Looking for info on skiing in Canada

I make this non-recommendation to anyone planning a trip to Golden BC.

do not stay here www.alpinemeadowslodge.com/ . We stayed there several years ago and it was one of the worst lodging experiences we have ever had. The lodge is nice, location is convenient, but the owner's wife is one of the rudest people I have ever met. There were several uncomfortable incidents during our stay, but I will describe just one.

I believe it was the second day of our stay. Breakfast was to be served at 7:00 and then we were going to ski at Kicking Horse. The clock in our room says 7:00 so we come downstairs to breakfast, but nobody is about. Soon the owner comes down to get things going, but tells us breakfast isn't until 7:00, but he'll get us going with some coffee anyway. Apparently the clock in our room was set back an hour. No big deal to us, we'll just sit around for a while. Soon the owner's wife comes down and starts freaking out. She takes him into the kitchen and starts going off on him, dropping F bombs about how we shouldn't be up so early and not to serve us anything until 7:00. We were right there, and could hear everything clearly. Anyway, we went back to the room and discussed grabbing our shit and getting the hell out of there. There's a lot more that happened, but this should be enough to justify my non-recommendation.

The other crazy thing about this woman was her reckless driving. The lodge is at the end of a very long dirt road, that is narrow with a high center with fairly deep ditches on the side. Icy conditions make the road a bit tricky, as it would be very easy to slide into the ditch. She would just fly down this road without any regard for clients coming towards her. It was like, get out of my way, I own this road. Anyway, we actually witnessed her forcing one of her clients into the ditch, and the husband having to bring his truck down to pull them out.

That's funny. This is the same place we stayed when we went. We did not have the same experience as you but I do remember her being a little "rough". She was from Russia or something like that I believe, unless it was him. I can't remember.

md2020.
You should have been forwarned by that famous book.
" Escape from the Gulag AlpinemeadowsLodge".

Very funny and wierd; prehaps she was more used to the customer service afforded during communist times in the Soviet era.

it was pretty damn weird. I thought she was German and that she might be some kind of Nazi or something.

Now that I'm at it I might as well tell a couple other parts of the story.

After that breakfast incident, we went up to ski at Kicking Horse. I think it might have been their first season so things were a bit unorganized. Anyway, it being around Christmas, the conditions weren't that great. It was really cold, but it hadn't snowed in a while and the runs were kind of bony. We did a couple runs on the icy snow then decided to bag it. They were actually giving 50% refunds at the resort so we were able get a bit of cash back. We get back to our lodge and tell the woman about the poor conditions. She proceeded to lecture me about how good they were and how I didn't know anything about snow. I damned near blew a gasket. I'm pretty sure I know good snow when I see it. Somehow I mangaged to contain myself though, and we got the hell out of there for the rest of the day. We headed up to Lake Louise and ice skated on the lake in front of the Chateau. That was cool! Everyone should do that if they get a chance.

The last thing about the woman was her obsession with the floors. The lodge was really beautiful. Newly built and it had really nice wood floors. Everyone had to remove their shoes before entering, which made sense. Anyway, she starts accusing Brenda of tracking mud into the place. Any fool could look down and see that the mud was the paw prints of her damn cat that was running in and out of the house.

As we left the place after two very uncomfortable nights, Brenda actually took the husband aside and basically told him that he had a really nice place but that his wife was horrible. She literally told him how sorry she felt for him that he had to put up with her.

Anyway, I think there's another place in town called Mary's where I wish we would have stayed.

Red Mountain and especially Whitewater are wonderful small ski areas that should not be missed if you're in the neighborhood.

A couple years ago we did a trip where we flew into Calgary and skied a few areas there (measurements in cm for Canadian authenticity):

Day 1: Sunshine - bullet proof ice and fridge cold, not exactly an awesome ski day, but the terrain looked like it would have been good with better snow.

Day 2: Kicking Horse - got about 8 cm of fresh on top of the ice, just enough to make it skiable and anything was better than the beating we took the day before.

Day 3: Kicking Horse - got another 15 cm fresh, now we were in business, good snow few people

Day 4: Kicking Horse - dumped another 30 cm and it seemed like there were about 100 people at the mountain. Face shots all day and we were dropping into uncut chutes at 3:45 in the afternoon.

Day 5: Fernie - We should have stayed at Kicking Horse, but Fernie was OK. They had gotten snow, then rain. We made the most of it and got some good runs in. I liked the stickers they have that say, "FERNIE - I LIKE BIG DUMPS"

Day 6: Cat skiing near Fernie - lucked into a great group and got the most out of the day. Evidently the group we were with got stuck with a less than desirable couple the day before and only got about 70% of the vert in that we got in our day.

Overall I would say Kicking Horse was the highlight of the trip. The only downside to it is that when you drop into the area on the far skier's left of the mountain you have to go all the way back down to the gondola. I would definitely like to go back to KH, but after reading about Revelstoke and seeing the pictures in Skiing Mag, I might go there instead because it looked freakin sick.

Revelstoke is fun. Kicking Horse is fun. Most of the vertical at Revelstoke ( i.e. the lower mountain below the top of the gondola and below the "Stoke" chairlift ) is utterly boring. The upper mountain is very fun indeed. Great snow and fun tree runs. New terrain this year at Revelstoke. Looks nasty in the photos; it's much friendlier in person. Kicking Horse is basically the same. Fun upper mountain, boring lower mountain. Fresh snow is quickly scraped and trampled in both places.

Don't forget to bring frosted flakes and mouthwash; both items are very expensive up north. Personally, I'd skip the ski areas and go touring or maybe go chase goats instead.