Dry Start to the Ski Season? Not in Alberta, Where Feet of Snow Have Fallen

As one of the more uneven ski season debuts in recent memory gets underway, some mountains are enjoying a feast while others are dealing with a famine. 

Ski resorts in Alberta around Banff fall into the former camp. 

Banff Sunshine Village and Lake Louise have both taken to social media, sharing videos that should spark a twinge of jealousy in skiers still waiting for the snow to start falling (myself, unfortunately, included). At Lake Louise, 74 centimeters—or about 30 inches for the Americans—of snow have arrived in the past week. 

The ski resort opened the Paradise lift on Tuesday, November 25, which services the Back Bowls. Lake Louise also has plans to open more terrain, including the Glacier Express, Ptarmigan, and Larch Express chairs, this week. As of Wednesday, November 26, the ski resort was operating with seven lifts and 72 runs.

A similar story is unfolding at Banff Sunshine. The mountain’s weekly snow total is a more modest 35 centimeters (about one foot), but they, too, have been dropping ropes and opening lifts like nobody’s business. Ten of Banff Sunshine’s 12 lifts are open, alongside 79 runs. 

“This is our recipe for a perfect day: Blue skies and a blanket of white fluffy pow on Great Divide,” Banff Sunshine wrote in a recent social media post, accompanied by some footage as proof.

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Elsewhere in Canada, at Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia, the season is slowly gathering steam. 

The resort hasn’t benefitted from the same snow totals as Lake Louise or Banff Sunshine (its seven-day snow total is six inches), but it opened the Blackcomb side of its slopes last week. Today, Whistler Mountain was added to the roster, with the Whistler Village Gondola, Emerald 6 Express, and Franz’s Chair lifts running.

Such is the story of the West this year. Contrasts are everywhere. 

While the Canadians are notching turns, a surprising number of mountains in the U.S. have announced delays amid a period of mild weather, including major destinations like Palisades Tahoe, California, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was Jackson Hole’s first opening day delay since 2016.

As Jackson Hole noted in an update on its website, though, delays don’t necessarily mean a dry winter is coming. After that 2016 delay, the ski resort ended up having a memorable season with nearly 600 inches of snowfall.

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