March 2, 2016 - Travel to Banff, Canada

JC found this wonderful tour pacakge to ski in Banff, Canada.  Most of us have not skied in Banff before and it was a nice experience for all of us.

Our flight from Houston to Calgary was 8:55AM, so we got to IAH pretty early and flew to Calgary around 12:30PM.  With issues of finding our large sized luggage (ski bag), we waited for another hour to get it.  The shuttle ride to Banff was pretty smooth.  After we arrived at Banff and found out that the hotel JC selected is in a very good location as far as getting around Banff and taking ski shuttles.

After we settled into the hotel rooms, we all ventured out to check out the town and to settle the equipment rentals.  The rental package includes delivery and pickup of equipments to and from our hotel. It was very nice and saved us a lot of time and energy of carrying them.

Banff is a small and beautiful ski town with just one major street - Banff Avenue.  As usual, there are a lot of boutique clothing shops and some name brand clothing shop like Lululemon, North Face, Arc'teryx, and Patagonia.  It provides a lot of selections for shopping winter clothes.

Per hotel staff's recommendation, we went to Banff Ave Brewing Co for dinner. It is a nice restaurant and has a really brewing setup there.  They also provide brewing tour during daytime.

March 3, 2016 - Ski in Lake Louis Ski Resort

With the lift tickets we had, we can go to either Lake Louis Ski Resort or Sunshine Village Ski Resort. There were some discussion regarding which one we want to go first.  With Ben's ski lesson booked on today was at Lake Louis Ski Resort, we decided to venture out to Lake Louis Ski Resort first.  Paul, Sophia, Jerry, Fei and Tony decided to get there earlier, therefore, they were the 1st group went there and the others rode the next shuttle bus.

With no ski trip in 2015, we all felt sort of uneasy first.  But once we got on the slope, everything came back without missing a beat.

We took the Glacier Express chair to the Whitehorn Bistro area and then ski down from Wiwaxy and Pine Cone Way trails.  Wiwaxy is wider and straighter, Pine Cone Way is more winding and narrow. There are both green trails and have different sceneries. Then, we got on Upper Juniper, Lower Juniper, Home Run, and Grizzly Gully which are blue trails.

 

Ben is a first timer skier.  He booked a lesson with a ski instructor and got good experience on the slope.  He fell and hurt his shoulder a little bit in the morning, but still tried to ski a couple more runs in the afternoon with positive feeling of skiing.  We all admire his courage of trying a new sport.

June, Lisa and John are non-skiers and they tagged along to enjoy the wonderful snow scene and experience the winter in this snow country.   

We found a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  We were the only guests there and the food was not very desirable.

March 4, 2016 - Ski in Sunshine Village Ski Resort

We all decided to check out Sunshine Village Ski Resort today.  It is much closer to Banff with just 30 minutes shuttle ride.

The gondola in Sunshine Village is from base at east to Daylodge at west.  There is one stop in between.  Our plan was to ride the gondola to Daylodge and then start to ski around Daylodge area.  Some of us were accidentally got off at the midpoint and had to quickly jump back to gondola cart.  Jerry got lost a little bit and even had to catch the following cart.

There were more snow than we expected.  With a couple of runs in the snow, some of us decided to have lunch and then headed back to Banff.  The rest of us decided to ski all the way along the gondola to the base.  It took an additional hour to ski down.  But it did feel more satisfactory to ski down all the way to the base.

March 5, 2016 - Ski in Sunshine Ski Resort Again

We decided to take a shorter shuttle ride to ski in Sunshine Village again.  We had better weather then yesterday. This was the 3rd day of skiing and we felt that we got back to shape already.  

We went to DayLodge area again, took Standish Express Quad Lift to ski on Borderline and Creek Run trails; and then we took Strawberry Express Quad Lift to ski on The Dell Valley; and then we took Wawa Quad Lift to ski on Wawa Bowl and Tincan Alley trails. The weather was nice and we all had a wonderful time on the slope.

After we got back from skiing and showered, some of us went out to south side of the town to explore the Bow River Hiking Trail along Bow River.  There is a pedestrian only bridge.  On the bridge, one can have a wonderful view of snow capped mountain in distance.  With the Bow River and the snow capped mountain, it was just beautiful.

Some of non-skiers went to Tony Roma's for lunch and liked it very much, therefore we all decided to have dinner at Tony Roma's.   

March 6, 2016 - Winter Scenic Tours and More Skiing

Most of our group took the winter scenic tours to see the beautiful snow capped mountains.  They went to a Banff Winter and Wildlife Tour and a Winter Icewalk Tour.  This was the first time for some of us to join winter tour.  The snow capped mountain and winter wildlife scenes were new experience to most of us.  The avid photographers took many memorable photos.

Paul, Fei and Tony are the ones stayed behind and did not join the tour.  Paul had some issue with his knees, so he stayed for rest.  Fei and Tony went back to Lake Louis Ski Resort to do more skiing.  The weather was OK.  Did tried Sunset Terrace and Charlie's Choice blue trails.  

Some of us decided to try Maple Leaf restaurant for dinner and some of us following Ou and Ying to a Korean restaurant to have Korean dinner.  June is familiar with Korean food and ordered all the food for us.  It was delicious. 

March 7, 2016 - Back to Houston

Since we had arranged a shuttle bus to pick us up from Banff to Calgary, there was not much we could do in the morning.  However, some of us still got a chance to go for breakfast and some of us took the last opportunity to take more winter scenic photos in this beautiful town.

Returning flight was non-eventful.  Everyone was very happy with this ski trip.  With the good currency exchange rate of Canadian dollars, it made us felt even better.  

Thanks to JC for finding this wonderful ski package.