski around sampling the new mountains.
For people who wants to tackle the more serious terrain in big destination mountains, there're multi-day "clinics" for upper level skier. But the demand for those are relatively low so most mountains only have them on specific dates. Jackson Hole's Steep and Deep is an example.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Back and recovering. (And back is recovering - rather bruised.) Rental gear collected from hotel. Back via Vancouver as the tickets were so much cheaper than from Calgary direct - beautiful airport interior (river and aquarium?!), back on a BA 747. At least it landed at the same terminal as our subsequent flight to Lisbon - if it hadn't I don't think we would have made the transfer, though it was supposed to be 1.5hrs between the flights.
Best. Holiday. Ever. Sigh...
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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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For future reference:
LL have their Spring Pass sale from 1 March (at least in 2016) until the end of the season. A Family pass costs $839.
They also have their Early Bird sale for next season. A Season Family pass costs $1829.
A standard 10-day lift ticket costs $795 just for one adult.
Sunshine Village have their Spring Pass sale from 19 March, with a family pass costing $859. I can't now see standard price, or any early 16/17 season offer.
So it would seem that anyone wanting to take their family for a two-week Easter break should hang on and get the pass as late as possible?
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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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| Quote: |
There ARE continue lesson plans.
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And at Banff/LL do they not still offer the "Club Ski" 3-day package?
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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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They do but I'm pretty sure it is one day in each site, i.e. Norquay, Sunshine and LL.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Yes I did club ski 3 years ago and we had the same instructor- will be booking again if we make it over next season - sounds frustrating getting different instructor each day
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| Dave of the Marmottes wrote: |
| The lack of continuity in group lessons in N America amazes me. To find somewhere that used to do it has dropped it is just stupid. I know the trip pattern is very different (domestics don't tend to do a pure Sat-Sat week) but I would have thought there are benefits to rostering the same instructor for at least 3 consecutive days. |
Maybe for adults. But our kids progressed much faster under the US/Canadian system than they did in Europe.
Some North American ski schools shuffle their classes every half day based on the relative performance of the kids present on the day rather than age. That means the class is always at a similar level; in Europe, an uncharacteristically poor or strong Day 1 ski-off can result in a child being in an unsuitable class all week. All of our kids experienced demotion as well as promotion at some time or another, and that gave them a real drive to perform to the maximum every day. We repeatedly heard Canadian instructors telling them that if they didn't get scared a few times a day, they weren't trying hard enough - and, boy, did they try hard!
That kind of competitive environment might not work for all kids, but ours thrived on it. With just a few weeks skiing under their belts, they were total monsters on the double-blacks and could comfortably ski pretty much anything. In my experience, North American ski school Just Works.
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| Orange200 wrote: |
For future reference:
LL have their Spring Pass sale from 1 March (at least in 2016) until the end of the season. A Family pass costs $839.
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2017 update: LL Spring pass is again usable from 1 March. Adult is $454, family is $899.
Noting that Easter holidays come a bit earlier in 2018... 
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FAQ
