Just booked a trip to Banff!

[Jersey Fresh]

Hubby and I are going for a week in February. I can't wait. We got a good deal on flights using miles and the exchange rate makes lift tickets really affordable, so we booked yesterday.

Anyone have suggestions for finding a condo to rent (if that's within budget)? I stayed at the Fairmont and then some lodge (couldn't afford the Fairmont once I was on vacation and work wasnt paying for it) when I was there for work.

Also, this is sort of a pseudo honeymoon because we got married in September and were planning on taking a big trip this winter (Galapogos Islands-we are both scientists) but my job is shaky so I didnt feel comfortable spending that kind of money on a trip right now. So we tabled the trip and stuck the funds in a "do not spend unless somethign happens at work" account). Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for a nicer place to have dinner one night, please let me know.

 

[DanniAB]

Oh wow! Congrats on the honeymoon ski trip!
Fairmont is grossly overpriced. Anywhere but there is a good deal.
I would suggest Hidden Ridge https://banffhiddenridge.com . It's the only condo resort with large outdoor hot pools & reasonably priced (it's cheaper than all other condos because it's the farthest from town - but still only a 8 minute drive.) I've stayed there twice.

The Grizzly House is a trendy restaurant, it's a fondue place serving all sorts of exotic meats. It was a neat experience. (It's expensive though, and honestly a novelty splurge. So if budget is a worry, then I personally would skip it).

 

[Jenny]

I got a lot of good in my thread here: https://www.theskidiva.com/forums/index.php?threads/banff.20974/

And I'll be reporting on how the trip went, too. Can't wait! It's 70F here today, which makes it kind of hard to believe I'll get to ski soon.

 

[alison wong]

@Jersey Fresh : do you belong to Epic ski website?

It has couple threads about hotels in Banff:

https://www.epicski.com/t/147154/banff-hotels-and-a-couple-of-questions
https://www.epicski.com/t/147856/question-about-shuttle-bus-from-banff-to-ski-areas#post_2024054

Banff Aspen Lodge seems to be a popular choice among skiers. It has breakfast included and it is quite good.

 

[Albertan ski girl]

Woo hoo!

What dates are you here? let me know! i'm always up for a mountain or town tour.

If you have a car, and are ok with driving to the resorts - I would suggest a condo in Canmore. I can recommend several. I love them because they are convenient (with kitchens etc), usually much nicer and more stylish than Banff, and quieter (for a romantic atmosphere).

If you don't have a rent-a-car, Banff is just much easier to stay in in order to have easy access on the resorts via shuttle. Any of the hotel/motels along Banff Ave will generally be fine. Stay away from the Red Carpet Inn though - I hated our stay there.

If you do want a condo, your best bets in Banff are Banff Rocky Mountain Resort, Hidden Ridge and Douglas Fir. Note that if you plan on taking a shuttle to the resorts, both Hidden Ridge and Douglas Fir will be a pain, as you will have to take a bus to the shuttle stop, and then the shuttle stop to the resorts.

Canmore also has amazing restaurants. Tapas in Canmore is amazing is our go-to romantic weekend/anniversary/any special occasion restaurant.

https://www.tapascanmore.ca/

We also love crazyweed, and Communitea Cafe in Canmore for lunch.

if you like vegetarian fare (or just really interesting food) - Nourish Bistro in Banff is amazing.

https://www.nourishbistro.com/

Three Ravens at the Banff Centre is pretty great:

https://www.banffcentre.ca/three-ravens-restaurant-wine-bar

Wild Flour bakery in Banff is great for breakfasts.

Feel free to drop a note here or PM me if you have any questions!

 

[Jersey Fresh]

@alison wong thanks ill look at those!

@Albertan ski girl we fly in 2/8 to calgary and well head up to Banff on the 9th, and we leave the morning of the 15th. A meet up would be awesome!!

We are on the fence about the car-the tri mountain pass includes the shuttle, which I found really easy to use when I was up there, so we were going to see how expensive the airport shuttle was. How far is canmore? I remember stopping there on the way back to Calgary.

I'm not dead set on a condo, it would just be nice to be able to cook a few meals rather than eat out all week.

Have you ever done one of these?
https://www.skilouise.com/things-to...--the-ultimate-apres-ski-party-2017-02-14.php


Ill check those out and shoot you a PM!

 

[Jilly]

I took a shuttle from the airport direct to the hotel last fall. Let me make sure it was Brewster's. $ 128 return.

 

[Albertan ski girl]

@alison wong thanks ill look at those!

@Albertan ski girl we fly in 2/8 to calgary and well head up to Banff on the 9th, and we leave the morning of the 15th. A meet up would be awesome!!

We are on the fence about the car-the tri mountain pass includes the shuttle, which I found really easy to use when I was up there, so we were going to see how expensive the airport shuttle was. How far is canmore? I remember stopping there on the way back to Calgary.

I'm not dead set on a condo, it would just be nice to be able to cook a few meals rather than eat out all week.

Have you ever done one of these?
https://www.skilouise.com/things-to...--the-ultimate-apres-ski-party-2017-02-14.php


Ill check those out and shoot you a PM!

I think what you want to do depends very much on how you want to approach budget. Besides lift tickets, I would definitely say that eating out/food is the most expensive part of your stay. As you probably know, it's very easy with eating out to spend about $80-100 CAD per person per day, especially if you have drinks at dinner. But you would also save some by not renting a car and buying the tri-area lift tickets (about $95 CAD pp per ticket), and I think @Jilly is spot on about the price - about $130 return for the shuttle from the airport directly.

The other option (and I think this would probably be a little less money) would be to rent a car, stop at a Costco (there's one on the way to the mountains, and American Costco cards are good here) and buy lift tickets there (about $70 per person per lift ticket for Lake Louise and Sunshine), and stay at a condo while mostly cooking your own food. You could probably do food for a whole week for two people for about $150-$200. The disadvantage here is that it is a little bit more work - and if it's a honeymoon you may not want that. If you have bad weather, it's also more fun to have someone else do the driving. The advantage with the car though is that you can take a day and go to Lake Louise, and hang out around the lake, visit Yoho national park and go to Emerald Lake etc etc. You can see much much more of the area with a car.

Canmore is just outside the park gate (national park admission is free in 2017, for Canada's 150th anniversary), about 15 minutes from Banff, about 25 minutes from Sunshine, about 45-50 minutes from Lake Louise.

I haven't done the torchlight dinner - but I've heard it is a TON of fun. And the bus ride back is great!

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Hey ladies we are leaving next wens for our trip to Banff. I'm super excited!!

Couple questions:
1. Restaurant recs? well have a car so we can drive outside of Banff if needed
2. If I want to take a lesson, where would our best option be-SV or LL?
3. Any other must dos?

 

[Christy]

It's probably hard to think about non-skiing activities, but if you can spare any time, try to drive at least part of the Icefields Parkway. Maybe at least to Peyto Lake or Saskatchewan Crossing? It's really, really something; some say the most scenic drive in the world.
https://icefieldsparkway.com/

 

[Jenny]

Hey ladies we are leaving next wens for our trip to Banff. I'm super excited!!

Couple questions:
1. Restaurant recs? well have a car so we can drive outside of Banff if needed
2. If I want to take a lesson, where would our best option be-SV or LL?
3. Any other must dos?

I can highly recommend the Sticky Toffee Pudding at St. James Gate Pub. And I liked the Irish Lamb Stew I had for dinner, too.

We also had Indian at Masala, which we liked.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Thanks guys. Ill check all fo those out.

Were going to take a lesson for sure, hubby is feeling down in the dumps after a bad ski weekend last week and told me he was "skiing like crap". Just need to figure out when and where.

 

[Jenny]

@Albertan ski girl was touting the lessons at Lake Louise when we were planning our trip. She mentioned first tracks, lesson, and this link: https://www.skilouise.com/rentals-and-lessons/first-tracks-private-lessons.php

 

[Albertan ski girl]

Hey ladies we are leaving next wens for our trip to Banff. I'm super excited!!

Couple questions:
1. Restaurant recs? well have a car so we can drive outside of Banff if needed
2. If I want to take a lesson, where would our best option be-SV or LL?
3. Any other must dos?

Hi @Jersey Fresh - just a quick few things to suggest

1. If you have a car: Tapas - it's a fantastic tapas place in Canmore, and well worth it. Awesome food. i would make a reservation by phone or on opentable. https://www.tapascanmore.ca/
Eddie Burger Bar in Banff - really fun atmosphere and pretty darn good burgers! The Bear Street Tavern in Banff for the best pizza. And have breakfast one morning at Coyote's Southwestern Grill - it's awesome, and don't miss their freshly squeezed juices. amazing. SO and i went there for the first time a few weeks ago and felt stupid for never having been there before. If you will be in Lake Louise and have a car, go to the little mall in the village - have breakfast or lunch at The Trailhead Cafe - best breakfast sandwiches/wraps ever, and their elk stew is delicious!

2. I would definitely recommend LL for a lesson. Like @Jenny said above - First Tracks is a great deal. And I really love the instructors. But book ahead and ask for a CSIA level 4. You can also do a private at LL, and you have have up to 3 people in a private i think, so you and DH could do it together. Though SO and I like to do First Tracks separately. And definitely do the 2.5 hr First Tracks, it's nice to get the extra time. All of my best lessons have ben at Louise.

3. With a car, definitley drive up to Lake Louise, skate on the lake, have hot chocolate at the Fairmont. The other thing I love is to snowshoe up to Fairview Lookout at LL. If you have a half day - get some snowshoes at Wilson Mountain Sports ($10pp), drive up to Lake Louise, and head towards the trailhead on the left. Follow the signs up to Fairview Lookout, and you will get to a great little view point over all of Lake Louise, and it looks towards the ski resort and mountains. It's an awesome couple of hours. If you're willing to spend a day - I woudl suggest either drive up the Icefields Parkway to Bow Lake and Peyto Lake - you can snowshoe up to a viewpoint over Peyto Lake and it's not that far from the road. Alternately, you can take highway 1 into BC, past Lake Louise and past the town of Field to Emerald Lake. It's a beautiful place! There, you can rent some crosscountry skis and ski to the back of the lake and beautiful - if it's a sunny day it's amazing!

 

[Albertan ski girl]

Oh - and some photos. the snow is back! After a 2 week dry spell - it's been snowing here since Friday! SO and I spent the weekend up at Lake Louise. Here are some pics! The Ice Magic festival is on - so lots of ice sculptures by the lake. Found untracked at Louise today, in the gullies and with some windblown it was 30-40 cm deep in places, though the snowfall until today was only about 20 cm. Visibility was good for the first hour today and pitiful for the rest of the day. I couldn't keep my goggles dry. Only did one run in the back bowls - it was closed most of the morning for avalanche control, and then junior big mountain competition. 25 cm more forecast for tonight!
This is grizzly gully. We dropped in from the side, on the picture's left, through the trees - and there was untracked 30 cms everywhere. Awesome! This was right before the weather turned.


This is me on Meadowlark - a totally uninspiring black run on the far side of Louise. HOWEVER, it is a must on a big pow day - for whatever reason, nobody every goes down this run when it's dumping, and we were getting freshies here until lunch. Definitely a rarity on a weekend pow day.

And some photos from Ice Magic at Lake Louise:

 

[Jersey Fresh]

@Albertan ski girl Thank you!!!! That looks awesome, I am getting sooooo excited!

 

[Jenny]

Oh yeah - I forgot about the pizza. That WAS really good!

Sorry we missed the Ice Festival - that looks really cool! Guess maybe we WILL go back in January sometime . . . and I was going to wait until a warmer month!

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Ill post a more thorough update with pics later, but we are back and had an AWESOME time! Fresh powder the first two days, then sunny and gorgeous the rest of the trip.

The flights out were hell, and I am still pissed at Delta but the trip home was smooth.

We did 2 days at Sunshine and 3 at Lake. Hubby had a blast and the torch light dinner was a lot of fun

PS-we ended up at the Bear St Tavern twice for pizza. it was so good!

 

[Jenny]

Can't wait to hear all about it! We're still thinking about going back in March/April.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

OK sorry for the delay! We had a blast.

Trying to get out there was a nightmare and I am still mad at delta but thats another story. We got into Calgary late and stayed by the airport. Got up early and drove up to Banff. We skied Sunshine the first day, Lake the second. Skipped Saturday and just goofed around. Sunday at Sunshine, Monday and Tuesday at Lake.

Chris (my husband) struggled the first day with powder and visibility. Like full flegged meltdown on Green Run-I thought he was going to pop his skis off and walk down. I took him down below the tree line, gave him some beer at lunch and we were all good. Luckily for us, the sun came out the second day and he got off to a better start. Both of the first two days, we ended up in knee deep untracked powder and I was giggling like a moron squealing "I FEEL LIKE IM FLOATING!!!". Sure didn't look like a tourist there ;)

We tried at lot of things-we did the first tracks private which was great! I dont think I got a ton out of it, but he did. He was talking about his instructor all week. Mine was really good, and she did show me a fun cut off into a tree/bump run (I was standing on the drop in going NOPE). I don't think I have a favorite between the two-I thought Lake was more challenging but Sunshine reminded me a lot of ABasin for some reason. I was proud of my husband-I made a couple wrong turns and drug him down stuff that was pretty challenging and he did just fine-especially since this is only his second season.

We did the Valentines Torch Light and it was awesome! I do wish we had all of our friends for it, but it was still super fun! The food was really, really good as well.

For restaurants, we went to Bear Street Tavern for pizza (their smoked bison pizza and their wings are fantastic!) twice. Then we tried Toolouloos and Wildflower for Breakfast. We ate at Banff Ave brewing another night. Then we tried Grizzly Paw Brewing in Canmore another night (their Korean Cauliflower was SO SO good). I'm forgetting all but we didn't have a bad meal at all!

And the best part? I saw a moose! I lived in New England, the PNW and have been to so many national parks and never got to see one so I was super excited about that!

We're off to Whistler next Wens but would love to make it back to Banff in the next few years.