Nakiska Ski Area

Nakiska Ski Area is the only resort in the Banff and Lake Louise Area of the Canadian Rockies to get a new High Speed Quad this season. The Gold Express Chair is the new lift and it makes skiing the upper mountain quick and easy with a 5 minute ride time! Also new is the enhancements to the Finish Line Lounge! Can't beat a Kokanee Beer after skiing or riding the best grooming in the Alberta Rockies!

Ahh, the Olympic Mountain. Most Alberta skiers think that the construction of Nakiska was a mistake. Olympic organizers should have been willing to hold the alpine events at the further site of lake louise, and the government should have allowed olympic events in the park. They decided to create a new hill instead. Designed for racing, nakiska offers great high speed cruisers with steep pitches and rollers, unfortunately, winds can be high, and it almost never snows. The ski resort does not operate a tow above the Gold chair that was used in the Olympics to add vert and access a trail above the silver chair, but the lift system is more than adequete. Nakiska is often seen as a good choice for Calgarians because it is only 45 minutes from the city. Although seemed like any time I planned on skiing Nakiska, I called an audible and continued on to Fortress. With Fortress now closed, this might make a good upslope option, but not a destination resort.

The upside of Nakiska is that it was built for the Olympics, and so has some really great facilities and lifts, is able to handle big crowds, and is really, really, nicely done all the way around.

 

The downside of Nakiska is that the mountain isn't all that well suited to a ski resort.  Many if not most of the runs, particularly mid-mountain,  are like a series of giant stair-steps, alternating short steeps with frustratingly level flats. This is something that was criticized during the Olympics as making for a lousy downhill course, but it also makes for some disappointing runs for the recreational skiier.

 

Now, if you could just take Nakiska's facilities and move them to Lake Louise's terrain, you'd have a ski resort! (Just don't get it backwards and combine Nakiska's terrain with Lake Louise's facilities).