abc
Well-known member
Here comes another late season special, from north of the border.
I've been eyeing the Banff trio (Sunshine/Lake Louise/Norguay) for some time because it's part of the Mountain Collective Pass. The Canadian dollar is relatively low right now. (though granted, the pass was already paid for and air would be in US dollar anyway, still there's lodging, rental car and beer money, eh...I mean food). But air fare had been nearly double the cost of domestic. The math didn't quite work out. So at late March, when I had a few days off, I went to Mammoth & Squaw instead (and was rewarded with a powder day too). I thought I were done for the season.
But with a successful launch of our group's latest work effort, we were rewarded with a week of "quiet time" before embarking on the next project. (a week that's allocated for fighting fire, no fire!
) I checked air fare to Calgary again...this time the flight was quite affordable (~$300). Other obligation was such I could only do 3 days. Oh well, beggar can't be choosers. Off I go, for 3 days of, as it turns out, fabulous spring skiing! 
I've been to Sunshine once before, mid-May, combined with some sightseeing. I had always wanted to go back again in a more "proper" time of the season. Mid-March would have been ideal. But again, beggar can't be chooser, mid-April will have to do. I kept watch on the forecast. It was to be below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. Perfect corn cycle awaits!
First, the logistics:
The best air fare was by Air Canada (duh!), which is a mixed blessing. Although there's a direct flight from New York to Calgary, the timing didn't quite work out. All the connecting flights changes planes somewhere in Canada. Minor detail: you have to retrieve your checked bags to clear custom during that stopover! That means skis and all! On the plus side, Air Canada does luggage extremely well. They came out about the same time it took us to walk from the gate to the bag claim area. I mean, each and every time! No waiting for 1/2 hr to get your skis (like in Denver).
Flight from Newark to Calgary in late afternoon, with a stopover at Montreal, arrived at Calgary around 10:30pm, which is our time 12:30 am. Needless to say, I was tired. I knew that would be the case, so I booked a hotel as close to the airport as possible. No chance of getting lost in the dark for example. That worked out. But something else didn't.
Canada is a different country! One of the things it does differently is the cell service. It's all GSM. Now if you're a NOT a Verizon user, you couldn't care less. But if you were like me, well, Verizon uses CDMA, which doesn't talk with GSM network at all! I actually HAD a dual mode phone till about a year ago. But in the upgrade, the phone that has the function I want isn't dual mode. I thought to myself "ok, when I need to travel, I'll just pull the SIM card and put it in my old dual mode phone". Perfect solution, had I not forgotten Canada is a different country and actually DO the swapping!
Without a working phone also means I lose the navigation function! Well, almost...
At Calgary airport, there's free wi-fi. By doing the route planning at the airport, the phone now has all the direction and can still yell at me at all the turns! (it can't re-calculate if I got off course though).
(In theory, it's possible to ski Sunshine/LL without renting a car. There're shuttle buses that can be strung together to make it work. But my rental car for 3 days only cost $70 CANADIAN! Add another $30 for gas, that's about US$70! It gives me so much more flexibility)
Next morning (Friday), I got up bright and early and drove to Sunshine, which is only about 1 1/2 hr away. The scenery of the Canadian Rockies are so spectacular, I couldn't resist stopping a couple times to take some picture from the side of the road:
The Skiing, Day 1 (Friday) Sunshine
Arriving at Sunshine around 10 am, parking was easy mid-week. Having been there before, I knew that's still a long way from actual skiing. First, there's a looong gondola ride up to Sunshine village which is the actual base area. (there's another area access mid-way in the gondola, Goats Eye area, but it faces north so not quite the place to be first thing in the morning of a warm spring day). At the end of the day, one can ski all the way down from the very top to the bottom of the parking lot. That's a very long ski I didn't do. The snow this weekend was too slushy down low.
A lot of the locals boot up DURING the gondola ride! (there're lockers at the Sunshine base at the top of gondola to store stuff) But of course I didn't know that. So I booted up in the car, walked the 50 yard to the gondola, no biggie. It's just kind of funny to see these people carrying big bags with all their worldly belongs boarding the gondola!
On the trail map, there's a little "suggestion" section on where to ski for different ability level, AND on a spring day! So I tried to follow the suggestions. Unfortunately, it wasn't specific enough. In each lift, there're still runs facing different direction and thaws at different time of the day. So the first few runs of my day was a mixed bag of hit and miss.
The mountain offers a Free Mountain Tour around noon time. I decided to take advantage of that, which turned out to be a smart move!:dunce: The fact I was the only customer and got a defacto private tour got nothing to do with it, of course
The way it works, the tour technically only takes skiers to blue runs. But when the group is small, the tour guide is simply your "ski companion", in which case he/she can go on any runs! In reality, they only go so far as easy blacks. My tour guide was very knowledgeable with the mountain (duh!). She knows what time of the day each part of the mountain gets soft in that day, so we covered the mountain in a particular order to take advantage of that. Like all good guides I've met in other mountains, she also explain to me the lay of the land so I can find the goods on my own later on. That proved to be extremely valuable on my second day at Sunshine on my own.
Both Sunshine and Lake Louise rates their runs ACCORDING TO CONDITION OF THE DAY! So, there's the more "base color" of a run, which got printed on the trail map. I guess that's how the trail is like during "typical" mid-winter condition. But on days like spring day, when cover was thin, they re-rate some of the un-groomed blue as black, by simply putting a black diamond sign in front of the more permanent blue marker! Definition an interesting idea, but I don't know if it'll catch on.
The cloud were going in and out. A lot of Sunshine's terrain are above treeline. When the cloud came in, it's a bit disconcerting. Can't see the snow under my skis. Normally, there's a lot of below-treeline skiing, but it was kind of too soft in the afternoon on this rather warm weekend. The stunning view of the Canadian Rockies will have to wait till Saturday & Sunday.
I've been eyeing the Banff trio (Sunshine/Lake Louise/Norguay) for some time because it's part of the Mountain Collective Pass. The Canadian dollar is relatively low right now. (though granted, the pass was already paid for and air would be in US dollar anyway, still there's lodging, rental car and beer money, eh...I mean food). But air fare had been nearly double the cost of domestic. The math didn't quite work out. So at late March, when I had a few days off, I went to Mammoth & Squaw instead (and was rewarded with a powder day too). I thought I were done for the season.
But with a successful launch of our group's latest work effort, we were rewarded with a week of "quiet time" before embarking on the next project. (a week that's allocated for fighting fire, no fire!
) I checked air fare to Calgary again...this time the flight was quite affordable (~$300). Other obligation was such I could only do 3 days. Oh well, beggar can't be choosers. Off I go, for 3 days of, as it turns out, fabulous spring skiing! I've been to Sunshine once before, mid-May, combined with some sightseeing. I had always wanted to go back again in a more "proper" time of the season. Mid-March would have been ideal. But again, beggar can't be chooser, mid-April will have to do. I kept watch on the forecast. It was to be below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. Perfect corn cycle awaits!
First, the logistics:
The best air fare was by Air Canada (duh!), which is a mixed blessing. Although there's a direct flight from New York to Calgary, the timing didn't quite work out. All the connecting flights changes planes somewhere in Canada. Minor detail: you have to retrieve your checked bags to clear custom during that stopover! That means skis and all! On the plus side, Air Canada does luggage extremely well. They came out about the same time it took us to walk from the gate to the bag claim area. I mean, each and every time! No waiting for 1/2 hr to get your skis (like in Denver).
Flight from Newark to Calgary in late afternoon, with a stopover at Montreal, arrived at Calgary around 10:30pm, which is our time 12:30 am. Needless to say, I was tired. I knew that would be the case, so I booked a hotel as close to the airport as possible. No chance of getting lost in the dark for example. That worked out. But something else didn't.
Canada is a different country! One of the things it does differently is the cell service. It's all GSM. Now if you're a NOT a Verizon user, you couldn't care less. But if you were like me, well, Verizon uses CDMA, which doesn't talk with GSM network at all! I actually HAD a dual mode phone till about a year ago. But in the upgrade, the phone that has the function I want isn't dual mode. I thought to myself "ok, when I need to travel, I'll just pull the SIM card and put it in my old dual mode phone". Perfect solution, had I not forgotten Canada is a different country and actually DO the swapping!
Without a working phone also means I lose the navigation function! Well, almost...
At Calgary airport, there's free wi-fi. By doing the route planning at the airport, the phone now has all the direction and can still yell at me at all the turns! (it can't re-calculate if I got off course though).
(In theory, it's possible to ski Sunshine/LL without renting a car. There're shuttle buses that can be strung together to make it work. But my rental car for 3 days only cost $70 CANADIAN! Add another $30 for gas, that's about US$70! It gives me so much more flexibility)
Next morning (Friday), I got up bright and early and drove to Sunshine, which is only about 1 1/2 hr away. The scenery of the Canadian Rockies are so spectacular, I couldn't resist stopping a couple times to take some picture from the side of the road:
The Skiing, Day 1 (Friday) Sunshine
Arriving at Sunshine around 10 am, parking was easy mid-week. Having been there before, I knew that's still a long way from actual skiing. First, there's a looong gondola ride up to Sunshine village which is the actual base area. (there's another area access mid-way in the gondola, Goats Eye area, but it faces north so not quite the place to be first thing in the morning of a warm spring day). At the end of the day, one can ski all the way down from the very top to the bottom of the parking lot. That's a very long ski I didn't do. The snow this weekend was too slushy down low.
A lot of the locals boot up DURING the gondola ride! (there're lockers at the Sunshine base at the top of gondola to store stuff) But of course I didn't know that. So I booted up in the car, walked the 50 yard to the gondola, no biggie. It's just kind of funny to see these people carrying big bags with all their worldly belongs boarding the gondola!
On the trail map, there's a little "suggestion" section on where to ski for different ability level, AND on a spring day! So I tried to follow the suggestions. Unfortunately, it wasn't specific enough. In each lift, there're still runs facing different direction and thaws at different time of the day. So the first few runs of my day was a mixed bag of hit and miss.
The mountain offers a Free Mountain Tour around noon time. I decided to take advantage of that, which turned out to be a smart move!:dunce: The fact I was the only customer and got a defacto private tour got nothing to do with it, of course
The way it works, the tour technically only takes skiers to blue runs. But when the group is small, the tour guide is simply your "ski companion", in which case he/she can go on any runs! In reality, they only go so far as easy blacks. My tour guide was very knowledgeable with the mountain (duh!). She knows what time of the day each part of the mountain gets soft in that day, so we covered the mountain in a particular order to take advantage of that. Like all good guides I've met in other mountains, she also explain to me the lay of the land so I can find the goods on my own later on. That proved to be extremely valuable on my second day at Sunshine on my own.
Both Sunshine and Lake Louise rates their runs ACCORDING TO CONDITION OF THE DAY! So, there's the more "base color" of a run, which got printed on the trail map. I guess that's how the trail is like during "typical" mid-winter condition. But on days like spring day, when cover was thin, they re-rate some of the un-groomed blue as black, by simply putting a black diamond sign in front of the more permanent blue marker! Definition an interesting idea, but I don't know if it'll catch on.
The cloud were going in and out. A lot of Sunshine's terrain are above treeline. When the cloud came in, it's a bit disconcerting. Can't see the snow under my skis. Normally, there's a lot of below-treeline skiing, but it was kind of too soft in the afternoon on this rather warm weekend. The stunning view of the Canadian Rockies will have to wait till Saturday & Sunday.
Attachments
Last edited:
