Neil Gendzwill wrote:
wrote:
Well, if the blues are "holy crap" and the blacks are "time to clean
the lift chair," I guess there are always the greens. 
Seriously, in
an extremely large resort, the average difficulty level doesn't concern
me that much, since one can almost always find suitable terrain
somewhere. That was our experience at Lake Louise and Sunshine.
Are the blues at Louise and Sunshine seriously "holy crap" compared to
those in the east? Never been to the east, don't have any idea how the
ratings compare.
Well, eastern terrain is pretty varied. I'm in Pennsylvania, which I
believe is less challenging than many places in New England. Some New
England ratings are probably comparable to those out west.
We visited Banff at the end of our first season of snowboarding, so we
stuck to the greens. The greens at Lake Louise definitely would have
been blues back home -- very steep in spots. The greens at Sunshine
Village were not as tough, just extremely long, which was fun (except
for the snowboard-unfriendly flat areas). More experienced skiers and
riders on our trip also commented that many of the slopes they
encountered seemed to be a level above the ones with the same rating
that they were used to.
Lots of Americans in Canada that weekend, too. It's a crowded time to
go skiing.
We went to Banff in early April. The conditions were still quite good,
but this time I wanted to experience peak season snow instead of spring
skiing conditions. Feb. is crowded for a good reason, I imagine.
Joe Ramirez