Lake Louise, Alberta

Located inside a national park, it’s one of the most beautiful places we ever skied.  This review is based on a visit under decent but early season conditions long ago, and one under great late-season conditions in 2024.

Stats

Real Vertical ?	3,150′, Rank: 23
Size	4,200 Acres, Rank: 9
Annual Snowfall ?	179″ claimed / 171″ actual, Rank: 94
Lift Pods ?	10, Rank: 20
Distinct Trails ?	164, Rank: 10
Review Date	December 2007 and March 2024
Number of visits	2
Our Rating	★★★★
Resort website	https://www.skilouise.com

Lake Louise Review

Lake Louise is one of those iconic resorts every serious skier should try to ski at least once. As a place for a ski vacation it’s hard to beat. You can stay in nearby Banff and take an easy freeway drive to the resort on empty roads, or stay in the small town of Lake Louise itself preferably at the Chateau Lake Louise. Then enjoy an uncrowded day in some of the best scenery at any North American resort.

 

Our first visit

We were there just before Christmas 2007 when the Canadian Rockies had received more snow than just about anywhere else in the West.  We skied on the shortest day of the year. It was interesting because it is really far north, and the sun came up just about the time the lifts started, and set when the lifts closed. By the time we got back to our hotel it was dark.

 

Our second visit

We revisited in 2024 on our way back from our 98th resort Marmot Basin.  We decided to spend 2 days at Lake Louise because it’s one of our top 10 resorts and we love just about everything about it.  AiRung was not the skier she is now 17 years later so this time she was able to ski more of the mountain.  We had good weather timing with fresh snow both days, but there was a hard layer of ice underneath from the very warm temps they had been having the week before we got there so it wasn’t exactly perfect, but pretty darn good the second day especially.

The lifts

Glacier Express, Top of the World Express, and the Gondola

On the frontside, there are some really great groomers that can be linked together to create 4 or 5 top to bottom runs. Our favorite parts were Mens Downhill (if it’s not roped off for a race!), Lake Lindsay Way, Cameron’s Way, Charlie’s Choice, and Juniper.  Some of these are fairly steep.  Lake Louise grooms these every day.  We skied just about everything that wasn’t too icy or bumpy off of these 3 lifts.

 

Paradise Triple

On our first trip, The Paradise Triple was open, but the top of the mountain was very boney with the early-season conditions. There were a lot of rocks so it was a one-run affair.  On our second trip there was adequate depth, but there wasn’t quite enough powder to cover the rock hard huge bumps on just about everything up high.  This lift is steep and there is only one fairly easy way down so it has limited appeal unless conditions are good enough to ski the steep runs under the lift.

Summit and Juniper

When we returned in 2024, two new lifts had been added:  Summit and Juniper.  Summit replaced a platter and is now less than half of the platter’s vertical.  It’s not really that useful to lap, but it is necessary to access the highest terrain. It was very foggy up there on the 2 days we were there when it was lightly snowing, which makes visibility very difficult without any trees.  We did give it a go and skied down the only intermediate run from that chair “Boomerang”.  The fact that this is rated Intermediate tells you something about this place.  It’s very steep in spots and we saw a lot of people having genuine difficulty in the waist-deep icy bumps in extremely flat light.

 

Juniper is a short chair with less than 800′ vertical at the bottom that serves some new intermediate terrain.  We really enjoyed that chair because the visibility was better and the terrain is pretty ideal for intermediates.  Too bad it doesn’t have more vertical!

In 2025 a new lift to be named Upper Juniper will rise from the top of Juniper to terminate next to the Top of the World lift.  This will be mostly for access since the terrain on the bottom half is very steep, but it looks like there will be an easy way down. It will be a great option for experts lapping the front-side steeps on lookers left.

 

Good for experts

For steeps and bumps, your options are pretty unlimited at Lake Louise.  The conditions weren’t really suitable for exploring much of this when we were there either time, but when conditions are right this would be a fantastic mountain for experts.

 

Food and lodges

The base lodge is an impressive log building with decent food.  There are 2 other places to take a break and grab a bite: The Temple lodge on the backside and the more upscale Whitehorn Bistro half way up the front side.  We didn’t try either of them but they were highly recommended by one of the mountain guides we talked to.

Huge Snowmaking system

It is worth mentioning that Lake Louise is the impressive snowmaking system, which covers an almost unbelievable 1,690 acres of terrain. It is the most in Canada.  That is enough terrain to keep most people happy even if NO natural snow fell.  It’s also very cold there, which helps to preserve what snow does fall.  So even though the snowfall is about half of what we like to see for a “top” resort, the snow conditions are better than you would imagine.

 

The good

• Views, views, views
• Great variety of terrain with lots of steeps
• Uncrowded
• Lots of snowmaking for reliable conditions
• Great grooming

The bad

• Lack of natural snowfall
• COLD

Would we go back

There is something intangible about Lake Louise that is not reflected in the trail map or mountain stats.  It feels like a winter wonderland when you are skiing there.  It’s very hard to get to for us, but if we ever get back to Banff we will definitely ski Lake Louise again a third time.