Banff’s three ski areas of Sunshine Village, Lake Louise Ski Resort, and Mt. Norquay officially opened to the public for skiing and snowboarding at the weekend; collectively they are the first ski resorts in Canada open for skiing seven days/week. Nakiska, the closest resort to Calgary and also in Alberta, also opened for weekend snowsports.
“With a week of cool temps and an early start to winter snowfall in the mountains, we’ve got a fantastic beginning to the 2018/19 ski season,” a Banff ski areas spokesperson said.
At Banff Sunshine Village, one of the few major ski areas left in the world to still operate with 100% natural snowfall and no snowmaking, Wawa, Strawberry Express, Wolverine Express and Jackrabbit chairlifts were turning.
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At Lake Louise Ski Resort which is scheduled to stage the first Wold cup downhill races of the 18-19 season in a few weeks’ time the Glacier Express Chair was operating and two small terrain parks were open.
At Mt. Norquay (pictured top credit Shannon Martin) the Cascade Chair served a mini jib park. All areas say additional terrain will continue to open in the coming days.
There was fresh snowfall over the weekend in Eastern Canada too with one area reporting 23cm of snowfall in 24 hours, the first significant snowfall on the autumn there.
