Skiing 2007

My friends Robin and Todd and I went skiing in Banff last week. We invited a bunch of other folks, but only my friends Tony and Liz could come, and their trip overlapped ours by only two days because of their work schedules.


Robin and Todd in the liquor store parking lot in Calgary
Here's our normal agenda:
Saturday - Travel
Sunday - Ski
Monday - Ski
Tuesday - Day off, take a tour of the park or do something else
Wednesday - Ski
Thursday - Half-day ski, depending on how we feel. Take it easy.
Friday - Spend in nearest big town
Saturday - Fly home

After two days, you're too beat up to ski anymore, and you need a day off. This way we plan a non-ski activity (this year we drove up to the Columbia Icefields) in order to recuperate. Then we ski some more, and go back to the nearest big town where the airport is to spend the weekend. That way you don't have to pack up and drive a few hours to the airport, you get a hotel in town for the night and have a leisurely lunch and then get on the plane.

We each submitted our top ski resorts, and tried to pick one from both lists. Our criteria were:
1) Snowboarding allowed. Robin's knees have been deteriorating, and so I agreed to try snowboarding for the first time with her this year. Some resorts don't allow snowboarders.
2) Easy to get there. No four-hour drives, multiple plane connections, etc.
3) Somewhere we haven't been to before. Every year we go somewhere new.
4) Spring skiing, we narrowed down the timeframe to the last week in February. No skiing in New Zealand or Chile this year.
5) Decent nightlife. Robin likes to have fun.

Here's my list:

Lake Tahoe/Squaw Valley - great for snowboarding, they have six different snowboarding parks, from beginner to expert. Great night life, other mountains nearby. Not too expensive to travel. Negative - You've been there before. Probably crowded.

Vail/Beaver Creek - highly rated for snowboarding, one of the best on every list. Good night life. Negative - expensive

Banff - 30 minutes down the road from Lake Louise, but there's a town there and a lot more nightlife. Calgary is about an hour down the road. Absolutely beautiful. Negative - expensive to travel.

Park City - Very close to Salt Lake City, and the best snow anywhere. Only negative is we've been there before.

Mammoth Mountain, CA - Big on snowboarding. Three pipes and a half-dozen parks. Yosemite is right next door. Negative - not that easy to get to.

Whistler - We've been, but there was nothing wrong at all, huge mountains, great town, beautiful drive up the coast. Might be a little expensive more to fly there.

Others:
Sun Valley - I went there last year and the snow was terrible, but they had unusually hot weather, but still close to being on my list.
Breckenridge - I've been there and I got terrible altitude sickness. I don't want to risk it.
Mt. Bachelor, OR - Might be fun, nothing stands out. Very close to being on my list.
Keystone, CO - Very close to being on my list.
Lake Louise, Alberta - I don't think there's much in the village. Banff might be better for nightlife.
Solitude, Utah - Park City would be more fun, I think.

Here's Robin's list:

Vail - expensive, but lots to do and we don't need a car. Good skiing.

Mt. Bachelor, OR - about 2 hrs away from a major city, but there is a shuttle. We stay in a town that has things to do and can take a shuttle to the mountain or drive. Something different. If we flew into Portland we could do some sightseeing.

Sun Valley - hard to get to, nightlife is sketchy. I've never been to Idaho. If it's good enough for the movie stars it's good enough for me.

Keystone, CO - has a few bars, kid friendly and that might be a problem, but good skiing and reasonably priced.

Lake Louise, Alberta- gorgeous, just gorgeous, 2 hrs from Calgary and Calgary was cold last time we were there. Temp. might be a problem. Nice village- things to do. Did I mention gorgeous?

Solitude, Utah - it's called solitude for a reason. Locals go here so it's not crowded. Good skiing and right outside Salt Lake, but nightlife is dismal. I sent them an e-mail about things to do.

Breckenridge, CO - lots to do and accessible. Good skiing, but crowded. Very popular.

The two that were in common to both lists were Banff/Lake Louise and Vail. Here's Robin's response:

We have Vail and Banff in common, but they are the two most expensive. Well, we've either been to one of these places, they are expensive or hard to get to. What's the least important to us? Money... I say Canada. I can grow to love the maple leaf. That's my top pick... Beauty and nightlife. That's all you need. If we have to drive somewhere it might as well be to someplace outstanding and world renowned.

Banff is a big ski town, maybe about the size of Aspen. Lake Louise is about 30 minutes away, and there's the chateau and not a whole lot else, because the Canadian National Park Service Mounties restrict development. They have different mountains to ski. I stayed in Banff last year and drove up to Lake Louise one day. Lake Louise is the most beautiful place in the universe. It was September and no snow on the ground at the time, although it did snow a little bit.

We decided to stay in Banff because of the nightlife, ski Sunshine Mountain for a couple of days, and then make a trip up to Lake Louise during the week to ski. Robin made the arrangements for the accomodations, and we got a great three-bedroom two bath condo in Banff at the Hidden Ridge Resort.






We saw lots of wildlife out there, including these guys
















And this visitor early one morning









The view was awesome, and I plan to post some more pictures soon, but for right now I put all my pictures on Flicker here. Our day off was great, we drove up to the Columbia Icefields, and saw unbelievable views of mountains, glaciers, frozen waterfalls, and other natural-type stuff.

Here's the view from my double Johnny Walker Black past the two foo-foo drinks, out the window of the Lakeview Lounge at the Chateau Lake Louise.