NEW SUMMIT LIFT, SAFETY PROTOCOLS AT LAKE LOUISE
Temporary tent-like structures around the resort designed to help people spread out
There's a ton of snow, a brandnew lift that makes some of Lake Louise's best terrain much more accessible and an early winter that's opened up the majority of the resort.
In any other year, we'd be deliriously chattering on about any of those things.
It's 2020, though, so we're going to need to start with COVID-19.
After closing early last season because of the pandemic, Lake Louise Ski Resort has developed robust health and safety measures designed to get skiers and snowboarders active on the mountain.
Really, once you're actually off a lift and you're ripping down the mountain at the Banff National Park resort, there are few places where you're less likely to get COVID-19.
Going down the mountain is not a problem, getting up is the challenge, and Lake Louise has developed a series of measures designed to make that as safe as possible. Guests are encouraged to put their ski boots on in their cars, face coverings are required indoors and both in lineups and on the lifts themselves, and there will be temporary tent-like structures around the resort to help people spread out.
“Obviously, you've heard from other resorts and ski shops that people are going gangbusters with enthusiasm for coming out to the resorts,” said Dan Markham, director of communications at Lake Louise. “For us, it's pretty manageable because we have an exceptionally large parking area and we've been encouraging guests to boot-up in their car and go straight to the lifts and get your tickets in advance.
“We really want to encourage people to come mid-week, if you can, or off-peak hours the Saturday mornings.”
The resort has temporarily stopped selling the mega-popular Louise Plus cards to help manage the flow of guests, but has also started opening its lifts at 8:30 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. to spread people out as they make their first ascent.
The new Summit Chair helps with that, too. The chair replaces the poma chair that has taken skiers and snowboarders to the Top of the World and has cut down the time to get from the base to the summit by about eight minutes.
The new chair is also just a more comfortable ride and provides access to194 hectares of new skiable terrain in the West Bowl.
“It's a great way of getting people dispersed around the mountain quicker, rather than having them balled-up in one spot,” Markham said.
“The lineup when you used to get down to the poma lift, because it was one person at a time, could get bundled up. Now, you have the ability to move four people at a time and it moves much quicker.”
Strangely, another factor contributing to helping get guests dispersed around the mountain this year has been the cancellation of the annual FIS World Cup alpine races that take place every November at Lake Louise.
Hosting the races is a huge undertaking and demands that the course be in pristine condition. That generally means that a considerable amount of snow-making equipment is used to get the World Cup race ready.
With COVID-19 forcing the cancellation of the annual event, the resort has been able to spread its snow-making machines out across the mountain. Combined with cold weather and 206 centimetres of snowfall on the upper mountain — including 44 cm in the last seven days alone — it's all added up to Lake Louise being able to have all 10 of its lifts and 111 of its 160 runs open already.
That's lots of terrain to explore, and lots of space to keep safely away from other guests.