We decided to go away from Wednesday to Saturday this week to Marmot Basin - the kids have March Break through the long weekend, and SO and I took a couple of days off to have a nice trip with the kids. Most of this winter we've been day tripping to Louise and Sunshine, and we figured it would be nice to take a short ski vacation to one of our favourite mountains, Marmot Basin.
Most people outside of Alberta don't know about Marmot. It's a pretty big ski area in Jasper National Park, 4 hours north of Banff, or 3 hours west of Edmonton: https://www.skimarmot.com/
The vertical is very similar to Lake Louise, with below treeline skiing from midmountain down, but also a huge alpine area in the upper mountain. Most people I've spoken about it with in Calgary rarely go, and many of them describe it as a 'beginner mountain.' I would beg to differ. I would say that it has a wonderful variety of runs - for all abilities - from greens to double blacks. For our family's general level - low advanced to high advanced - it's perfect: tons of bump runs, ungroomed steep blacks, amazing black glade runs and beautiful wide open alpine skiing.
We had a great drive up to Jasper -roads are clear and the weather is gorgeous and spring like:
One of the things I love about Marmot is the parking situation - I know, who says they love parking at a ski resort? Marmot has its parking along the lower mountain, and there is a run that is alongside of the parking. So, when you get there, basically you put your boots on at your car and ski down to the main lodge! Here's parking lot 2 at 9 am - we parked a few feet from the run, booted up and started our ski day! Marmot is super busy during March break (sarcasm).
Today was our first day skiing and we skied off of every lift. It hasn't snowed in about a week, so the lower mountain was either groomed or bumped up. The bumps have started to get a little bit icy. The upper mountain however was great. We actually had untracked in the trees, and lots of soft dry chop off of the Knob Chair.
We started off with some lower mountain warm ups. Then we took the Canadian Express Chair up and did Highway 16. It was icy at the top but got soft pretty quickly. The snow on Milk Run and Punchbowl was great and soft. Here's the view from the top of Canadian Express:
We did a couple more laps on Paradise, and then went over to the Knob Chair - which was one of our 2 favourite chairs of the day. We lapped Knob Chair in the morning - did everything from McCready's to the chutes. Snow was gorgeous - from soft bumps to soft chop. Upper mountain was skiing wonderfully. On our way to the Knob:
Marmot Basin's beautiful upper slopes:
For me, the views at Marmot rival those of Lake Louise - the view of the whole valley, Jasper town, the beautiful Athabasca, Mt.Kerkeslin, Pyramid mountain...it never ends. So gorgeous!
After we lapped Knob, we skied all the way down and did a couple of great bump runs - Expressway and Dromedary. Here are our happy faces after coming down Knob Hill:
We brought our own lunches and left the backpack in one of the cubbies in the main lodge at the very bottom - it was not very crowded when we went in for lunch, and we didn't spend much time down there - 30 mins and then back to skiing.
The afternoon was spent lapping Eagle Ridge Chair and Knob Chair. Conditions on the blacks off of Eagle Ridge were amazing - lots of soft small bumps. DD and I did Diamond Glades - one of our favourite runs of the day - and found untracked in the trees there. We ended the day on Knob again and skied out to the car.
Here are a few more pics from the afternoon:
The kids and I somewhere on the upper mountain:
And of course, we did après at Jasper Park Lodge:
SO and I at Lac Beauvert:
And the views from our table at the Emerald Lounge:
Off to bed and getting ready for an EPIC day tomorrow. It's supposed to snow 30 cm tonight!!
More tomorrow....
Most people outside of Alberta don't know about Marmot. It's a pretty big ski area in Jasper National Park, 4 hours north of Banff, or 3 hours west of Edmonton: https://www.skimarmot.com/
The vertical is very similar to Lake Louise, with below treeline skiing from midmountain down, but also a huge alpine area in the upper mountain. Most people I've spoken about it with in Calgary rarely go, and many of them describe it as a 'beginner mountain.' I would beg to differ. I would say that it has a wonderful variety of runs - for all abilities - from greens to double blacks. For our family's general level - low advanced to high advanced - it's perfect: tons of bump runs, ungroomed steep blacks, amazing black glade runs and beautiful wide open alpine skiing.
We had a great drive up to Jasper -roads are clear and the weather is gorgeous and spring like:
One of the things I love about Marmot is the parking situation - I know, who says they love parking at a ski resort? Marmot has its parking along the lower mountain, and there is a run that is alongside of the parking. So, when you get there, basically you put your boots on at your car and ski down to the main lodge! Here's parking lot 2 at 9 am - we parked a few feet from the run, booted up and started our ski day! Marmot is super busy during March break (sarcasm).
Today was our first day skiing and we skied off of every lift. It hasn't snowed in about a week, so the lower mountain was either groomed or bumped up. The bumps have started to get a little bit icy. The upper mountain however was great. We actually had untracked in the trees, and lots of soft dry chop off of the Knob Chair.
We started off with some lower mountain warm ups. Then we took the Canadian Express Chair up and did Highway 16. It was icy at the top but got soft pretty quickly. The snow on Milk Run and Punchbowl was great and soft. Here's the view from the top of Canadian Express:
We did a couple more laps on Paradise, and then went over to the Knob Chair - which was one of our 2 favourite chairs of the day. We lapped Knob Chair in the morning - did everything from McCready's to the chutes. Snow was gorgeous - from soft bumps to soft chop. Upper mountain was skiing wonderfully. On our way to the Knob:
Marmot Basin's beautiful upper slopes:
For me, the views at Marmot rival those of Lake Louise - the view of the whole valley, Jasper town, the beautiful Athabasca, Mt.Kerkeslin, Pyramid mountain...it never ends. So gorgeous!
After we lapped Knob, we skied all the way down and did a couple of great bump runs - Expressway and Dromedary. Here are our happy faces after coming down Knob Hill:
We brought our own lunches and left the backpack in one of the cubbies in the main lodge at the very bottom - it was not very crowded when we went in for lunch, and we didn't spend much time down there - 30 mins and then back to skiing.
The afternoon was spent lapping Eagle Ridge Chair and Knob Chair. Conditions on the blacks off of Eagle Ridge were amazing - lots of soft small bumps. DD and I did Diamond Glades - one of our favourite runs of the day - and found untracked in the trees there. We ended the day on Knob again and skied out to the car.
Here are a few more pics from the afternoon:
The kids and I somewhere on the upper mountain:
And of course, we did après at Jasper Park Lodge:
SO and I at Lac Beauvert:
And the views from our table at the Emerald Lounge:
Off to bed and getting ready for an EPIC day tomorrow. It's supposed to snow 30 cm tonight!!
More tomorrow....