I visited Sunshine Village as part of a ski-drive tour of the Powder Highway in Canada. Sunshine is part of the SkiBig3.
Benefits of being part of the SkiBig3 include:
- Complimentary shuttle service from Banff & Lake Louise hotels
- Free Hot Springs and Whyte Museum admission with a 3+ day SkiBig3 ticket
Sunshine Village stats, pros & cons
Sunshine Village stats:
- Top: 2730m
- Base: 1658m
- Drop 1070m
- Area: 13.6km2
- Number of runs: 137
- Green: 20%
- Blue: 55%
- Black diamond combined (expert): 25%
- Double Diamond: 7%
- Longest run is 8km/5 miles
- 9 uplifts: 6 high speed quads, 2 quads, 1 heated speed quad and 1 High speed 8 Passenger Gondola
- Average annual snowfall: 9.14m
- Snow making?: Proudly not. “No need.”
Pros of Sunshine Village
- Only ski-in, ski-out hotel of the Banff National Park
- High resort with lots of snow
- They are proud that they do not make snow (don’t need to)
- Speedy chairlifts (no chairlift takes more than 4.58 mins)
- TeePee Town LX, Canada’s only heated , bubble high speed quad chair
- If you like steeps there’s Ski Delirium Dive with 2,000ft vertical descent. It’s one of steepest runs in the world.
- Lift-accessed hotel
- Ski to the door
- Family resort
- Set on the continental divide allows skiing in two provinces
Cons of Sunshine Village
- It’s high, so it can be very cold (but this is the same as many Canadian and American resorts)
- You need full face cover on some days and good gloves.
- Fewer slopes for beginners and experts (this is an intermediate skiers resort)
See Banff Sunshine
What we discovered about Sunshine Village
- Breath-taking Rockies scenery, which feels very alpine compared to America.
- No vehicles other than the tracked taxi or skidoos
- Food at hotel mid-priced but really good (enjoyed an excellent Alberta steak)
- Lifts are very fast… but they need to be because it’s cold
- The snow is light and powdery – and wonderfully flattering
- Enjoyed short steeps with safe run outs as a great warm up for our holiday
- Delirium was restricted but looked terrifying (one day we will do this!)
- Loads of steep bumps to ski which were soft and grippy so lot of fun
- Super friendly and laidback atmosphere
- Loads of Australians
- -20 plus wind chill so frostbite risk was real threat
- Small snow park and kids runs
- It is easy to ski this resort in a day although two or three days would be good, too.
- Close enough to visit famous Lake Louise.
Also read: Powder Highway: Lake Louise.