Banff Lake Louise / Advanced

Higher level skiers head for the Back Bowls of Lake Louise: sustained pitch with big vertical. The toughest challenges are on the North Face of the Summit of Mount Whitehorn “1” and “2.” Brown Shirt on the backside of Mt. Whitehorn is best for powder. Take the backside trails from the Summit Platter lift and back over to the front side trails via Paradise Triple Chair for a classic circuit. This chair takes you to a ridge where you are spoiled for choice—The Diamond Mine, as its name suggest, is an open bowl studded with diamond and double diamond black trails. From the top of the West Bowl on the front side of Mount Whitehorn there are spectacular views of the lake and the chateau.

Delirium Dive
Delirium Dive is the expert terrain area at Sunshine Village, located on the north and east aspects of Lookout Mountain with chutes, cliffs, and confined couloirs. Access is from the top of the Continental Divide high-speed quad through the check-in gate. Then it’s a 130-foot (40-m) hike. There’s usually a patroller around and a gate at the bottom with a key that reads your transceiver (which you need, along with shovel and probe) beep and lets you through. There’s a ridge you can hike on the right-hand side, then take a set of stairs to the far right to reach the trail called Milky Way.

If you traverse above Sweet and Low, there’s a great little trail that faces Goat’s Eye. Just below the summit there is a 15- to 20-foot (4–6 m) rock band that crowns the top of the Dive. You can negotiate entry into the Dive through the cliff’s small weaknesses or simply drop in, but this gets skied out pretty quickly. Another more moderate way down is via access stairs that take you to tamer ground. Either way it’s 2,000 vertical feet (610 m) of hardcore pleasure riding. It mellows out at the bottom and after fresh snow it’s especially awesome.

More challenges
Those who like bouncing down moguls will enjoy the steep Lone Pine run at Norquay, or the Gun Run off the double chair. Those wanting off-piste—apart from paying close attention to avalanche warnings and stop signs—will find all they need in the Paradise and East Bowls at Lake Louise. The challenges at Sunshine are the trees and the ice. Trees cast shadow and Sunshine is not always sunny, so beware sudden patches of ice or hard crust. Testing runs here include the narrow Hell’s Kitchen and Freefall mogul fields off Goat’s Eye Mountain—which also has good off-piste—and the steep chutes off Lookout Mountain, notably the Big and Little Angel.

Heli-skiing
For the really adventurous, and nowadays that can include intermediates, there are three heli-ski operations: it’s one to three hours from Lake Louise to Panorama, Golden, or Revelstoke in the majestic glaciated mountains of eastern British Columbia (out of Banff National Park.) It was in Banff that Austrian emigré Hans Gmoser established the first heli-skiing over 30 years ago. The sensation of no lift pylons, no clanking or squealing, and no engines (apart from the beat of the helicopter leaving you) to spoil the environment is truly one of the pinnacles of the sport.