Sunshine Skiing

So the first ski weekend of the season is over and done with and the sore muscles and aches are starting to fade leaving only the fantastic memories. We stayed at the Lake Louise Alpine Hostel on the Friday night and were glad that we were heading to Banff to ski on the Saturday as there was only one run and lift open at Lake Louise itself. We didn't get up to the chateau so I can still leave that particular treat until Mum and Dad arrive. We had brilliant early season skiing, much much better than I was expecting and I got thoroughly into carving on the snowboard again which was great. It's a little slower at the top of the hill on a board compared with skis, but it more than makes up for it on the way down when you pull that great turn and just swoop across the slope. The snow cover was surprisingly good and the icy parts were pretty obvious. There was even some soft untracked snow if you knew where to look and by the end of the weekend we'd looked pretty much everywhere and got our share of delightfully cruisy fresh stuff. We skiied almost all the runs on offer at the top of the resort and used the Angel quad, Strawberry, Standish and WaWa chairlifts, ignoring the smaller Jackrabbit and Wolverine lower down as they looked a bit lower on snow cover. The Goats Eye part of the hill wasn't open yet and it looked like it will require an awful lot more snow before it's rideable.

We stayed at the Sunshine Inn on the slopes which made the whole experience just that much more fun, having lunch in our room and being to get all the outer layers off without worrying too much that we were taking up too much table space or what have you and not having to deal with the lunchtime hordes at the day lodge. Col had come down with a cold on the Friday that we went up which was a shame but she gamely skiied half the day on Saturday and all day Sunday with us which was awesome. Here's a little of her style


Col carving...

Of course the resort is called Sunshine and we had sunshine the whole weekend. It would have been ideal if it had snowed a bit overnight, but that only ever seems to happen the night that you leave, so maybe a three day weekend next time? :-)


Col & Steve kitted up and ready to go...