Back in the days before kids my husband Blake and I happily drove past local Banff ski hill Mount Norquay in favour of chasing powder and longer vertical at Sunshine Village or Lake Louise. But now that our two children are skiing we see the charm and practicality of a smaller ski hill. So, we happily accepted an invitation to Mount Norquay this past weekend for a family ski day.
Posing at the top of Cascade chair at Mount Norquay.
Our first clue the skiing was going to be great was the icy road conditions driving west from Calgary to Banff. It turns out Norquay had received 20 cm of snow overnight — more than the other Banff resorts. After handing the kids over to their ski instructors for a morning lesson we got busy tracking up the powder.
- Mount Norquay closes for the season April 21
- Hop to the hill April 20 for an Easter egg hunt and brunch
- Don’t forget Norquay has skiing by the hour if your kids can’t last a full day
We were helped in this endeavour by Canadian ski great Ken Read who, along with five other Alberta partners, owns Mount Norquay. Read helped us find some powder stashes off the Mystic Express chair and pointed out areas where the resort is widening runs to make them more race-course friendly. He also talked about why he loves Norquay: it’s friendly, intimate, and easy to navigate thanks to its small size. It feels like a local hill, and families that ski here regularly or enrol their kids in the racing program really get to know each another and the mountain.
Ken Read skis with me (far left) and fellow Calgary travel writers Kim Gray and Lisa Monforton at Mount Norquay.
But what really impressed me is that Norquay looks after newbie skiers while also offering some gnarly terrain for experts. Not all ski hills strike a good balance between these extremes, and few have black runs right next door to the bunny hill! The fall line at Norquay is also stellar — most runs cut right down the fall line making it easy for skiers to follow gravity and stay on the run.
Our son Bennett, a beginner, was in great hands with Phil, his instructor, during a two-hour private lesson. Phil was incredibly patient and encouraging with Bennett, who has autism, and regularly praised how well he was doing. He even took Bennett on some tree runs (!) and over two jumps (!!). Bennett had such a fun time that when he saw me on the hill he told me to “Go away.”
Bennett shreds the pow-pow at Mount Norquay.
We saw Bennett tearing up the pow-pow on a green run called Temptation as we booted over to the adjacent North American chairlift so Blake could hearken back to his mogul-munching high school days. From the top of the chair you get a bird’s eye view of Banff townsite and it’s a steep 1,300-foot vertical drop down bumped-up black runs to the bottom. Luckily (or not?), the Volkswagen bug-sized moguls were covered in snow to cushion me every time I fell.
A view of Banff townsite from the top of the North American.
After lunch we skied Cascade as a family, with one of us traversing the green runs with Bennett while the other hit the terrain park with our daughter Avery. She killed it in the park, catching some jumps and skiing her first rail without crashing — way to go!
Finally we headed up to the tubing park to finish the day on an adrenalin high note. Avery is a natural thrill seeker as well as a roller coaster aficionado, but I worried Bennett would chicken out at the top (the seven tubing tracks are steep and long). Before he knew what was happening our four linked tubes were careening down a wide, super-fast bobsleigh-like track, leaving our stomachs at the top of the hill. “It’s too fast!” Bennett shrieked, only to demand we “Do it again!” at the bottom.
The tubing park at Mount Norquay is awesome.
In fact, “Do it again!” could well be our motto for the entire Mount Norquay experience. Our family of four skiers of different abilities all had a blast. Perhaps we’ll hit Norquay again Easter weekend, before it closes for the season April 21.
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