Sunshine Village Snow Forecast

John from Canmore from Canada writes:

There is a reason why Sunshine Village is legendary: 7 months a year of skiing in the alpine. If you like long carving runs, on piste, below tree line this is not the resort for your season pass. You could still come mid winter if Goats Eye Mountain is open. Otherwise, let those of us who like to play on natural terrain features in the alpine play here.

A few important things about Sunshine:

1) if the snow is good at Lake Louise, the snow is great at Sunshine. This is why I rarely go to Louise anymore. Yes, Louise is also a great resort, but Sunshine almost always has better snow. Sunshine is high up and has very few south-facing slopes that melt out on the warm days, and it collects the snow as it blows up and over from BC.

2) there are flat sections. It's on the great divide, but all the facilities and the base of every lift is in Alberta. If you ski into BC dozens of times per day, you're going to have to traverse (or walk) out dozens of times per day. The signs steer you towards the traverses. If you duck those ropes and are willing to walk just a few minutes from the bottom of the run to get back to Alberta, you can find some great powder runs even 5 days after the dump.

3) Delirium Dive is absolutely amazing, but you need avalanche gear and you should have some training about how to use your beacon, probe and shovel before you go in. And it's steep and double-black at the top. If you are an expert (black) skier or boarder but don't do double-blacks and don't have (or know how to use) avy gear, you might be disappointed at Sunshine, because there are a lot of blue and green runs in the rest of the resort. (You are allowed to go look at Delirium Dive without avy gear, just don't take your skis/board up the boot-pack if you don't have the gear.)

4) Bring your skins and touring gear, especially if the avalanche conditions are good. The resort is straddles the boundary of Banff National park and a BC provincial park, there are endless opportunities out there.

5) Think of the terrain off Standish Chair as a big natural terrain park, use the features and have fun. It doesn't have a lot of vertical but it's a fast chair and rarely has long lift lines, so just keep lapping it.

6) Get there early. On a good day, get there even earlier. The parking lot is too small and there's no room to make it bigger.

7) On a busy day, eat lunch early, or late, or eat in the hotel restaurant instead of the main day lodge. The day lodge is too small (a new day lodge is apparently coming in 2014/2015.)