Where to spend a month in BC or AB?

[marving]

depending on budget I would look to stay in Canmore as you could get a condo rental as opposed to Banff where its all hotel rooms.

renting a condo or house would be nice.. so i guess it would be canmore vs nelson at this point. whitewater seems pretty tiny, though i know there's good slackcountry and red is not far, but having skied several months at whistler over the years, would it be boring? and do sunshine/LL/KH win on the terrain side of the equation, but lose bigtime on the snowfall side of the equation? this may be inaccurate but i've always been under the impression that the rockies don't get much snow

[kootenayskier]

Canmore and Nelson are very different communities, with very different skiing experiences to be had. You should know where you'll fit best: condos vs communes, Cowboys vs lesbians, PBR vs IPA, Starbucks vs Oso Negro, 95mm vs 110mm, alpine vs trees, etc.

[DougW]

WW has great terrain. Also has great food. I mean really really great food. Ok its a bit small but varied so the same run skied a different way seems like a different run. The trip to Red is reasonable so there is your greater variety. W/B has a lot of runs that are the same so its not a apples to apples comparison.

Canmore- I meet some people that ski KH regularly from Canmore. If you posted Feb there would be no question but by March LL/SS come into their own more.

[sparkletarte.]

WW is not boring. If you have the kids skiing, and they are on the green-blue side, they would like Red. It has quite a bit more beginner runs than WW (not that Red overall is beginner, they just have more options for that).

Canmore is like a busy Calgary suburb. Heaps of condos and traffic jams last time I went through there. Probably Whistler-like- lots of tourists and city people (maybe that's just in the summer?). What kootenay skiier said is pretty true. Maybe less lesbians and more hippies/keeping it real'ers.

[steff]

Choosing between Canmore and Nelson... different places for sure, lots to think about. Plenty of fun terrain near each area, the snow comes and goes. The tourists in Canmore are something special to deal with, especially the weekend crowd. The rental costs in Canmore could be a bit high. Calgary nearby can be both good and bad.
Nelson would be my choice, I've lived in both. Nelson feels like a more normal place. The people, the food, the bars, the whole area is top quality and more relaxed. It can feel isolated and backwards sometimes, that's both good and bad. ha!
Depends what you're looking for.

[AlexC]

Definitely go to Nelson over Canmore. Nelson is definitely very hippy, but it's a real community, not just a weekend destination for Calgarians. I don't really care for Golden as a town, but the location is pretty great, with Kicking Horse right there and less than an hour drive to Rogers Pass and Lake Louise. Normally I would tout Revelstoke, but this feels like one of those seasons where we'll have to download in mid-March. Still, the upper mountain will have great skiing until it closes and the town has great facilities and programs for kids.

[marving]

Cool thanks, looks like Nelson makes the most sense for a month.

Maybe I'll go to Kicking Horse for a week before or after, I've only skied it once but remember thinking it had the best terrain I'd ever skied outside of W/B. I read a few old threads about KH/LL/etc.. and there seem to be a lot of gripes about KH, that it doesn't snow much, when it does snow it's usually wet, that the bottom half of the mountain you are forced to ski because of the wonky lift system is often icey, bony, or just plain shit and gets old. And that the season is super short, starts around Christmas until the end of March. Is all of that accurate?

What would be the best time to go for a week where there's the best chance of a solid snowpack so you can actually get into all those chutes, and the bottom ski out is not hellish or melted off, and maybe there's still a good chance of a nice powder day?

[DougW]

KH is almost always going to get less snow than Revie in any storm but it will be drier. KH will almost always get more snow than LL, once in a while it will be wetter , can happen in a big pineapple express. In early Dec storm Revie got rain to top, top 1/3 of KH got snow and I don't think LL got rain but all season KH has been doing better than LL per the gondi reports.

Bottom of hill can get boney as it is now but not in March , only in late April can it get patchie at the bottom but now with snow making at the bottom that is very unlikely. The top will still be very much winter.

You can't compare KH to W/B snow. Went up the gondi with a couple of high end girls from W/B this week. We were saying snow was a bit hard right now, the girls said it was W/B normal. KH more than other places you can hit rocks esp at top of chutes . So if really girlie about your bases not for you.

[Eldo]

... and there seem to be a lot of gripes about KH, that it doesn't snow much, when it does snow it's usually wet, that the bottom half of the mountain you are forced to ski because of the wonky lift system is often icey, bony, or just plain shit and gets old. And that the season is super short, starts around Christmas until the end of March. Is all of that accurate?

No, no, sometimes, no.

KH is open to mid-April. Skied some fresh there closing weekend probably 9 out of last ten years.

Cnd hills (other than B.C. Coast) usually close with their deepest snow pack of the season. But asking when the snow will be best is the single silliest question that people always have on TGR. Weather is fickle.

Should be a fun trip to Nelson if the pineapple expresses stop hitting the Kootenays. Been a weird winter with those warm storms.

[marving]

No, no, sometimes, no.

KH is open to mid-April. Skied some fresh there closing weekend probably 9 out of last ten years.

Cnd hills (other than B.C. Coast) usually close with their deepest snow pack of the season. But asking when the snow will be best is the single silliest question that people always have on TGR. Weather is fickle.

Should be a fun trip to Nelson if the pineapple expresses stop hitting the Kootenays. Been a weird winter with those warm storms.

cool thanks! and no not asking anyone to predict when it will snow, just wondering if typically would have better chances of good conditions going say late feb/early march vs late march/early april.. for nelson and golden. i think we will do a month in nelson and a week in golden

[GoldMember]

Conditions around Nelson will likely be better late Feb/early March rather than later, especially in a year like this one. It's been a mild winter and later in March will have a strong chance to be warm and sunny with much of the precipitation that does fall come as rain. The snowpack is low so by late March/early April, we'll be losing areas we could sometimes ski into May. February and early March are usually good periods for storms but this year, who knows?

[DougW]

The closing dates don't meant that much when comparing resorts around here. SS and LL stay late as they can still get skier visits. LL stays open until May 1 so they can say they are open till May so people thing April will still be good. KH only gets people if there is powder to make the drive worth it from Calgary. If conditions are good KH can open up to 2 weekends early and extend the season by a weekend or 2.

[marving]

Sorry another question, since this season is not so super duper.. another option would be instead of going for the month of March this year, I could go for an entire season next year (well until the end of March). In retrospect this seems like a no brainer In that case is Nelson still the clear choice? I know Whitewater is mostly tree skiing and having spent a ton of time in Whistler which has endless alpine terrain I'm just worried I'd get bored of the place?

[Gcooker]

You're only an hour to Red Mountain if you want lift served variation. There's also many, many easily accessible BC routes. Hard to get bored in one of the most amazing areas of BC.