ASSIST AND SOS MIRROR — IF EQUIPPED

[The Great Grape Ape]

Love Revey, my cousin lives out there, ski there often, and do that stretch of road often including a lot of backcountry exploring & skiing. It famously has lotsa cell deadspot in all directions.

I love it just as much as Jackson Hole (which is way more packed), and along with Blackomb & Alta are my top 4 resorts.

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[homerun]

I need more Powder Highway in my life, while driving my new JT! How is Sunshine, Lake Louise, and Norquay? What about Fernie and Kicking Horse? Revelstoke is the only place I have ridden on your side of the wall. If you ever come down here you should put Telluride on the list, awesome town and hill. The back side of vail is great on a powder day, but a bit to touristy for me.

 

[The Great Grape Ape]

Apologies to BillyHw for temporary thread hijack.

I need more Powder Highway in my life, while driving my new JT! How is Sunshine, Lake Louise, and Norquay? What about Fernie and Kicking Horse? Revelstoke is the only place I have ridden on your side of the wall. If you ever come down here you should put Telluride on the list, awesome town and hill. The back side of vail is great on a powder day, but a bit to touristy for me.

Louise has some great varied terrain, but the step & deep is only accessed by a Poma lift, but Whitehorn2 is great on a good snow day. Good Tree skiing on the south side & Larch is great.
Go to the Chateau for dinner, or Baker Creek a few dozen KMs down the old highway.

Sunshine is busy, but has good terrain in Goat’s Eye, and if you have a beacon and avi gear then Delirium Dive is a great chute, and worth it. Go to Banff for dinner.

Nakiska is a blue run hill in every way, can get snow when some others don’t but it’s always packed because of their discount passes. However the Glades are nice if you like tree skiing (but Sunshine and the larch and farth South Louise glades are better). If you go past the ropes some great terrain, but their patrollers monitor now and punch tickets (didn’t 5+ years ago).

Speaking of discounts, Norquay is the smallest and cheapest in the area, but on a Great powder day there are two great runs, essentially a branch of the same one Corvid’s that is among the top 5 steepest ‘in bounds’ runs in N.America, but rather short and no cool features like Corbet’s.

Kicking Horse is GREAT with two very large bowls (Super Bowl and FeuzBowl [still call it Foosball]) that are serviced with traverses, but unfortunately you have to the bottom to get back to the good stuff... but it means it’s also not tracked out too. TerminatornRidge and Whitewal are worth the hike but brung Avi gear again. The peak restaurant (Eagle’s Nest) is good, and higher quality food but not as good selection as many of the US posh ski restos, kinda like the Rockford at Revey but more steak & potatoes.

To the west of Revey, Sun Peaks is a great resort with something for everyone, but with some really good challenging terrain, especially if you take a hike, and with a very centrally located groups of hills making it easy to split up and meet again at lunch etc. It’s also not as busy, and often overlooked with Revey right nearby.

IN the south..

Fernie gets puked on with snow but it can be wet (similar to Whitefish MT, but no fog, and the terrain is better at Fernie). Nice little ski town in winter near US border, so can entertain on a rainy day... but not two in a row. I ski there often due to free accomodation from a co-worker.

Castle can get more snow drier stuff too and has good terrain atbthe outside edges of the resort, plus variable pricing low cost CAT skiing, but it gets blown off the hill shortly after an Epic dump, so it can be icey and a bite bare 72 hours after a storm. It has next to no ammenities, which is good on a powder day, sucks on a bad day, or worse on a -35 with 70MPH winds day, nothing nearby for good lodging except a hostel elevated to hotel status. But great skiing on a great day.

The best in the region for snow WAS Fortress used to get the most on the east-side of the Rockies, but it is closed and now only upper-mid price Cat skiing, but may reopen according to constant rumours ( I has season passes there for years), it’s Where they shot Inception and The Revenant. The terrain has great glades, but it’s short. However if they ever cut it to the highway it would be the largest skiable elevation in N.Am. surpassing Revey.

In between there’s Panorama near Radium and Lake Invermere, turn-off halfway between Banff and Lake Louise from the Trans Canada. Good varied terrain, challenging, some interesting Glades but sort of a mid-level mountain.

Kimberly is tiny, but a lovely town, but just a warm-up hill, Nakiska is bigger and more challenging.

Red Mountain further into the interior over in Rossland is Great, and recently had both a major run/trail increase and a big boost to the amenities. I like it because it can often be empty when the others are packed, and the skiing is good.

Whitewhater in Nelson is OK, and the tree skiing is great, but more of a blue-run hill again.


I’ve skied Telluride and Crested Butte, but I like Tahoe and SLC (Alta & Snowbird particularly) to fit in a lot of runs in my trips, but I LOVE Jackson , Grand Targhee & Big Sky for the EPIC trek of great hills for steep&deep terrain and good resort assisted slack-country.

But mostly I ski Revey, KickingHorse, Louise and Fernie multiple times a year depending on who has snow.

It’s been snowing here for about a week, gonna go out for first turns sometime next week, can’t wait, and definitely need to get legs ready for the burn.

 

[homerun]

Wow lots of great info, I took some notes, got a 2 year old I am teaching the ropes to locally this winter but hope to get back to some storm chasing, bigger 4 day weekend type trips in a season or 2 again.

Sorry BillyHW my JT is at least a year out. The lifts will be turning at most resorts this week or next!

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