Nakiska Skiing

Headed out to Nakiska yesterday with Ian, I've never skied there so its nice to be able to tick another resort before I leave. Its not on my season pass but thanks to Ian's friend Tara and here boyfriend Ryan we got free lift passes as Ryan works as a ski patroller there.

Its not a massive resort but is significantly bigger than Norquay where I was skiing the weekend before, but not quite up to scale with Sunshine or Louise. The big advantage here though is that (excluding COP) its Calgary's closest resort, only 45 minutes from the city. The terrain for the most part is pretty easy, a few green-runs and then mostly blues and black all with European, wide open piste feel to them. Theres a few blacks that wind there way through glades for some moderately snug tree skiing and one double black which is quite possibly the easiest double black in the world - nothing compared to chutes or steep face runs at Sunshine or Louise. But for a leisurely day from the city its worth a visit.

Snow conditions were pretty good on the groomers in the morning, however by mid afternoon, some of the pistes were getting pretty scraped and ice. We skied one lap down the piste the ski racers had been doing in the morning to discover it was like ice-rink tipped to 35 degrees!

I skied with Ian for most of the day just burning down run after run as we were both feeling quite fit, I didn't have my altimeter set but we must of clocked up quite a bit of vertical! I also bumped into Lou and Jane who were out from Calgary as well, while Joe was off doing his triathlon so caught up with them at lunch. Theres a video below I took of Ian coming down one of the runs, he catches at edge but somehow manages to hold it together:



After skiing we headed back to the city to stick some furniture on the front lawn at Ian's for people to come an take, and then barbecued some steaks and drank some beers in the yard for the authentic 'redneck' night.