Timeless skiing at Lake Louise

In winter, the Canadian roadway that enjoys more world-renown than any other is spectacular in a different kind of way; gone are summer’s aquamarine lakes, wandering wildlife and thick tourist traffic, replaced by an empty road, the wind pluming off razor peaks and a patina of white running to every horizon. The way the high, snow-limned ridges connect to glaciers, the glaciers to treed moraines and the moraines to valley bottoms speaks to the Pleistocene forces that shaped this place — as does virtually everything about Lake Louise Ski Resort.

It’s hard to say which is more stunning: the gaze from Whitehorn Mountain across the Bow Valley to Princess Louise’s eponymous lake, Valley of the Ten Peaks and Mount Temple, or the battleship ramparts of Redoubt Mountain viewed from the area’s Larch sector. Either way, you can’t avoid any of this breathtaking wallpaper; awe is part of the ski experience here.

Many of the runs on the front side of Whitehorn, where the leg-burning Summit platter-lift deposits you on its peak, ski like a winding downhill course — no surprise given the revered World Cup races that take place here annually. But when it snows, skiers and snowboarders are drawn to Louise’s ample backside, where a variety of powdery back bowls and tree runs remind visitors just how big and diverse the resort is.

The village of Lake Louise presents another great overnight destination for skiers, whether it’s the creaking comfort of Deer Lodge, the opulent hominess of the Post Hotel (featuring one of Canada’s largest wine cellars) or venerable Chateau Lake Louise with its stone fireplaces, anachronistic animal heads and walls adorned with photos from the golden age of Canadian mountaineering. As elsewhere in the Banff-Jasper corridor, halls here echo with the names of guides, instructors and builders whose varied efforts connect all of Front Range ski history: Monod, Brewster, Whyte and others. In the Lakeview Lounge — familiar from colourful Canadian Pacific Railway posters of yore — soaring windows deliver the hanging Victoria Glacier, framed by mounts Victoria and Fairview. On the forest-encircled, ice-covered lake below might be a wedding, skaters, cross-country skiers or a horse-drawn sleigh ride.

While the winter scene here can strike you as timeless, the skiing at Louise can do so as well. From the resort’s Temple Lodge, it’s an easy but stunning 11-kilometre tour on cross-country skis (or alpine gear with climbing skins) into historic Skoki Lodge, the first facility built specifically to cater to ski-tourists in North America. Buried in a valley beneath majestic peaks, arriving at the snow-covered log structure always feels like going back in time, the interior virtually unchanged from the day it opened in 1931 — wooden skis and snowshoes adorn a large stone fireplace and the aroma of fresh bread and soup stirs the air. Operated by Lake Louise, the lodge accommodates up to 22 skiers, a region-defining must-visit for backcountry aficionados.

Skoki radiates the kind of authenticity that inspires exploration — and not just the popular pastime of climbing and skiing down surrounding peaks. It also makes you wonder what other gems the Front Range conceals, for which you need look no further than the nearby town of Banff, where you’ll find railroad magnate Cornelius Van Horne’s Banff Springs Hotel, a paean to post-Renaissance opulence first opened in 1888, and historic Cave and Basin hot springs, whose discovery kicked off Canada’s entire national park system. There’s also more skiing to be had at the charming and steep-pitched Mount Norquay adjacent to the Banff townsite, as well as further south (see “Jewels of Alberta skiing,” left). The Front Range lacks nothing for diversity.

Sunshine Village: A daredevil’s paradise

Eventually, my wanderings led me to Sunshine Village. After a morning linking turns off popular Standish, Goat’s Eye and TeePee Town chairs, I’m about to experience Sunshine’s true test-piece, Delirium Dive, a massive alpine amphitheatre accessed via a metal catwalk staircase. Long a daredevil’s paradise, the Dive’s nasty reputation for unstable snow saw it closed for nearly two decades until Parks Canada figured out how to run avalanche control in its vast drainages to make it safe. When it reopened in 1998, skiers flocked to the Dive, legitimizing Alberta in the international annals of big-mountain resort skiing.

Snow squeaks under my skis as I tip into this latest postcard. I’ll ski some steep terrain, then make the exhilarating eight-kilometre run to the Bourgeau parking lot and drive back to Banff. Along the way will be more views, more powder and a swim through the deep geology of a limestone canyon. After all, skiing may famously be the closest thing to flying without leaving the Earth, but in Alberta it’s also like diving into an ocean.