Ski Canada

WEEK TWO

Great Views Great Snow!

Day 8

Ski Day #5

Banff Sunshine Resort, Banff Alberta

Temp 28’F

IKON Pass

Window Price: $125 /senior rate

Thursday January 15 2026

Woke up at my usual early hour..6am-ish. The wind was clipping on this end of Banff. We are about a mile from downtown but up the mountain toward an area they call Tunnel Mountain. Maybe it’s because the wind tunnels through here?! It did subside by 9am.

We stopped first at the National Park Service visitors center downtown to buy a 3 day pass. Traveling in the Canadian Parks was free over the Christmas holidays but ended today 1/15. We thought we were going to buy an annual pass since we are coming back this summer but summer travel in Canadian Parks will be FREE this summer! Canadian goodwill to its visitors… hmmm🤔. In case you are unaware the USA is charging foreign visitors $100/person in national parks this summer.

Skiing at Banff Sunshine…

After that it was about a 20 minute drive up the mountain toward the parking lot of Banff Sunshine resort. From the parking lot you take a long gondola ride up the mountain toward the base area. There was also a midway gondola stop to an area called Goat’s Eye. We took the ride all the way up to the main base area.

Our first runs were on the Wawa quad lift on the Standish Mountain map. A quick one-two runs to warmup. The top was a big meadow where you could back country ski. If I were younger it’s something I would definitely have been willing to do. We were on this mountain long enough to realize how soft and creamy the snow was going to be everywhere…groomed and ungroomed. Yeah!

We moved over a lift to the Standish Quad. We skied a few black runs here. The bumps were gentle and soft so it was easy. These runs were all very short… especially compared to the last 3 resorts we have been skiing.

It was time for the longer runs on the highest mountain. We scooted over to the Great Divide quad that goes to the top of Lookout Mtn. This was just a big open mountain above treeline. You could go just about anywhere you wanted and we did. The snow was just the same on this mountain and because they had 20” of snow on Mon/Tues the bumps were the kindest, gentlest, easy-fun skiing you could hope for. There were groomed runs too but today we didn’t need or want those runs. We had a blast skiing on this mountain in every direction possible. The runs coming down through the trees had nice hills and dales. The snow was so soft and kind. Maybe I already said that… but we were loving it!

For lunch or bathrooms the only option was the base. We stopped about 1pm so lunch crowd was thinning by then. It’s a pretty simple base layout with about 4 lift chairs meeting there.

After lunch we went back up Lookout mountain to ski another aspect taking us down to the Teepee Town lift. This side of the mountain had more black and double black runs. These were a little steeper and narrower but still great snow and a lot of fun.

When we were ready to quit for the day we took a super long road trail past the Goat’s Eye area and continued all the way down to the parking lot. There’s an option to ride the gondola down but it wasn’t necessary today. The road down was nice and soft too.

Maybe because it was another blue sky, sunny, comfortable temp day with great snow conditions that we loved it so much! Today was the first day we skied like we are used to skiing…never tentative, good lighting and comfortable. I’m sure on a stormy day this would be a difficult area… especially Lookout Mountain because it’s so exposed. The visibility would be tough (vertigo).

All the chairlifts today were either quads, high speed quads, bubble chairs and one super nice 6 person bubble with heated seats similar to chairs at Big Sky.

Tomorrow we return to Sunshine. We plan to explore the Goat’s Eye terrain. It looks like it has more extreme runs so it could be much more challenging. If the snow consistency remains we should be good to try a few.

Back to camp. Yesterday’s shower house at the campground didn’t have suitable hot water. I waited minutes for it to heat up but it never got above sort of warm. Quick shower. Today I tried the handicap shower at the washroom building right by our camper… yes! Good hot water plus more room to spread out with clothes and toiletries (and a toilet!). Whoop whoop! For the win! I may be seriously wrong but with the few campers here… and the winter conditions … I doubt I am inconveniencing anyone by using the handicap shower. Am I wrong?😳

Our van camper learning curve. While cooking dinner tonight I blew a breaker. I was using this little oven to heat a pastie while heating water on the inductions stove. I’m thinking it was the power use of the oven to “bake” that tripped it. Issue quickly resolved and before too long dinner was ready!

Note from Jim: he read recently it’s important for your mental health to find moments of “AWE” in your daily life. It’s easy here in the Canadian Rockies but today on top of the mountain we remembered to notice and appreciate the “awe”!!

On Repeat…

Day 9

Ski Day # 6

Banff Sunshine Ski Resort. Banff AB

Temp: 22’F

Friday January 16 2026

We left camp a bit earlier today to be able to park closer than Row 18 to the gondola. Mission accomplished… Row 8!

We had another great day roaming from lift to lift and following the sun. Another beautiful day but a little colder. The snow was still good… not quite as soft and smooth as yesterday but good enough. We tried different aspects of the summit that we didn’t ski yesterday and had a lot of fun. By lunchtime we headed down the mountain to the Goat’s Eye base area. It’s quite a bit smaller and pretty basic but we were comfortable. Our immediate reaction was that they weren’t spending much on heating the space.

The Goat’s Eye base is set up for apres ski with a band stage, fire pit and some seating. I guess the idea is to ski to this base, party and ride the gondola down for its midway station. Could be fun in a warmer, sunny day.

After lunch we skied this area. It also had a summit above tree line that was big and wide open. Off the summit there were several double black and black chutes with some glades at the bottom. Quite a few of them were closed. This side of the mountain was seriously lacking snow on top. Several wind fences were set up to capture the snow. From tree line down there was enough snow. These runs were not as soft as the the main base area and the summit so after about 3 runs we went back up higher to the area we knew was better. This time we did some runs on the shady side and the snow was quite a bit softer and lighter… so that was fun.

Called it a day about 2:30 and headed back to the campground.

Tonight we headed to downtown Banff to have a Guinness beer at the Irish Bar and find some dinner. We arrived early and by the time it was 7pm and we were done with dinner it was bustling. Starting this weekend every weekend is Snow Fest. The main attraction this weekend is ski joring (skiing behind a horse over jumps and around obstacles) down the Main Street of downtown. It starts Saturday at 3pm. We’re sure to cue up to watch some of that tomorrow. There’s also ice carving going on somewhere.

Campground is busy, busy Friday night! We arrived back about 8pm and the campground had dozens more campers than last night!

Ski Joring Madness…

Day 10

Layover Day. Banff Alberta

Busy day… lots to do and see

Saturday, January 17 2026

Temp: 32’F with a brisk wind

As with all our layover days, we have to get some groceries and do some laundry. So we attended to both of those tasks after breakfast. After the grocery run we found a place to park downtown for the day. There is free parking along the Bow River. As we guessed these places would fill up quickly so we wanted to get a place fairly early. We parked at about 10:30am and had to walk a few blocks with our big bag of laundry to the coin laundromat that is right in the downtown shopping area. Jim looked like Santa Claus carrying laundry!

Downtown Banff has a nice village. It is pretty high end shopping with many individual brand stores like Lululemon, Smartwool, Patagonia, Lola, Roots, Canada Goose, Arcteryx, lots of cool mountain shops, bike shops, high end art and photography and, of course, trinket shops. Something for everyone. Lots of restaurants, breweries and tons of hotels.

We unloaded the laundry and found a great quick Korean bowl lunch place then ventured down the main drag to see throngs of fur coated and cowboy hatted men and women visitors queuing up to watch the ski joring. The fur fashion show!

We found a place by the fence line and stood for about 1/2 hour or more before the event began. It was scheduled to be 1.5 hours with a “fashion show” at halftime. We stood near the end of the snow strip and could see one jump. I suspect there were a couple jumps closer to the bleacher seating but we could only see the finale jump (a little). I think we lasted another half hour after it started. It was quite cold with a brisk wind. Even the crowd around us watching didn’t block all the wind. I enjoyed seeing the parade of outfits strolling up in both directions as we were waiting. There were easily thousands of people watching! Quite the spectacle.

This ski joring event was run in a straight line down the street. Others that I’m aware of run more of a course with twists and turns, jumps and obstacles the skier has to navigate. It was free and people were enjoying the whole spectacle.

We left the event and walked to a back street naively thinking we could get a beer or warm drink but literally every place had crowds and 45 minute waits. That’s a hard no! Lucky for us our van was nearby… warm and cozy with all the refreshments we could want!

We hung out inside the van for an hour or more until the event and most of the traffic had departed. By this time it was 4:30pm.

We took a quick drive to see the famous Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. I have been here once when my kids were little (maybe 25 yrs ago) but didn’t remember it very well. We didn’t want to pay $15/hr for parking so it was a quick drive by.

I liked it that the original town of Banff has appropriate street names for native animals such as Lynx, Caribou, Otter, Moose, Beaver and Muskrat. They were narrow streets and little homes. They have a profound bus service within the town and to the various attractions, ski resorts in the national park. The streets were full of frozen snow and ice… somewhat treacherous to walk and drive. It seems many locals prefer to walk or bus around… it’s just easier than navigating in winter with your car. Once again proving Canadians are a hardy lot!

We’re headed out early, early tomorrow (Sunday) for Sun Peaks Ski Resort. It’s about 7+ hr drive… so it’s a “travel day”. We plan to camp at the resort for a couple of nights before we move on. Good news…The weather is high pressure so smooth easy driving with no risk of weather. Bad news… no new snow in the near forecast. Oh well, it is what it is. It’s fun just skiing new mountains.

Mountains upon Mountains…

Day 11

Travel Day

Sunday January 18 2026

Banff AB to Sun Peaks BC… via Golden and Revelstoke BC. Canada Hwy 1 (Trans-Canada hwy)

343 mi. 7 hours. Time zone change PST

Started early…about 7am with a quick stop at none other than…Tim Horton’s for breakfast! Last time we were at a Tim Horton’s was fall of 2023 in Quebec. We had breakfast during a huge rainstorm and ended up sitting in that restaurant for a few hours waiting the storm out. (We were bicycle touring on that adventure). This fast food restaurant is everywhere in Canada and I’ve heard there are a few in the eastern US. They are not the standard burger and fries type of fast food. They have actual sandwiches. But they also have donuts and baked goods all day everyday. Anyway this time it was a quick stop and we were on the road before dawn headed north and then west to Sun Peaks BC.

After we passed Lake Louise the sun was beginning to rise. We were up and over Horse Pass following the Kicking Horse River to Golden BC where it enters the Columbia River.

Our route today passed through a bit of each of these national parks! Banff National Park, Yoho National Park, Glacier National Park and Mount Revelstoke National Park

We traveled under 8 avalanche shed tunnels in Glacier National Park.

After Revelstoke heading northwest… the highway was well below the snow zone. The ground is bare. It was too cloudy to see the mountains anymore.

We followed the shoreline of one arm of gigantic Shuswap Lake for miles. It is a huge natural lake formed by Glacial carving. (Think Pend Orielle lake in Idaho). It eventually turns into the Thompson River that flows into the Strait of Georgia in Vancouver. We followed this lake and river from Sicoumos to Kamloops.

After Kamloops we left Highway 1 and headed north to Sun Peaks. We headed uphill immediately for 35 miles to the resort.

We are camping in Parking Lot #5. They allow RV’s. There are no hookups or electricity but there is a washroom a short walk away. Camping cost $15/night. In the cute busy village there is a health club that allows showers for $3.50 It’s going to workout just great!

We arrived in daylight so we had enough time to wander the village a bit and find the health club, checkout all the restaurants and see the shops in the cutest little village area. Also wandered to the base area main lodge and grabbed a ski map. We will be ready to ski tomorrow morning. Expecting sunshine and mid 20’s. Perfect😊

I thought I’d show you a few of the kitchen items we have that make our van camping cushy.

Inversion Sea of Beauty

Day 12

Ski Day #7

Monday January 19 2026

Sun Peaks Ski Resort, Sun Peaks BC

2nd largest ski area in Canada

IKON. Daily rate $104 Senior (buy 1 day in advance, $159 at window)

Temp: 23’F

We started at 9am today. From our van in Parking Lot 5 we were able to ski down to a lift called Orient. Took a ride up and a cat road that took us over to the Sundance lift area.

Took the Sundance lift and skied a nice blue groomer to the Sunburst lift. Thus took us higher up the mountain where we continued to find lift taking us up to the “Top of the World” and eventually over to the West Bowl area.

Unfortunately skiing anything that hadn’t been groomed or off piste was bullet proof. A quick couple of turns to try some snow took care of that thought immediately. Groomed cruisers all day!

We enjoyed exploring the different lifts and what was available for us to ski. The views today were so interesting. This was day two of inversion. The valley below us for as far as we could see looked like a white lake with little islands here and there. The mountains ranges in the distance… I was told the Selkirk… were showing up with their white peaks. Once again the BC views did not disappoint!

If one had the right snow conditions the terrain looked like so much fun. There was all kinds of open bowls, tree glades, a few areas with short hikes to big open snow bowls. Lots of intermediate area, lots of black runs and even a few double black if you are inclined to test yourself.

A few videos of the day…

While we enjoyed skiing today we lamented that there was so much we couldn’t ski. Tomorrow we will pop over to the Morrisey mountain side and give it a run or two testing the snow conditions. It is mostly in the shade except the top because it faces north and maybe a bit is northeast.

After skiing today we made our way to the Fitness gym for our $3.50 shower. Neither of us were unhappy about that. Felt good. Sun was down on our side of the resort so it was a cold walk over…then not so cold on the way back.

Menu for dinner in the van tonight. Vegetable beef soup (homemade from home) and grilled cheese sandos.

Exploring more Groomers

Day 13

Ski Day #8

Sun Peaks Resort

Temp: 23’F

Morrisey Mountain for the win today. Even though it’s on the “dark side” and cold the snow conditions on the groomers were nice and soft. The runs were long and weaved their way between tree stands where could choose left or right of weave between the two. They were also kind of rolly up and down. If I had to choose my favorite groomers at the resort I think I would choose Morrisey. However, like I said the sun only shines at the top so after a few runs here we headed to the main base area.

There were a few events at the mountain today. I really big ski demo for shop owners was set up at the base. Then there were junior ski races and some kind of high school age snow boarding event on big jumps. We rode a chair up that had lots of the boarders on it but didn’t see any jumps on the lift ride up.

We made our way to the top and onto the West Bowl then began working our way towards our van and parking lot. All the skiers we visited with today were really friendly. Canadian friendly. When we say Montana most of them will mention skiing Whitefish. It’s weird but neither of us have ever skied Whitefish. We’d better do that sometime soon.

Short skiing day today as we planned to drive to Revelstoke tonight. 3.5 hours or so. We had lunch in the van and hit the road by 1:30pm. Made it to the Boulder Mountain Resort RV campground by 5pm. We are parked in an open area with just electricity…$46/night. They also have a big hot tub, showers, laundry (if needed) and complimentary coffee and pastries in the morning.

The Trans Canada highway this afternoon was much busier than our drive over on Sunday. Dozens and dozens of semis… sometimes 10 in a row. It’s more noticeable because very little of the highway between Kamloops and Banff is divided highway. So much is two lane with passing lanes on hills.

We plan to spend a couple days skiing at Revelstoke before moving further south starting to work our way back to Montana and home.

Unfortunately any hope we had of a little fresh snow by this weekend have dissolved. Each resort is trying to maintain the snow they have and alternating the runs they groom. The temperatures are into the low 20’s so nothing is melting anymore. That’s the good news!

Review of Sun Peaks Resort

Excellent mountain. Good maps and signage at the top of every lift. Good reader board listing all the runs and highlighted which ones are groomed. Nice lifts. Ski pass readers always worked. Charming mid-mountain lodge. Clean bathrooms. Nice base lodge. Clean bathrooms. Easy staircase where the steps are half steps with a wide base. (Ski boot friendly!) Wonderful little village with lots of restaurants and a few shops. Very friendly, helpful people.

Chuckle video of the day:

Ski Challenging Day…Revy

Day 14

Ski Day #9

Revelstoke Ski Resort, Revelstoke BC

Wednesday January 21 2026

IKON. (Senior lift ticket $154)

Temp: 28’ F

We skied Revelstoke 11 years ago. It was fresh snow and very low visibility for two days in mid March. My memory of the mountain is marginal since the visibility was low, it was snowing and I could only see where I was skiing. The second day was worse because I learned that I didn’t properly dry my goggles out overnight by taking the lenses out. (Please note that in Montana there’s seldom enough moisture for goggles to get wet… it’s not a thing!). Anyway day two was a bust from the get go because I couldn’t see anything with goggles on! I didn’t ski much that day 😳

Today we started at 9am. You take a gondola from the base to midway. Then you step off that gondola and a few feet away you get on another one that takes you very far up the mountain to the other lifts. It was cold and cloudy in town and at the base. At the top of the gondola we got out of the inversion… the sun was shining. Yeah!! This is the 4th day in a row of inversion. There also has been no wind so that’s a plus.

We skied a short hop to the Stellar lift. This is just a short connector to get to the Ripper lift. The Ripper lift takes you around to the other side of the mountain facing south. We found ourselves being back in the cold and a bit of inversion at the base of the lift. The top was above the clouds but not sunny on our faces. The views looking north into the Selkirk mountain range were gorgeous.

After a few runs on the dark side we zipped back around to the front side and some sunshine. Here’s where we spent the rest of the morning skiing off the Stoke chair. Right side and left side and far right side.

The conditions today were groomed runs only. They have lots of snow but last week they had a few warm days and then froze again. They haven’t had new snow in 10 days… unless you consider reporting 1cm as snow! So any run that was not groomed since yesterday was bulletproof rock hard. To put it mildly the skiing sucked today! After skiing everything that was groomed we were ready to call it a day.

We skied down a never ending cat trail to the mid gondola station. The snow on the cat trail was easily the best on the mountain. We discovered they were using man made on this trail. This trail seemed like miles. We did notice that we always seemed to be on a cat trail from frontside to backside and back and then to midway. From midway we rode the gondola down to the base. Closer to the base the snow was considered “marginal”.

This was easily the worst ski day we’ve had this trip. We’ve decided to move on to Red Mountain tomorrow. Not because it will be any good, but we don’t see the conditions at Revelstoke improving in a day. Revelstoke has a reputation for great powder skiing and it’s true. It doesn’t seem like grooming is their strong point under freeze/thaw conditions. It is disappointing that the skiing conditions weren’t better but the views sure were great!

Back early to our campsite. This is a really nice RV campground and resort. There are several cabins of a few varieties from hunting camp type tents to geodesic dome homes, long cabins in a container ship style. There’s a nice communal hot tub, laundry and great showers.

Tonight was a good night to have dinner in downtown Revelstoke. Our campsite is about 2 miles out of town. We were told by friends to check out the little distillery downtown. It was a comfortable and warm establishment. We each had a tasty drink before we went across the street for a pizza. Both places were really good