Need Canada Ski Trip Advice

[IdahoSkiGirl]

I am in the beginning stages of planning a Canada trip for next ski season. We are thinking about staying in British Columbia and then going to some Northern Idaho and Montana ski resorts on the way back into the United States. In BC we will have time to ski at 2-3 resorts. We have made a list of BC resorts that some of us have already skied and/or would like to ski (e.g., Fernie, Kicking Horse, Panorama, Red Mountain, etc...).

For those of you who either live in BC or have traveled to the resorts, I would love some advice on which 2 or 3 resorts you think we should visit. All skiers will be expert and want a mixture of terrain (off piste, groomers, etc...). I would love to hear your suggestions for which resorts we should visit. Also, what time of year would you suggest taking the trip? We were thinking of going in December, January or February..which month would have the best snow?

Thank you

 

[Jilly]

Firstly - February - best snow!! Kicking Horse is not for the timid. Panorama, Big White, Fernie, Silver Star, Red have every kind of terrain. Check out www.Skican.ca. Our Alberta Diva's will be of more help.

 

[IdahoSkiGirl]

Thank you for your help! I really appreciate any advice

 

[Calgal]

I think Jilly is right....February is the right month, and all those places are great. Panorama and Fernie are both places that I have been, since I took up skiing again four yrs ago. I was at Fernie three weeks ago, and we were rained out one day.
I really like both places and the terrain will be great for you and your ski friends. They've had tons of snow this yr.... Kicking Horse is also supposed to be alot of fun. You really can't go wrong....just plan your vacation days and wait till you see who has the nicest conditions closer to when you want to leave. All the best and enjoy Canada !

 

[Bella Skier]

BC Ski Trip

I agree February is the best month. As for destination, how much driving do you want to do? If you went to the "Interior" of BC, you can hit Big White, Silver Star, Apex and Sun Peaks in one trip if you want. They're all smallish, family-friendly mountains (compared to resorts like Whistler) with dry snow and variety. Kicking Horse really needs another lift before I'd recommend spending several days there, but you can link it with days at Lake Louise in Alberta. If you do Fernie, I'd also recommend combining that trip with Castle Mountain, a small hill with steep, deep snow and great fall lines (Fernie has slightly weird fall lines). I totally recommend Red Mountain and it's predominantly an expert hill. Hope this helps.

 

[IdahoSkiGirl]

I really appreciate your feedback. So, Bella Skiier, Jilly, and CalGal, if you had to choose 3 resorts which would you pick/suggest? I will be with two other skiiers who have been to Panorama, Red Mountain, and have been cat skiing in the Selkirks. Now, they said that Red Mountain only had two chairs (maybe they are thinking of another area)... is that true?

 

[Bella Skier]

I really appreciate your feedback. So, Bella Skiier, Jilly, and CalGal, if you had to choose 3 resorts which would you pick/suggest? I will be with two other skiiers who have been to Panorama, Red Mountain, and have been cat skiing in the Selkirks. Now, they said that Red Mountain only had two chairs (maybe they are thinking of another area)... is that true?

Well, if you want to hit Montana/Idaho on the way back, it's probably more efficient to stay on the eastern part of BC/western part of Alberta, rather than go to the interior. Yes, Red only has about three chairs (but they've closed early this year to do some major upgrades), but it's one of those grassroots, undeveloped hills with "secret" extreme skiing places.

Having said that, when I go on ski vacations with other people I sometimes like staying in more resort-type places with the option of visiting small hills for a day. Therefore, maybe you could stay in Banff and ski Lake Louise and Sunshine, then go down to Fernie and ski it and Castle Mountain. Or, do Panorama and Kimberley before Fernie and Castle.

It would be useful to know how big of ski hills you want? How important is it to have a substantial-sized town? For example, you'd probably be staying on the hill at Panorama, which has great hot pools but only two restaurants, one ski shop, one grocery store and one rental shop, and it's 18km to the the town of Invermere. Kimberley is a cute hill but the town itself is a dive. Do you want night life? Restaurants or cooking in? Shopping?

 

[Jilly]

We need to hear from lil mountain girl. She's the local BC Diva living in the Kootney's. Heh gal we need your input here!!

 

[Gloria]

You may want to look into Whitewater as well. Small by lift access, huge off piste, lots of trees, great snow. ( The locals would kill me for posting this here ) If you have the funds, look into some of the cat skiing offered as well, some places I think do one or two day trips
20 - 30k vertical per day. Retallack is one that I think does.

 

[IdahoSkiGirl]

It would be useful to know how big of ski hills you want? How important is it to have a substantial-sized town? For example, you'd probably be staying on the hill at Panorama, which has great hot pools but only two restaurants, one ski shop, one grocery store and one rental shop, and it's 18km to the the town of Invermere. Kimberley is a cute hill but the town itself is a dive. Do you want night life? Restaurants or cooking in? Shopping?

We don’t want anything too glitzy. I think Panorama or Fernie would be the largest resort we would like. We usually ski 20-30k a day at our local resort in Idaho (but most of that vertical is by high speed quads). We will also bring our backcountry equipment…just in case we get adventurous.

How feasible would it be to 1) ski Fernie; 2) go on to Panorama; 3) then go to Kimberly and Whitewater? Are there other resorts you would suggest other than these?

As the date nears for us to head north if any of you would like to meet us please, please feel free! I know at our resort we hate sharing out “secret off piste” terrain ;)

 

[IdahoSkiGirl]

You may want to look into Whitewater as well. Small by lift access, huge off piste, lots of trees, great snow. ( The locals would kill me for posting this here ) If you have the funds, look into some of the cat skiing offered as well, some places I think do one or two day trips
20 - 30k vertical per day. Retallack is one that I think does.

Gloria, thank you for the "tip". The people I am going with did a cat trip in Canada some years ago... they said it was a lot of fun. I think for this trip we will just stay to resorts and plan a cat skiing trip for the following winter

 

[treebunny]

we just got back from a bc tour. we skied lake louise, sunshine village, panorama, and fernie. between lake louise and sunshine, we liked lake louise more, the terrain was more interesting and less trouble with white outs though both areas are plaqued withthem as they have a lot of area above the treeline. sunshine on a crowded day is a problem because everyone has to ride the gondola up to the area. panorama has nice terrain but their base was 3 feet or less and i think that is typical. they were measuring their new and potential snow in mm's.we skied in the rain for free and had fun but wished it was better conditions as they look like they have fun glades. fernie was our favorite overall. their base was more substantial and held up to the adverse weather we were getting better(re:no grass patches). the terrain is interesting there is glades its mostly below the treeline so not so much problem with whiteouts and it seems like it might be sheltered from wind pretty good. the lift layout seems pretty good overall and your not on cattracks very often. all the areas could use more highspeeds.

 

[Bella Skier]

I recommend you go on-line to find the distances between the towns to see whether you think you'd like to drive those distances in the winter. Fernie-Panorama-Kimberley-Whitewater is a bit of a triangle. In the end, I don't think you could lose going to any of the resorts!

 

[treebunny]

actually, we drove from everett, wa to spokane, coeur delene then north on 97? through sandpoint, over the border, up the columbia valley to the transcanada into louise. came back through radium hot springs (nice day diversion) over to panorama then down to 3 to fernie. all the driving was pretty comfortable and the roads in canada especially were very good. and we were in an rv. all the passes on this route were easy.you can easy ski day, drive to the next place, ski the nxt day and on down through the loop. we would have skied more areas but the weather was not cooperating

 

[Gloria]

check this site out

I went to the Whitewater site and clicked ont cat and Heli ski under their vacation heading. If you click on view under big red cats, at the bottom, you will find " The kootenay Powder package" Four days
of skiing two different areas, and I know I'm such a pusher, two days of cat skiing for $1500.00 with lodging in Nelson. I am not sure if you will spend less doing it any other way, but my god if you can do any cat-skiing in BC I can honestly say, do it!!!!!!!!! It is really easy to get from Nelson to N Montana and Nelson is low key, pretty cool and the people there are awsome. Some of the best around. And honestly, the selkirks are bar none the best place I have ever skied.

 

[Bella Skier]

Just be careful the snowpack and avalanche conditions are much higher in February...

 

[IdahoSkiGirl]

Thank you all for your wonderful advice. We are going to sit down some time this week, look at distances between the resorts and determine how much time we want to spend at each resort. After we get some idea of a plan I will make another post or send a private message and get your opinion. I really have appreciated all of your advice. This is such a wonderful forum :D

 

[lil mountain girl]

sorry it took me so long!

hopefully i can steer you into the right direction as the selkirks are my home range! :D

firstly, i'd actually recomend january . . . mid february tends to be a bit of a cold snap for us in the past (this yr was kind of weird, though).

secondly, i also recomend checking out red. it's a pretty "small" hill in regards to lifts, but they've got hella terrain -- lots of which is intermediate and advanced! and the snow at red's pretty good provided it's cold enough. and if you do go to red, ask locals about terrain . . . cause some of it's really hard to find!

ok, gloria, since you brought it up (and yes, the locals are getting grumpy!!) . . . whitewater is good. it's small -- 2 (aging) lifts, and doesn't have a ton of terrain -- but it's about quality here, not quantity (mostly advanced/expert -- steep, glades, etc.).
speaking of quality, wh20 tends to have the best quality snow, period.
just don't tell anybody :p

i'd also recomend fernie. they can get good snow conditions plus have phenominal terrain -- having opened up several bowls in the past few seasons.

kicking horse is great if your looking for dramatic terrain . . . also really good if the southern kootenays are really warm. the rockies and rocky mt trench (ie: golden) tend to be colder and dryer.

not too sure about panorama . . . never skied there, myself, but i haven't hear anything special about it (sorry, panorama fans!).
personally, i'd skip it. there are tastier fish to fry!

backcountry . . . lots of good opportunities!
definatly bring your gear. locals are usually a good source of info. also check out www.avalanche.ca and click on the canadian avalanche centre link. they post avalanche bulletins for lots of regions and are a great source of information for anything mountain related.
there is also a guidebook for the area if you're interested -- i think it's for the selkirk/columbia region?

hope this helps!

lil mtn girl

 

[Thatsagirl]

If you are all really experts, don't bother with Panorama or Kimberley. Both are very tame mountains, more geared to intermediates and lower-level advanced skiers.

If you like funky, retro resorts you should try to include Red and Whitewater. And this region is reknown for backcountry, as lil mountain girl said.

Fernie is a favorite of ours, far enough from civilization not to get crowded, and a real backcountry feel to the place, with all its bowls.

Kicking Horse has some gnarly steeps, but it can be a real feast or famine there. During our visit, we couldn't ski any of the steeps because the Pineapple Express had gone through and made them downright dangerous. Over the past few years, several friends have had similar experiences with lack of snow. (But for future reference, if you want some great cat skiing, look into Chatter Creek, which requires a heli flight from Golden and has some terrain on glaciers. ;) )

I've written articles about Red and Fernie if you're interested (haven't yet posted articles about KH or Kimberley):
https://www.letsplantrips.com/articles.php

Thatsagirl

 

[cyn]

We skied Fernie last year and loved it. It is absolutely huge, we had no liftlines, and there is definitely something for everyone. Here's the URL for an independent web site run by a guy who lives there and gives honest weekly reports - with photos - on Fernie conditions. We relied on it for our trip planning, because we always decide where we're going based on the snow conditions. This year, Fernie was unlucky in the weather department.
https://far.redtree.com/cgi-bin/far/index.py

You should also give some serious thought to Lake Louise and Sunshine in Banff.