This season look for new glading between the open trails on Mount Haig, cleanup of avalanche-damaged areas on the main mountain plus new entries into some freeride lines—and some swank new duplex mountain homes in the village, helping to expand the rental pool. There’s also a new book of Castle coming by Edmonton-area journalist Steven Kenworthy, chronicling the mountain’s colourful history and the characters who nursed it through some tough periods. Says Rusynyk: “Right now we’re just hoping for the same snow as last year!”

“It’s been a long journey to get here, but the big picture is this puts us on the map as a destination skiing region,” says Ken Wilder, Panorama’s man in charge of business development.

 “We’re excited about the airport’s impact not only on Panorama but the Powder Highway multiresort concept. We can offer one-way rental cars that let you start in Cranbrook, visit several resorts or backcountry operators, and fly home from Kelowna or Calgary.”

While “other resorts” (i.e., Lake Louise and Fernie) have eliminated jumps and air from their terrain park, marketing staff here boast that “Panorama is going big!” Its terrain park expansion to nearly one mile in length makes it western Canada’s biggest. It runs down Showoff along the Mile 1 Quad in full view of the village and offers “progression” from mild entry-level features to fl ights that parents don’t want to see. There’s also an enlarged beginner’s area and a longer Magic Carpet—replacing the handle tow—and summer brush clearing and slope smoothing in the Founder’s Ridge area, enabling consistent winter slope grooming. All this plus a “Project Planet” environmental initiative that features “recycled” toilet paper!

SUNSHINE VILLAGE
Sunshine’s eight-decade journey—the resort had its 80th anniversary last season—has taken it from log-cabin way station to the best lift system in our resort lineup plus the only slopeside accommodation in the national parks. Thanks to plentiful snows, sunshine and Alberta’s ongoing growth, Sunshine last season racked up its largest-ever total of skier-visits. The mountain opens November 7, weather permitting.

The biggest news is the completion of the hotel renovation—or should I say “rebuilding.” Last spring the resort razed the ’60s-vintage Terrace wing and launched construction of 30 new units plus the total overhaul of the 54 other units. “The Sunshine Inn has been offi cially renamed the Sunshine Mountain Lodge,” says Doug Firby, Sunshine’s associate director of communications, media and marketing. “It’s a huge leap forward in environmental responsibility, including a 44 per cent reduction in electricity consumption, a 20 per cent reduction in water consumption, maximization of passive solar heating, with everything built to leading environmental standards, and all on the existing footprint.” The $6-million investment is the secondlargest in Sunshine’s history. New manager Bill Cutt’s mandate is to create a hotel experience comparable to the region’s leading establishments, like the Post Hotel in Lake Louise. Construction continues as you read this, with opening planned for the current season. Out on the mountain the Rogers Terrain Park underwent further expansion to almost seven hectares, taking partial advantage of the parkrat- exodus from Resorts of the Canadian Rockies. The view of Sunshine’s safety managers, says Firby, is that, “A properly constructed, properly monitored terrain park within bounds is the safest approach you can take. Without a terrain park you couldn’t stop younger riders from seeking [uncontrolled] terrain to do jumps and stunts.”

MARMOT BASIN
The charming but challenging ski area above Jasper received permission in late summer for a major new lift. Next seasona four- or six-passenger detachable chair will replace the ancient Tranquilizer double chair and the Kiefer T-bar, gaining 555 vertical metres and lifting skiers from base area to peak in a single, 8.5-minute ride.

That, Sunshine argues, is more dangerous. Sunshine’s restricted parking remains a challenge. The resort continues to lobby for more space—and Parks Canada continues to practise avoidance. This season the resort is offering improved shuttle bus service. Also, season’s pass holders have the option of valet parking right from the gondola building (for $25 extra).

“This is really, really exciting for me as a skier,” says Brian Rode, Marmot’s vice president of marketing and sales.

Marmot is benefiting from being the first national parks ski area to draft and submit its Parks Canada-mandated “site guidelines,” or end-state definition. In exchange for surrendering 18 per cent of its lease area, unused for skiing but forming an important wildlife corridor, Marmot requested approval of the replacement lift, land for a new cross-country skiing and kid’s area and, most dramatically, permission to extend its signature Knob Chair onto Marmot Peak. Here’s hoping.

NORQUAY
The perfectly situated mountain just above Banff continues to service its unique market niche. Last season Norquay opened its redesigned snowboard park under the tutelage of Jeff Patterson to “great reviews,” according to André Quenneville, Norquay’s general manager. The town mountain also received last-minute Parks Canada approval to widen Excalibur run to a continuous 40-metre-wide FIS standard. “This made for a safe and up-to-standard race slope and a terrific fast cruising run,” says Quenneville. The slope was renamed “Give ’er Grandi” in honour of local boy and World Cup racer Thomas Grandi.

This season, further tweaks to Norquay’s snowmaking system allow pre-weekend touch-ups of steeper sections. It has also built an introductory-level skiercross, and is now offering a network of snowshoeing trails with equipment available for rent. The company’s long-term plan for a major overhaul, which would include a new gondola and summer operations, remains at the vision stage with Parks Canada.

LAKE LOUISE
“Just because you’ve been bugging us for five straight years, I actually took a team to Temple Lodge with caulking guns and we sealed those cracks you’ve been complaining about! You can no longer see daylight between the windows and the timbers,” chortled Matt Mosteller, a vice-president and spokesman for Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR), which operates Lake Louise, Fernie, Kimberley and Nakiska. Warming up dilapidated Temple Lodge is big news to me, a lifelong Lake Louise day-tripper.

Bigger and more controversial within the 14- to 24-year-old baggy-pant airheads was RCR’s decision to remove jumps from its terrain parks, unleashing generally expletiveladen online reaction from park rats and jeering from competing resorts, some of which promptly increased the size of their features. The benefi ts, however, reportedly included fewer collisions on normal terrain as careless jibbers departed for friendlier climes. Still, Lake Louise had a somewhat rough go last season, repeatedly missing the other resorts’ powder poundings, and it showed in sparse skier-traffic. Lake Louise in effect is Canada’s largest day-skiing hill. With no onhill accommodation, it’s mortally dependent on daily weather and snow—and those holding the RCR super pass always have the option of bailing for Fernie.

This year Lake Louise offers a solid array of improvements, including a better Grab ’n’ Go arrangement for fluids and victuals, some upgrading of Temple Lodge and a new fixed-grip quad chairlift at the Ptarmigan area. The new one won’t be higher capacity or, offi cially, faster than the fi xed-grip quad of the same name it replaces, but it will use 30 per cent less electricity, a PR plus in a national park. It’s part of RCR’s “sustainable slopes” strategy, which includes numerous measures to reduce waste or dispose of it more responsibly. With a planned November 8 opening, people could be skiing by the time  you’re reading this.

NAKISKA
This cruiser’s/racer’s hill in outer Kananaskis Country had a great season, its eastern-style boulevards at times offering better powder than Lake Louise, thanks to upslope systems roaring north from Montana. With its relatively fi xed following and its location in a severely development-restricted provincial area, Nakiska will never be a hotbed of resort development. For this season, RCR expanded snowmaking coverage by 33 per cent, bringing total snowmaking to nearly 90 per cent of marked runs. Also welcome will be the extensive day lodge renovations— including the Finish Line Lounge—and makeover of the mid-mountain lodge with much better heating and new bathrooms. Nakiska’s biggest news is its recent designation as an Alpine Canada training centre to help our skiers prepare for the 2010 Winter Olympics, thanks to backing from the Alberta government. “This will be a cornerstone to training Canada’s skiing athletes,” predicts Mosteller—and might also draw some additional provincial support for the mountain.


FERNIE
Driven by the huge ski area expansion beginning a decade ago that triggered a real estate boom at the resort’s base, the whole Elk River valley around Fernie is now maturing into a real mountain community, with families from all over Canada and abroad visiting regularly or moving in for good. One of those is Ed Tuggle, a skier and business owner who moved from Calgary with his wife, Maureen, several years ago. With more than 1,100 cm blanketing Fernie last season, recordable snow fell on two out of every three days. For Tuggle, a blissful blur: “What sticks with me is the time we were coming down Currie Bowl and I remember saying the skiing was just ‘average’ ’cause we only had boot-top powder,” he recalls. “We just looked at each other and started laughing—we expected deep powder to be there no matter what.”

For the resort operator, explains Mosteller, “It’s step-by-step incremental progress to create a sustainable and viable resort community. We’re going to take the time to get it right.” Resort real estate development has been slowed to maintain capital values and allow the market to digest the major developments to date. Construction of the new, pro-designed 18-hole signature golf course continued over the summer. For winter, RCR is optimizing terrain for its core clientele: the “adventurous family,” who’d been demanding more gladed terrain as growing numbers of savvy skiers work the existing terrain harder. This season look for newly negotiable lines in Currie Bowl, Snake Ridge, KC Chutes, Cedar Ridge and Stag Leap. Snowmaking was added around the base for high-traffi c periods and snow droughts. There are also some new purpose-built kids’ trails with interactive plaques explaining the animals and plants, plus infrastructure upgrades: reconstruction of Fernie’s battered day lodge, new bathrooms at Boomerang Chair and Haulback T-bar, across-the- board overhaul of the mid-mountain Bear’s Den and expanded parking.

With its steep bowls and chutes dominated by the Lizard Range’s rockwall, Fernie is in western Canada’s top-three in number of avalanche control charges thrown. Its geomorphology makes it difficult for pro patrollers to move around during times of high hazard. This season there’s new equipment to speed their work. Key is a  safety line onto Polar Peak, whose precipitoussoutheast-facing slopes regularly keep Currie Bowl closed for days. There’s also a new bomb tram over the Knot Chutes to enable remote delivery of charges, plus new Avalauncher gun mounts to extend control coverage. The improvements are welcome. The packs of crazed “Calgreedians” who descend on Fernie at the first whiff of snow are nearly unmanageable, which drives locals and tourists who restrain themselves bananas.

KIMBERLEY
This former mining town in B.C.’s East Kootenays, says Mosteller, shows that “you can’t just have the snow and terrain, you have to offer a complete experience that people come back to.” Translation: this rounded mountain may never be a world centre of steep ’n’ deep, but it offers what skiing families are looking for—including the yearround attractions that will turn winter visitors into real estate buyers and four-season regulars.  

Kimberley’s location just a 20-minute drive from the newly expanded Cranbrook airport gives it the shortest ground transfer from scheduled air service to making quality turns of any ski area in Canada—including Vancouver’s north shore. Kimberley’s $100-million+ multi-year real estate developments continue to chug along, with several new phases selling or taking occupancy this fall. The whole development cycle will add about 300 units. Unit pricing is aggressive and, reports Mosteller, sales are going well as families gravitate toward Kimberley’s affordability and fantastic summers. This season the mountain offers vast newly gladed areas. Years of delay in cutting trees evaporated, thanks to looming pine beetle devastation, which led the B.C. government to approve salvage logging. “That allowed us to open up some incredible glades and the skiing experience has changed hugely for the better,” says Mosteller, who predicts it’ll be seasons before skier traffic catches up to the oodles of new terrain.