Annual festival now underway
Marmot Basin resort at heart of town’s two-week festival now in its 30th year
January can be a pretty grim month.
It’s cold, it’s dark all the time and we don’t even have any major holidays to look forward to.
In Jasper, though, they tend to look at January a little differently.
The first month in the calen- dar has been when people in the Alberta mountain town get together to throw the Jasper in January festival, a two-week event kicking off today and designed to show off exactly how much is actually going on in their not-so-sleepy town.
“For sure, it’s the community getting together and putting their best foot forward to let people know what Jasper has available in the winter and have a great time doing it,” said Brian Rode, vice-president of marketing and sales at Marmot Basin, the ski resort that plays a big role in the festival.
Now entering its 30th year, Jasper in January is a completely different animal from back in 1988 when people in the town first decided to throw a weekslong celebration of Marmot Basin’s 25th anniversary.
Even in its inaugural year, the event was a hit and attracted a huge number of visitors to the town.
Now, though, Jasper in January’s calendar features events in just about every corner of town and at the resort.
There are traditional winter activities, like sleigh rides up around Pyramid Lake and ice-climbing lessons at a frozen waterfall that is inaccessible to most park visitors.
In town, Jasper’s local restaurants are adding new twists to their menus and there will be a brewery tour — with samples, of course — at the Jasper Brewing Company.
There’s also an entire After Dark schedule with bands and DJs putting on shows around town, including East Coast ’90s rock legends Sloan, who will be playing at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge.
“There’s everything from the simplest little things, like a kids’ scavenger hunt to wine tastings to bigger acts like Sloan playing gigs around town,” Rode said. “The community really gets together.”
Of course, the main attraction for anyone making the trip up to Jasper during the winter is always going to be the skiing at Marmot Basin, and the good news for skiers and snowboarders is the resort has been getting steady snowfall since the very start of the season.
That includes 3 cm in the past couple days, to push the season total to 255 cm.
Guests who haven’t skied at Marmot for a while will likely be surprised by what they find at the resort, as the addition of the Tres Hombres ski and snowboard area last winter dramatically expanded the amount and variety of terrain that was open for guests at the resort.
It’s a whole lot of big-mountain terrain that’s been added to an already world class experience, and the resort will also be set up to celebrate the big Jasper in January festival with daily events and a tent for live music.
Just like everyone else in Jasper, nobody at Marmot is letting January get them down.