PISTE 2.09 LAKE LOUISE

GORGEOUS DAY FOR RIDING AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN ON LAKE LOUISE

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Lake Louise was gorgeous despite the bitter cold in the early morning with the sun barely making a lazy rise above the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

The snow was not so slow in the morning, as yesterday on Sunshine Valley, sticking to the bottom of the board instead of the board floating on top of the snow.

Sunshine Valley has short exhilarating runs spread out over three mountains. A gondola takes skiers and snowboarders from the parking lot, with the customer service lodges, rental shops and ticket windows, along a 20 minute mainly horizontal climb to the Village.

One lift from the village takes you across the Great Divide and into British Columbia from Alberta. I got some good carving in on the South Divide, which was well groomed with a top coat that kept the hard base away from the edges.

And then, when I got my legs and lower back warmed up, I made three passes over Piste Noir.

You generally want to ski here until the sun rises a bit higher and at least lights up the other parts of Sunshine Valley. I had a lot of fun later in the day, on Goat Mountain, down Goat Chicken Glade, and then further below Goat’s Eye Express Quad, on the Wolverine, near Banff Avenue.

Banff Avenue is a long rolling ski out mainly for the end of the day, but you can get from the village to Goat Mountain by taking Banff Avenue and then the Jack Rabbit Lift.

I was at Sunshine Valley before the lifts opened. The gondola will still take you to the village, but then you have to wait in the lodge until 9 am before the lifts start running.

Same thing with Lake Louise. The early hotel shuttle got me to Lake Louise 30 minutes before the lifts started running. I was able to begin my first run at 9:20 am, after getting off the Glacier Express and riding back down to the base as a warmup.

The second time I went up the Glacier Express I took The Top of the World Express to get even higher up. I hesitated, and then thought, may as well go all the way up, and quickly slid over to the Summit Express.

I enjoyed running the Black Diamond, and then found my way down to Pipestone Express, which took me all the way up again. This second time at the Top I took the Homerun Trail, and luckily found Grizzly Gully, which was kind of groomed into a wide half pipe, where I enjoyed carving up and down so much that I returned at least a half dozen times throughout the day.

The day was just gorgeous again for the second day in a row, with the Canadian Rocky Mountains clearly visible on all sides, and all the way down the valley.

When I got warmed up, I headed into the Back Bowls, but with no powder snow for at least a week in this area, I took the easy downhill trail to Paradise Chair. Once up to the top of Paradise Chair, I tried the Black Diamonds in Paradise Bowl.

There is a whole different mountain on the back side of Lake Louise, which I decided to leave for a second day riding, perhaps on Friday, if my knees and quads hold out until then.

The runs are much longer on Lake Louise than on Sunshine Valley. I started the day on both mountains at 9 am and ended at 3 pm, to catch the 3:30 pm hotel shuttle. Banff gets an extra hour of daylight, but my legs were spent on both days by around 2 pm.

I managed to get my legs to bounce back with about 30 minutes in the hotel hot tub, which is more of a hot pool with jets. I used the jets to work out a kink in the right lower back that has been nagging me for a couple of years. I thought I had it beat, but it came back last week in the gym doing legs presses, just after I booked the trip to Banff.

Hopefully, with the workouts snowboarding during the day and the power of the jet against my back in the hot tub, everything will clear up by the time I get into the gym next week, to just kind of continue on until the next day riding.