Warm weather not a factor for skiers as resorts in mountains say it’s pretty much business as usual

The warmest holiday season in recent memory isn’t keeping skiers off the hills in Banff. Despite temperatures that have occasionally drifted into double digits in the Calgary area, ski resorts in the mountains west of the city report that so far, ski season is pretty much business as usual. “We have currently 131 runs open out of 164,” said Leigha Stankewich, the marketing and communications manager at Lake Louise Ski Resort and Summer Gondola. “So we’re doing pretty good there.”

Stankewich said the resort actually opened its new Boulevard Terrain Park on schedule on Sunday, which is the largest of the resort’s three terrain parks. “The temperatures have been actually really mild as everyone’s probably guessing,” Stankewich said. “But that hasn’t slowed us down — the skiing has been actually really great. Just with the amount of terrain that we do have open, we’ve been able to spread people out and everyone’s out there having a great time.”

While the warm weather has been challenging for outdoor winter activities elsewhere this winter, Stankewich said the early blast of snow that the region received in late October gave them a nice head start on ski season. “We were graced with some snow pretty early on in the season, which allowed us to get skiers into terrain pretty quickly,” she said. “And so with that, coverage is actually really good on our resort. “And of course, we do have our snowmaking operation that was that was working pretty good earlier in the season,” she added. “With our snowmaking, we’re able to enjoy skiing right up until May 5, so it’s put us in a in a good position.”

Lake Louise Ski Resort and Summer Gondola was named Canada’s best ski resort for the ninth time in 11 years by the World Ski Awards.

With files from Tyler Barrow, CTV News