Canada!
 

Hiya,

Me and a few friends are thinking about heading over from Scotland to Canada
next winter for a fortnight. We're a bunch of novices to not-bad boarders.
Any suggestions as to where we should go? We're after decent powder (well, I
am), decent night-life, some good beginners areas, and not too expensive.
Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Barney.

Canada!
 

"Stephen" wrote in message
...

I'm going to go with a shameless plug here, and recommend visiting
http://www.ridecanada.com as one of your resources. Assuming you have an
idea of where you want to fly into, the search page can help locate
prospective boarding destinations within a given radius, and provide info
on
each with links to the resort websites.

Steve

Cheers, that's great! Roll on winter...

Canada!
 

Me and a few friends are thinking about heading over from Scotland to
Canada
next winter for a fortnight. We're a bunch of novices to not-bad
boarders.
Any suggestions as to where we should go? We're after decent powder
(well, I
am), decent night-life, some good beginners areas, and not too
expensive.

I can't comment on the night-life. BC bars are smoke-free though, which is
brilliant.

I presume you're looking at the west side.

If you want a destination resort then Whistler's the closest to a European
resort; it doesn't have many lifts, but it's got more than anywhere else in
North America. It does a pretty good job of combining European scale with
Canadian service & hospitality. Tends to get full of Japanese and Brits
though. Don't go early season unless you like rain. In a good year at the
right time it's an excellent place.

If you have a car then you might try Kimberly Fernie, Silver Star, Panorama,
White Tooth, Sun Peaks etc. Most of those are small and can be consumed in a
day. Car hire's cheap (ask for the smallest they have - I've never had
anything smaller than a Grand-Am for the cheapest price). Local
accomodation's cheap. You might easily find that (say) the Okanagan's
bullet-proof (Silver Star, Big White) where as either Fernie or Banff are
fine, or the other way around. It helps to be mobile and to check the
conditions on the hill.

Banff is a big package destination. You can stay there or Lake Louise and
there are free busses to the local hills. The catch is that the local hills
are all pretty local, so although conditions vary, if one's crap they might
all be. Lake Louise is famous for cold weather; minus 36 for example. There
are good restaurants and warming huts etc, but they will close the lifts if
it gets mean. The most interesting slopes there IMHO is the newish extension
at Sunshine (goat's something or other) and the North American at Norquay.

I seem to recall sitting in a hot tub in Banff with some people who were
complaining about the "night life"; they were not really into snow I think.
Certainly they didn't look very fit. If you're into staggering around drunk
at three in the morning then your probably heading for the wrong continent.

I don't know about beginner stuff, although I suspect that the tuition would
be good. There are lots of half-pipes and parks around, although most people
play in the powder...

Phil

Canada!
 

"phil" wrote in message ...
If you want a destination resort then Whistler's the closest to a European
resort; it doesn't have many lifts, but it's got more than anywhere else in
North America. It does a pretty good job of combining European scale with
Canadian service & hospitality. Tends to get full of Japanese and Brits
though. Don't go early season unless you like rain. In a good year at the
right time it's an excellent place.

Which times of year would you suggest? I've had a look at the
historical snow reports on http://www.skiclub.co.uk and they seem to
suggest end of March/beginning of April for the most snow. We're
really looking for powder, since this year we went to Tahoe in March
and although it was quite good there wasn't much in the way of powder,
and we all got quite bruised!

Thanks for any help

Dan

Canada!
 

Therein lies the problem with Whistler.. You might get Powder, slush, rain,
or ice. Imo, rarely will you get good groomed conditions there for any
length of time. Whistler is a HUGE dice roll in terms of a destination
resort because of it's near coastal location.

We're really looking for powder, since this year we went to Tahoe in
March

Canada!
 

SNIP!

I tend to cheat and use helicopters,

LoL...FLASH BASTURT ?!

--
"A man walks into a cake shop and says 'Is that a macaroon or a meringue?'
The assistant replies 'No, you're right. It's a macaroon.'"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Chick Murray...F##kin' Genius by the way !)

Canada!
 

If you're looking to get max powder with the most reliability, I think
the interior of BC is your best bet. Big White is the biggest and you
could easily enjoy a week there. Lots of terrain variety, lots of
snow. If you're going for 2 weeks you might get your biggest bang by
moving on to other resorts after a week. Silver Star has been
revamped a lot lately and is a 2 hour drive from Big White - haven't
been there in years but people tell me it's very good these days. I
haven't been to Red or Whitewater either but they are both hills with
big reps for powder - Red is mostly an expert's mountain although I
hear they have good intermediate terrain there too. Fernie is a
fabulous hill although it's not really in the same area as Big White.

I love Lake Louise and Sunshine. Sunshine has more reliable snow than
Louise but if you go to the Banff area you'll be able to hit both at
will. Lake Louise is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Accomodations at Big White are mostly privately owned condos although
there are a couple of hotels. Lots of ski-in, ski-out deals, just
park the car for the week and enjoy life. Big tip - avoid the central
reservations like the plague, they charge the owners 40% so bookings
through them are pricey. www.ownerdirect.com puts you in touch with
the owners for only a 10% premium, and a little time invested in
surfing may well yield some private web-pages. Also if you go for a
Sunday-Thursday block you can get discounted rates. We've gotten huge
condos (1300 square feet, 3 BR, full kitchen, laundry) for
$CDN175/night mid-week this way.

I don't have any big tips for Banff hotels, other than the Voyageur is
the best value in town. www.skibig3.com will let you find good
package deals.

Canada!
 

From Scotland, you can go either west coast or east. I'll comment on the
destinations I know best.

West:

Whistler is a big mountain but freaking expensive and with a so-so
nightlife. Weather is also very iffy but you can usually find rideable
weather by either going up or down in elevation.

East:

Mt. Tremblant is a great spot to party and ride. Snow is very reliable but
can be on the cold side (hey, it's a winter sport).

Mte. St. Anne offers fantastic snow and terrain but can get even colder than
Tremblant. If you can't take really cold weather (-20 or less), don't go
there. The big plus for St. Anne is the proximity of Quebec City. You can
stay there, enjoy the fantastic night life and bus it to St. Anne in the
morning.

Both Tremblant and St. Anne are great values.

Check out their websites with a Google search.


"Barney" wrote in message
...
Hiya,

Me and a few friends are thinking about heading over from Scotland to
Canada
next winter for a fortnight. We're a bunch of novices to not-bad boarders.
Any suggestions as to where we should go? We're after decent powder (well,
I
am), decent night-life, some good beginners areas, and not too expensive.
Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Barney.

Canada!
 

"phil" wrote in message ...
Yup, that's the top and bottom of it. I tend to wait and see where the best
snow is, then go there. If you can't do that, then I'd go [to Whistler]
later rather than sooner; boarding in the rain is not good, and the white
stuff does tend to build up as time goes on. If you have to take a punt and
you want to go early, then Banff/ Lake Louise is a better bet I'd say (no
real glacier but it tends to be cold, so if there's snow they'll have some).


We're currently looking at 5th-12th April, does this qualify as later?

Thanks again

Dan

Canada!
 

It certainly does. In a good year, there'll be loads of snow about still.

In many years, April is the best month in NW US / SW Canada. The seasons
tend to be a bit "delayed" in these areas... this past year, we had most of
our snow in March and April!

Mike T