(Canmore, Alberta, Canada)

This post was supposed to be about skiing in the Banff area without a polar vortex.  Alas, I cannot do that.  There was a relative warming over the next two days of skiing, but I still needed to buy and use Hotshots (for my hands) for each of those days.  However, I was able to ski through both the morning and the afternoon without resorting to hand dryers for warmth…and I finally get a proper feel for the slopes at both Lake Louise and Sunshine Village.

My first impressions of skiing at Lake Louise were mixed.  The views were great, but most of the pistes near the main gondola were “used up” by mid-morning.  We then made our way to the “Back Bowls”, a large area on the backside of the main mountain (see photo at the very top of this post).  

The Back Bowls pistes are not really defined…they are more “areas” than formal pistes, so it is sometimes difficult to figure out which piste you are actually on. There are three distinct Back Bowl sections, each with a fairly easy piste running through the middle, and exclusively black diamond-rated (or double black diamond-rated) slopes branching off.  Sometimes a hike is required to reach these pistes. 

The farthest of the three Back Bowls was accessible only by a “platter” lift.  This is almost prehistoric technology that should have been retired long ago.  It is similar to a T-Bar: you ride it alone, and you are dragged uphill by a “disc” that you place between your legs.  It can be quite difficult to ride, especially on steep inclines, and the resort even ranked the lift itself as a black diamond!! 

We cursed this wretched lift each time we used it.  The steepest section makes you fight the lift; it feels like a fall is imminent as you try to squeeze your thighs around the disc. But we then realized that this horrible lift was actually keeping people away from the third Back Bowl.  It was really our friend!

While it had been several days since the last snowfall, we managed to find a hidden piste that checked all the right boxes: barely used, a decent amount of powder, and a steep pitch that made you work but didn’t seem to have any hidden rocks or icy surprises. 

We returned to this “Traumpiste” (“Dream Run”) several times, each time enjoying the sun, snow, solitude, and attainable challenge.  We then had a late lunch and decided to figure out the name of our great discovery.  Perhaps it would have a lyrical name, to match the internal melodies we heard while skiing it.  Or maybe it would have a rugged name, to reflect the worthy challenge it was.  I could have lived with either option.

But no.  This piste turned out to have the worst name I have ever encountered: it was called “Brown Shirt”.  I kid you not. What on earth were they thinking?  To compound their sin, they included “Brown Shirt” in the name of two other nearby pistes.   I’m shocked and stunned.  I’ve decided to call it “Hidden Valley” instead.

Anyway, we also enjoyed skiing the long pistes located on Goat’s Eye Mountain at Sunshine Village.  These weren’t as remote as Lake Louise’s Back Bowls, but they were still off the beaten path for many of the skiers at Sunshine Village.  We were largely free to roam the wide open pistes in search of untouched snow. 

Temperatures are supposed to drop again tomorrow for our last day of skiing.  After a brief respite from the polar vortex, will we be able to handle it?