Home to SkiBig3, Banff is the Ultimate Ski Base Camp

Featured Image: Reuben Krabbe

As part of our Volume 28 People & Places issue, we curated a list of the Top 10 Ski Resorts in North America. Each resort on this list is here for a reason and who better to explain than the people who know the resort best. Every article is penned by journalists who have lived in the ski towns they’re writing about. They know these mountains inside and out, and their love for them shines through every word. From terrain, atmosphere and accessibility, to pure, unfiltered badass-ery—consider this your bucket list for the season. Banff, in Alberta, Canada, lands on our list for its trifecta of ski resorts, also known as SkiBig3.

When I think of my perfect day, it’s a mid-winter dream. A day when you wake to a ray of sunshine cutting through the frosty air. Outside your window, fresh snow glimmers on the branches of an old Douglas fir. While the day is still new, it beckons you to dress in your winter best for a day of fresh mountain air, carving the wide-open slopes of the Canadian Rockies. 

Having grown up in the picturesque mountain town of Banff, I’ve been blessed with a plethora of dreamy days on the slopes of the three resorts that make up SkiBig3. I’ve lost track of the times that I’ve decreed I’ve found heaven three-quarters of the way down Delirium Dive. It’s funny though, that no matter how many perfect days I’ve had skiing the Canadian Rockies, I have an insatiable hunger for more. 

Banff is a place that woos and wows; a town that will spellbind you with the awe of the mountains and the camaraderie of a like-minded community. The 8,000-plus-person town nestled at the base of Mount Rundle is, and will always be, my first love. As a child, my dad served as the general manager of Banff Sunshine, and I, like he, fell head over heels in love with the wildness of Banff National Park. I remember the excitement of following him to work and the sheer ecstasy of going for our mid-day ski breaks. Downhill, he’d chase me through the rollercoaster of various tree runs, telling stories on the chairlift up of Goat Chickens—a mythical creature, well-known among those who frequent Sunshine Village Ski Resort—and his own childhood escapades. 

Much like Peter Pan’s Neverland, there’s a sense of agelessness here—an unwritten axiom that promises an eternally youthful life, for the mountains themselves never seem to get old. As my skiing progressed, so did the adventure I sought. Trading father-daughter turns for big-mountain lines and never-ending park laps with a cast of peers forever bound together by our mutual love of sliding on snow.  Appreciative of the time and place, with a tight-knit crew we’d ski bell to bell, only to do it again the next day. I was too young to appreciate the sprawling terrain, consistent snow and uncrowded slopes.

As life ebbs forward, so too does the definition of perfect. Now a mother myself—following in my father’s ski boots—I love nothing more than sharing my passion for the mountains with my son. Winter mornings now move a little slower, making time for a coffee stop at Whitebark before heading to the slopes, where I will inevitably chase my four-year-old son as he skis with the grace of someone who has a much longer history with the mountains. 

Like the peaks themselves, my definition of the perfect day is shaped by time but it will always be in the quaint mountain town of Banff, Alberta; A place where the mountains grow to meet you where you are.