We arrived at the parking lot, at 5440 ft, at 7:15am for the 8am gondola departure to Sunshine Village. The parking area is gigantic, as in Big, Big. Plus cars are parked along the road for about 3.5 miles. Fortunately there is a shuttle that has 14 stops along the road to get you up to the gondola. We got there early to get in the 1st row of vehicles. Once you get to the Village base area you have to wait until the lifts start loading at 9am. It was snowing at the base and they received 4” overnight. It snowed lightly during our visit but the snow was dense (and wind- blown).
We noticed tons of young racers (hundreds!) from of all over Alberta. Hmmm! The bad problem was the fog. At least half of Goat Eye, Lookout and Mount Standish were covered by the dense fog. In past years Jill and I enjoyed sunny days with powder; not so today. We went up Lookout and made a blind run down in a complete white out – we'd hoped for sun above, but no. The ski teams owned most of base area at 7100ft. The early arrival is important because Wawa quad runs and Strawberry Express runs were owned by the ski classes. Wolverine Express lines were short until the masses arrived. After 3 hours we headed down and enjoyed the long groomer from the upper village to the lower parking area. About 200' from the parking area the snowfall became drizzle – basically snowing on top, raining at the parking area. Strange weather. We got our free tickets with our Mountain Collective passes. We should have stayed at Lake Louise.
