Canada or Europe for a season

A snowHead

Alright this years been poo-poo, so I've decided savings don't matter and am going to do most of the 2021/22 ski season (Jan to end of March).

I've got enough saved up to not work for those months, and keep going in circles with options.

Initially I thought it made sense to do an improvers ski camp (i.e. nonstopski/alltracks/basecamp), but I've read conflicting things. I'll be going solo, so the camp would probably be a good base of people, but I wonder if it will feel a bit too structured over such a long time.

On the DIY side I thought Jan and March in Europe (maybe a warren smith course in Jan?), February in Canada to dodge half term (perhaps Fernie). I didn't quite realise how expensive lift tickets were in Canada, so this option seems a bit redundant. Perhaps I should just spend the whole 3 months in Fernie or Banff.

Am I missing a trick? My main goal is to ski hard and not get bored (of either the terrain or a dead town).

Cheers!

A snowHead

I think you've already identified the issues. An organised course may be a bit more than you want to pay but it gives you a ready made crew to ski and socialise with.

Re pass ( and accomodation) prices you are definitely best off buying a season pass and staying largely put.

The con of organised courses is obviously that you'll be expected to be out when you might choose to dodge crappy conditions or sleep off a hangover. Or doing something specific rather than blowing off for a powder day (though leaders will obviously be highly motivated to enjoy it themselves).

Re resorts - the idea of outskiing somewhere the size of Fernie is a bit of a tourist attitude. Sure if you stick to groomer/ pistes you could easily get bored but the whole point of being somewhere like that is that you don't.

Re making friends/ ride buddies if you go solo. That's easy enough in a place the size of Fernie and can be accelerated by bunking up at the hostel for instance.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Dave of the Marmottes thanks, that simplifies a lot of what I was thinking about! Definitely have a tourist attitude around piste size, the massive linked expanses are all I've ever known. Seems like the atmosphere of a smaller resort would be more to my liking, too.

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Courses: I always think that's more of a choice base on personality.

If you're the kind that needs structure and motivation, a course would suit. When you don't feel like getting up, the course would be your excuse to get out of bed.

If you're shy, the course will give you a chance to interact with others you otherwise may not get to.

But if you're the self-motivated kind and are outgoing, you don't need the structure. You'll do what suits you at the appropriate time. You'll run into people and find others to ski with too.

If you're not doing a structured course, do sort out a few lessons on specific aspect of your skiing that needs improving. But to be frank, just skiing lots will go a long way towards improving.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Some good points so far about positives and negatives of the courses. I would just add they are incredibly more expensive that doing an independent trip. Even doing an independent cheap with quite a few private lessons thrown in is going to save you a lot of money.

As others have said you are not going to get bored of somewhere like fernie. You have to remember everything within the boundary is avy controlled so you will be skiing all kinds of terrain everyday. You could ski a run like anaconda glades all day and not do the same line twice. Lots of good stuff not on the map to discover too. That's before you even start considering backcountry around the resort.

But if you are concerned it's only like £100 or so to upgrade your fernie season pass to cover all the rcr resorts which would give you access to kicking horse (lots of steeps and chutes) and Kimberley (more mellow but can be nice for a little getaway).

It's someway to meet people once you are there. Pretty much everyone is there for the same reason so straight away you have skiing in common. If you have even the slightest amount of social skills you will be fine without needing a course to meet people.

In regards to price Canada is ime much cheaper than Europe. Fwiw I can usually get 3 months in Canada for a little under £3k total (flights, food, accomodation, ski pass etc. everything!) Accomodation and lift tickets more than offset the cost of flights. You have to buy your pass early though - right now it's £670 but it goes up to £1171 if you don't buy it early. As for accomodation if you don't mind hostels they are cheap and a great way to meet others to ski with.

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Didn't expect such useful answers, maybe I'll have to go to that pre-season bash I've seen floating around Smile

@boarder2020 I had no idea about being able to upgrade, I was looking for a way to do fernie+kicking+revel all on one pass but that looks like the best way.

Not overly worried about the social side, I'm no social butterfly but I've done some traveling on my own and people haven't run away (that I noticed at least). I'll have to look more into accommodation - hadn't thought about hostels.

I hadn't realised quite how much cheaper it is to do it yourself, either, so maybe a few 2-3 day off piste camps and some private coaching is the way to go.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

I kind of assumed that those "organised long ski holidays" were aimed at gap year kids with rich parents wink

I'm not sure I'd describe lift tickets as particularly expensive; perhaps you're not looking at the right options there.
"Lessons" or coaching is I think expensive in headline terms, but I suspect actually better value that Europe as they are
very professional and not "bend the knees, follow me" people who can ski slalom faster than necessary.

I'm fairly anti-social, but Canada is much easier to get connected in as everyone speaks English and the culture is very open,
in my experience. I would look more at the various places and their local geography (how will you get from hill to town etc),
and local culture (eg resort with tourists or resort marketed to wannabe hard core people or locals place). You could
factor in the type of snow you want, but you probably don't care if you're asking.

@rhizo, What are your aims for the season?

Are you most interested in piste skiing or off piste?

If I was looking for a season of piste skiing, taking in to consideration February in Europe, i'd be inclined to go somewhere that has access to smaller resorts, to get away from the crowds. A season pass covering a number of resorts, maybe the Dolomites, or somewhere in Austria, like the Salzburger Super Ski card, maybe the Magic Pass in Switzerland. That way you keep your costs down not buying weekly passes in various places.

If you're keen on off piste, Canada makes sense, given the in bound terrain.@boarder2020 advocates this a lot, and has put links up in the past to hostels in Fernie where you get your own room, and shared living spaces. Definitely worth a look.

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@swskier, All I've ever known is piste skiing, bar this one off piste lesson when it dumped in Val d'isere Toofy Grin

so in bounds off piste sounds unreal. I figure there'll always be time to ski in Europe.

I'm almost certain my technique is useless, which makes me think I should get a fair bit of tuition earlier in the season (wouldn't want to do a season and still be trash). Maybe I just need a few weeks back to back and I'll be grand.

Shared living spaces with my own room sounds pretty perfect, I'll have to look around.

@philwig, Those are all the sort of things I was expecting, and why I'm tending towards Canada Smile

To be honest, I'm half tempted to try and buy a car in Calgary and do a ridiculous circuit, but I figure that would be a massive faff with accommodation, buying and selling the car, ski passes, etc.

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@BobinCH, Agreed Canada definitely sounds like the right option for what the OP is looking for.

My personal opinion is that North America is the perfect place to get into off piste. You have every type of terrain in bounds you can ski without needing to worry about avalanche danger/find partners/all the equipment faff etc.

As for lessons they will certainly help. That said I've seen some pretty impressive improvements from people that do a season Canada starting as beginners and don't bother with any formal lessons. If you are highly motivated there is a wealth of knowledge online, ski with better better who can give you some tips, trial and error. You will get better simply from more time on snow and pushing yourself a bit.

It also depends what your goal is. If you have no aspirations of teaching or becoming a pro skier getting perfect technique is probably a waste of time and money. Have fun and just get to the stage where you can safely get down anything enjoyably even if technique is not "perfect".

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

@boarder2020, were you eating kibbles or canned?

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Mr P and I did this back in Jan 2016 for 4 weeks in Val D'Isere. I can thoroughly recommend it. The instruction and instructors were superb (mostly around our age so we bonded rather well!) Our skiing improved loads and we had a great time.
https://www.icesi.org/4-week-all-terrain-performance-course.asp
As mature skiers, we still found likeminded over 25 yos to ski with and made new friends into the bargain. Running alongside our course and with some cross over of the older participants were the 10 week BASI "gap year" courses, though not everyone was 18/19.
Heaven only knows what next winter will bring, but there's no harm in making enquiries.
It would have been relatively easy I think to have found some longer term accommodation to run on after the 4 week course ends-and by then you would have some ski buddies to hang out with. I wonder whether next winter there may be a greater enthusiasm for owners of apartments to secure longer term rentals before the season starts.
One thing you need to know for the above though is that, if you go with the inclusive basic accommodation package, that means 3 people in a studio (so a sofa bed and a set of bunks)-not fun if you are used to your own space, (not counting COVID issues and the unalloyed joy of sharing space with 18 year olds who haven't learned how to hold their beer or wash their socks!).

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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

@boarder2020 has it about right. Baseline you can do a season pretty cheaply without dressing in rags and eating catfood if you treat it like a lifestyle not a holiday. So that might mean you have the odd beer at apres rather than larging it every day, cook for yourself rather than meals out. Spending time down the gym/pool etc in the evenings rather than more nightlife.

Then there are baseline+ things involving a car purchase/long term rental for extra flexibility/enable roadtrips etc.

Above that you can spend as much as you want. It's easier if you adopt the mindset that the skiing/boarding every day is your reward though rather than the other nice things in life. You can still treat yo'self just not every day.

In fact I'd say that's the major drawback of a gap year style course - I lived in the hostel in Fernie one winter and a bunch of Norwegian students came in a gap yah type programme. They a) were obviously pretty wealthy anyway and b) had Norwegian krone spending power. The amount of new ski kit they burnt through and the clubbing everynight would have been hard for anyone to keep up with. There is a keeping up with the Jones factor in that sort of crowd and it can end in spending more time hungover than actually skiing.

That and everyone who isn't trying it on with spectalcular Norse blondes or hench Viking studs, thinks the gap -yah cliques are well a bit too cliquey, so you don't meet many people beyond your immediate circle.

I'll throw in a +1 for Canada, and some specific info if Fernie ends up being your place - which I highly recommend, I spent winter 2019/20 there and honestly miss it every day.

Personally I get a lot out of tuition and love being pushed and learning the technical side of skiing, so I did Nonstop's 11 week course (no intention of being an instructor). It's 4 days a week tuition, starts with ironing out your basics, then gets fun. There are shorter courses - 5 weeks or so - if sorting out your technique sounds appealing but 11 weeks isn't. I was 36 when I was there and yes, quite a lot of people are young, but there is a mix. Made some great friends of all ages. A few people are parentally bank-rolled... but more of the youngsters scrimped and saved for YEARS to go. If you do shorter courses, the age group is older.

These courses are exxy, but (for Nonstop at least) if you get in touch with them, they can give you an instruction-only fee, which is WAY cheaper than full course fee (inc accommodation & meals). I got my own apartment and just used Nonstop for my pass, lessons, bus. Also got lucky and found a room in a local's apartment, so didn't even have to pay seasonal housing rates (I paid about CAD$650/month!).

Worth mentioning for Fernie, the ski area is about 5km out of town. It's Canada, everyone hitches all the time, but if you don't want to do that then you either need a car, to get the town bus (which adds up), or the Nonstop bus.

You won't get tired of Fernie. Don't compare the stats to a European resort (same for all of North America really!), because you can ski the whole space. Fernie is pretty avy-prone terrain, so after a dump of snow, often areas won't open until partway through the day (one patrol have sorted them) and you get a whole fresh bowl in the middle of the day. Also mid-week Fernie is the stuff of dreams. There's literally no-one there.

As a town, I really loved it and that was a HUGE concern of mine. It's a town in it's own right, without the ski industry, but the mountains attract all sorts of people who are passionate about the outdoors. Lots of decent food options, good grocery, good gyms, a couple of decent cafes, good local beer, one of the best Japanese restaurants I've ever been to, fun bars, a weirdly popular local ice hockey team, cinema, live music. I'd live there in a heartbeat!

Jealous. Am trying to work out how I can move my entire life to a ski town!

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Thanks for all the info guys, I'm pretty set on Fernie at this point.

I'll probably play the accommodation and tuition by ear, tuition only non stop is tempting but I'll end up doing a spattering of private lessons.

I figure accommodation won't fill until November-ish? Although with covid and all, maybe it'll fill up earlier than usual.

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rhizo, For season accommodation, I would think it will fill before November

@rhizo, clearly not Fernie, but in relation to timing of booking The Urban Retreat hostel in Big White already has prices ( dorm and private rooms) and is replying to emails about next year......+1 to being jealous and wishing you well with your plans!

You know it makes sense.

Following this as KK junior is looking to go to Canada for a gap year. He has a job to go to & visa arranged.

AIUI Canada is not accepting tourists at the moment. To gain entry you need to have a job arranged or residency. You have to quarantine in a govt approved hotel for a min of 3 days and then either remain there or go to a private residence or accommodation that is not shared. Travel by public transport is not permitted.

Of course this may change before the autumn and winter, but it's not going to be as easy as it once may have been.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

My own approach is just not to lay out cash for anything which isn't simply and clearly refundable if
Covid causes any issues to any party, and also not to lend cash to any company I think may not survive.
It's actually less risky that normal, in that respect, as companies why want to do business have to offer that guarantee.

Sure, none of us know what will happen, but compared to the start of the 19/20 season we're in a vastly
stronger position to respond to what comes clinically.

I'm with Mr 2020 on this one. Whilst we don't know what will happen, the most likely scenario is
that 21/22 is going to be very busy and the sort of people who visit Canada will have money to spend.

Screw waiting for "new surprises", I'm heading to the mountains for snowboarding in 3 days time.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

You'll need to Register first of course.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Look I'm personally not booking anything in Canada right now because there is still some uncertainty. Looking at the stage the UK is in now, and Canada's vaccination program it's not a stretch to think things will be resembling normal before Christmas. If booking make sure you have a decent refund policy. Or just worry about everything and never ski again, your plane could crash on route anyway, there could be a new pandemic, or perhaps measles will become vaccine resistant etc.

After all it is free

Help!!

Canada or Europe for a season

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