Albertan ski girl
Angel Diva
SO, DD, DS and I decided to try somewhere new over the New Year's holidays, but knew we wanted to drive somewhere and not fly. None of us had ever skied across the continental divide, so we decided to head for British Columbia, hoping that we would have lots of snow and freshies. We set off from Calgary on a beautiful day and had an amazing driving through the foothills and Crowsnest Pass to Fernie. We got there in a quick 3.5 hours with a stop over at Vito's in Crowsnest for some delicious pizza.
We stayed at a condo in town, on the lower floor of a family home (thanks to the skidivas on here, I was able to book it via alluradirect!) and it was great. We had 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen, a game room, tv room, netflix and....a HOT TUB! If anyone needs any recommendations for where to stay in Fernie and wants to stay in town, PM me and I can give you the contact info). The condo was 2 blocks from the historic downtown and a 5 minute drive from the ski resort, which was great for us. I do think next time we will try to stay on the hill, to have that 'ski-in, ski-out' experience, but I loved staying in town. The first night, we just explored the downtown and made a relaxing dinner at the condo.
We had three consecutive days of skiing, but it ended up being more like 2 and a half days. We first skied on Dec.31, and it was bitterly cold!!! -22 C, but with a windchill too. We got really dressed up for the day, and were ok for most of the day except when we were riding the lifts. The lifts at Fernie are slow! SLOW! If you go, get ready to spend at least 10 minutes on any of the lifts. We started out with some warm up runs on the lower mountain, which was great. We found the runs to be considerably more challenging than similarly rated runs here in Alberta. A Fernie blue is much more like a black at Sunshine Village or LL. But we loved the terrain- there are so many fun hidden surprises, amazing terrain and great features on all of the runs. For example, the first run of the day that we did ended in this green run called "Holiday." The end of Holiday is great because it has a really steep pitch, then you go under a series of cute little tunnels (the road runs up above), then ski a very very narrow (no more wide than the length of my skis) path that is also filled with big moguls coming in from the sides (where there are small chalets!) and end off under another tunnel that feeds you back to the base. The kids loved these little features and the variation in the terrain. There are also really fun runs and paths through the trees on the side of every run. The conditions were less than ideal - everything was skied out, snow starved and icy. These were probably the iciest conditions I've skied in...ever. Even icier than a spring day at Norquay.
In the afternoon, we went up to Lizard Bowl, and the snow was a bit better, but still really windswept and skied out. The ride up on the Boomerang lift got us really chilled and the kids were complaining that their fingers were numb. We got on a green cat track - Tower 6, I think - and then skied a bunch of blue runs off of it. This was a lot of fun! Much better snow in the bowls, but it was very very cold. We skied to the bottom, did one more turn on Holiday, and went inside for hot chocolate!
We were planning on getting to the hill early on New Year's Day - but we were all way too exhausted, so it turned into a half day of exploring the lower mountain and the terrain park. And more hot chocolate! It was still bitterly cold on Jan.1!
On our third day, we were planning on spending most of the day on the upper part of the mountain as it was finally warming up! -10C when we left the condo on the last morning. However, we got to the mountain and all of the lifts were closed except for 2 because of extreme wind! We did one lap on a lower mountain chair (Deer Chair) - not much exciting there, but spent some time in the trees with the kids. We then took the Timber chair up to the Siberia bowl, and skied down 'Falling Star', a blue run that is the longest one on the mountain. It was really windy when we got to the top, and there was a lot of blowing snow. The upper part of the run was great fun, with one really really steep and narrow pitch about half way down. However, we were unpleasantly surprised by fact that the run turned into a super long cat track at the end. The end of the run was painful. We took a break, and then headed to mid-mountain again (nothing had yet opened) and were treated to big wind and an icy ramp at the top of the Elk chair. Even there, it was pretty windblown, and we headed down some blues for a hot chocolate. For the last run of the day, we got up to the Lizard bowl again (the Boomerang lift opened at 2.30 or so), and did some blues back to the base.
Overall, we loved Fernie and would love to come back, even though we were limited as to where we could ski this time both by the cold and by the extreme wind closures. We were really disappointed by the conditions, and found ourselves longing for Sunshine's soft snow. But the variety of terrain and the mountains won't disappoint. This is a beautiful beautiful mountain! I think though that next time, we will hit it up in March! Fernie gets two thumbs up and left us smiling.
We stayed at a condo in town, on the lower floor of a family home (thanks to the skidivas on here, I was able to book it via alluradirect!) and it was great. We had 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen, a game room, tv room, netflix and....a HOT TUB! If anyone needs any recommendations for where to stay in Fernie and wants to stay in town, PM me and I can give you the contact info). The condo was 2 blocks from the historic downtown and a 5 minute drive from the ski resort, which was great for us. I do think next time we will try to stay on the hill, to have that 'ski-in, ski-out' experience, but I loved staying in town. The first night, we just explored the downtown and made a relaxing dinner at the condo.
We had three consecutive days of skiing, but it ended up being more like 2 and a half days. We first skied on Dec.31, and it was bitterly cold!!! -22 C, but with a windchill too. We got really dressed up for the day, and were ok for most of the day except when we were riding the lifts. The lifts at Fernie are slow! SLOW! If you go, get ready to spend at least 10 minutes on any of the lifts. We started out with some warm up runs on the lower mountain, which was great. We found the runs to be considerably more challenging than similarly rated runs here in Alberta. A Fernie blue is much more like a black at Sunshine Village or LL. But we loved the terrain- there are so many fun hidden surprises, amazing terrain and great features on all of the runs. For example, the first run of the day that we did ended in this green run called "Holiday." The end of Holiday is great because it has a really steep pitch, then you go under a series of cute little tunnels (the road runs up above), then ski a very very narrow (no more wide than the length of my skis) path that is also filled with big moguls coming in from the sides (where there are small chalets!) and end off under another tunnel that feeds you back to the base. The kids loved these little features and the variation in the terrain. There are also really fun runs and paths through the trees on the side of every run. The conditions were less than ideal - everything was skied out, snow starved and icy. These were probably the iciest conditions I've skied in...ever. Even icier than a spring day at Norquay.
In the afternoon, we went up to Lizard Bowl, and the snow was a bit better, but still really windswept and skied out. The ride up on the Boomerang lift got us really chilled and the kids were complaining that their fingers were numb. We got on a green cat track - Tower 6, I think - and then skied a bunch of blue runs off of it. This was a lot of fun! Much better snow in the bowls, but it was very very cold. We skied to the bottom, did one more turn on Holiday, and went inside for hot chocolate!
We were planning on getting to the hill early on New Year's Day - but we were all way too exhausted, so it turned into a half day of exploring the lower mountain and the terrain park. And more hot chocolate! It was still bitterly cold on Jan.1!
On our third day, we were planning on spending most of the day on the upper part of the mountain as it was finally warming up! -10C when we left the condo on the last morning. However, we got to the mountain and all of the lifts were closed except for 2 because of extreme wind! We did one lap on a lower mountain chair (Deer Chair) - not much exciting there, but spent some time in the trees with the kids. We then took the Timber chair up to the Siberia bowl, and skied down 'Falling Star', a blue run that is the longest one on the mountain. It was really windy when we got to the top, and there was a lot of blowing snow. The upper part of the run was great fun, with one really really steep and narrow pitch about half way down. However, we were unpleasantly surprised by fact that the run turned into a super long cat track at the end. The end of the run was painful. We took a break, and then headed to mid-mountain again (nothing had yet opened) and were treated to big wind and an icy ramp at the top of the Elk chair. Even there, it was pretty windblown, and we headed down some blues for a hot chocolate. For the last run of the day, we got up to the Lizard bowl again (the Boomerang lift opened at 2.30 or so), and did some blues back to the base.
Overall, we loved Fernie and would love to come back, even though we were limited as to where we could ski this time both by the cold and by the extreme wind closures. We were really disappointed by the conditions, and found ourselves longing for Sunshine's soft snow. But the variety of terrain and the mountains won't disappoint. This is a beautiful beautiful mountain! I think though that next time, we will hit it up in March! Fernie gets two thumbs up and left us smiling.
