In February 2004 I got the opportunity to travel to Canada for five days of skiing.  My good friend Tim P. got "clearance from the tower" as well, which is no small feat for either of us since our wives had to endure continuous pre-school action with little or non-existent quiet time.  God bless them for indulging our passion - if it were me at home with kids for days on end, we might end up with n-1 children...

Our travels took us through Calgary to Canmore, a small town just outside of Banff National Park.  The scenery was truly stunning and what was I had envisioned from all the publications I had read.  We skied the first day at Sunshine Village, a sprawling above-timberline resort reminiscent of the Three Valley's in Europe.  I had to rely on our now mutual friend Miro M for that comparison as he has traveled extensively throughout Europe.

Day two saw us at Lake Louise.  Aside from the absolute bone-chilling cold (my camera froze on the front-side for about 30 minutes), this was a great day - the weather was 100% perfect with deep blue skies and a slight warming trend throughout the morning.  The front-side offered 4,000 feet of groomers while the back-side was quite the antithesis - full-on steep bowl-chute-rock-tree skiing.  Miro left for Calgary to manage an industry trade show booth while Tim and I sped our way westward on Canada 1 through Banff and Yoho National Parks to the industrial cum recreational town of Golden, BC.

Kicking Horse Resort (KHR), formerly Whitetooth Ski Area, was the destination for day three.  KHR was purchased several years ago and has seen some major upgrades recently, most notably the 4,100 foot eight-person gondola.  This lift, and the lone triple chair way up in one of the four glaciated hanging valleys up top, offers a dizzying array of 800-1,000 foot descents, all which originate from thigh-burning traverses just below knife-edge ridges.  Some of the lines require a considerable effort to reach.  In short, this place kicks a**.  Imagine Alta crossed with Snowbird with a little Jackson Hole thrown in for good measure and you might begin to understand the massiveness of the place and the snow quality.

From KHR, we drove southward on 95 to Invermere, BC, to visit our fourth resort of the trip - Panorama Ski Resort.  This place was in almost direct contrast to KHR - it was built up with many slope-side lodging opportunities to bring in the skiing/snowboarding masses.  My thought is that it was needed perhaps to offer something for the mediocre skiing terrain.  While Tim had a good time here, I was not not impressed.  It could have been due to the hard conditions, the lack of grooming, and the questionable snow conditions/depth, but I just could not get going.  I quit around 2:30 to take pictures and put a few Kokanee's out of their misery.

From Panorama, we drove north a few miles and then east on 93 through Kootenay National Park to get back to Canmore.  The next morning we met up with Miro and skied Sunshive Village again bit this time for only two hours because of the 2pm plane Tim and I had to make.

Please enjoy the pictures!