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The Beauty Of Banff

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By MATT GROSS

The New York Times

Published: January 11, 2009

BANFF, Alberta - It was a familiar scenario: The run was blue, the sky bluer still, and I was cruising down 8,765-foot Mount Whitehorn in Banff National Park in Canada. Packed powder was flying up from the edges of my snowboard into the just-below-freezing air. I was grinning beneath my ski mask.

Then suddenly I wobbled, lost my balance and juddered to a halt.

No, I wasn't some out-of-control punk boarder, nor had I stumbled upon a group of slow-weaving ski-schoolers. I had simply rounded a corner and smacked into what I would come to call The View - a stretch of snowcapped Canadian Rockies so intricately cragged and utterly enormous that every time I rediscovered them, I had to slow down and gawp at their impassive beauty.

Only then, reinvigorated by The View, could I charge to the base and hurry single-mindedly back onto the gondola.

Strangely for such a massively mountainous place, Banff - a catchall designation for three ski areas and handful of small towns in the park's 2,564 square miles - is defined by what it is not.

It is not Park City, overrun with celebrities, nor Megeve, with its Michelin-starred restaurants. Nor is it luxury-minded Aspen, nor status-conscious St. Moritz, nor hard-partying Whistler. There are no trends in Banff: It is not slick. It has never hosted a Winter Olympics (though it was the venue for some events of Calgary's 1988 Games).

Even Banff's mountains are negatives, formed less by the upthrusting of clashing tectonic plates than by 20 million years of erosion.

Like a Hemingway sentence, what remains after all that paring down is a thing of remarkable purity. At Banff, one can focus on what really matters: deep snow (30 feet per year in some places) and how to traverse it. Still, before diving into Banff powder, certain matters must first be disposed of: where to sleep, for instance, during those awful hours when one cannot be on a mountain.

The town of Banff is the obvious solution. It's the most developed in the park's confines, with supermarkets, restaurants, shops and several dozen hotels, from the grand, castlelike Fairmont Banff Springs, built in 1888 and perched above the rushing Bow River, down to the Blue Mountain Lodge, the 10-room bed-and-breakfast that my wife, Jean, and I checked into for a few days last March.

The lodge may have been modest, but it had what we needed: a big bed, a powerful heater, a gear shed and fresh-baked croissants every morning. And while its location, two blocks from downtown, may not have been as dramatic as the Fairmont's, we had no end of stunning views, for at the end of every little lane, gargantuan hunks of mountain loomed, dwarfing the town's two- and three-story wood and brick homes.

Where To Begin? Not Norquay

Our base established, we had only one mild dilemma to resolve: Which of the three ski areas - Mount Norquay, Sunshine Village and Lake Louise - to visit first? Norquay, right outside town, seemed like a natural place to warm up, but when we mentioned the plan to Heather Coolidge, the lodge's manager, she looked confused.

"Is there some reason you want to go to Norquay?" she asked.

It was a reaction we would encounter often, accompanied by a look that implied we had no idea why we had come to Banff. Norquay, we knew, was small, but we hadn't realized it was so small - just five lifts! - that no serious powder hound would consider it unless every other mountain within driving distance were bone-dry. (To be fair, Norquay does host a popular night session on Fridays.)

Instead, we chose Sunshine Village, which in that unseasonably snow-deficient season had had the most recent flurries. About 10 miles west of Banff, Sunshine Village sprawls over three mountains and 3,358 acres of terrain, with more than half of its runs labeled intermediate. Coming from the East Coast, I'm always amazed at how lucky skiers are out West, blessed with perfect locales such as this. No throngs of beginners; no wrathful ice storms. Just excellent, plentiful snow, long runs, fast lifts and eye-popping scenery.

At least I imagined it was eye-popping. That first day, Sunshine was a misnomer: cloudy, with light flakes falling steadily as we rode the chairlifts to the top of 8,954-foot Lookout Mountain. Occasionally, the sun would break through and illuminate an otherworldly field of moguls above the tree line. Then we would strap on our boards, glance at Delirium Dive, the certain-death cliff run on the mountain's backside, and go the other way, threading through Douglas firs before catching a hushed two-seater back to the peak. No traffic, no lift lines, just me, Jean and the mountains.

And truly, there was nothing else. The "village" of Sunshine Village consisted of a day lodge, a saloon and the Sunshine Inn, which had 84 rooms about to undergo a thorough renovation. That was it. When the day was done, there was no lingering with locals. It was back to Banff.

How Do You Quantify View?

In the waning hours of the day, the town of Banff is lovely. The sun takes its time sinking into the west, and the deepening indigo of the sky illuminates the surrounding mountains with startling clarity. The lights come on along Banff Avenue, and after an après-ski nap, tourists wander in little groups, looking for food and amusement.

Saltlik, a steakhouse with branches in Vancouver and Calgary, attracts the cocktail set. And restaurants including the Bison Restaurant and the Maple Leaf Grille often feature decidedly haute specialties, such as Brome Lake duck with Saskatoon berry jus.

But I didn't come to Banff for cuisine. I needed sustenance, and I found it at the Elk & Oarsman, a pub with a wood-beamed ceiling where everyone seems to gather. Jean and I ate elk burgers, Tuscan-sausage pizzas and chicken wings; it was the kind of place I would go if I lived there.

There would be time for sampling finer foods, but first we would have to earn that. So the next morning, we went to Lake Louise, a 45-minute drive from Banff. With 4,200 skiable acres spread over four peaks and a vertical drop of 3,250 feet, Lake Louise is the classic big-mountain experience - but these statistics hardly do it justice. How, for instance, do you quantify The View?

Number of degrees you can turn without losing sight of The View: 360. Number of clouds in the sky: 0. Number of peaks visible: infinite.

But these are mere figures. Jean and I carved through the powder bowls, watched skiers leap off cliffs in a big-mountain competition, then rode the Ptarmigan lift to about 8,000 feet above sea level and stared at an unending ocean of mountains.

"Lake Louise is living proof that God is a skier - and he lives here," said Sandy Best, an owner of the tour company SkiCanada whom we ran into on one of the peaks.

"It's cheaper than Europe," added a skier from Boston.

At day's end, before we jumped into our well-earned dinner, we drove through the town of Lake Louise to the namesake body of water.

It was yet another ridiculously beautiful sight: a wide, frozen disc of snow, fronted by the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, crisscrossed by ice skaters and shrouded by mountains, behind which the sun was slowly sinking.

IF YOU GO

How To Get There

If you fly into Calgary International, it's a two-hour drive to the town of Banff. A park permit is necessary for all visitors; it's 9.80 Canadian dollars per person per day, or 19.60 Canadian dollars for a family or group ($7.72 or $15.43 at 1.27 Canadian dollars to the U.S. dollar), and can be purchased at the park's entrance. For information, go to www.pc.gc.ca/Banff.The Mountains

Day tickets start at 75.95

Canadian dollars at these two spots:

Lake Louise Ski Area (1-800-258-7669; www.skilouise.com)

Sunshine Village (1-877-

542-2633; www.sunshine village.com)

Mount Norquay www.banff norquay.com; (403) 762-4421) starts at 55 Canadian dollars. Tri-area passes, available at SkiBig3.com, are often a better deal, and include free Friday-night sessions at Norquay.

Yamnuska Mountain Adventures (Suite 200, 50 Lincoln Park, Canmore; 1-866-678-4164; www.yamnuska.com) offers backcountry excursions. Prices vary with the number of people in a group; two skiers would each pay 255 Canadian dollars per day, not including avalanche gear, transportation or food. Alternatively, you can hire private, certified guides directly through the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (www.acmg guides.com).

Where To Stay

Blue Mountain Lodge,

327 Caribou St., Banff;

(403) 762-5134; www.bluemtn

lodge.com; doubles from 79 Canadian dollars.

Fairmont Banff Springs,

405 Spray Ave.; (403) 762-2211; www.fairmont.com/banff springs; doubles from 299 Canadian dollars.

Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, 111 Lake Louise Drive;

(403) 522-3511; www.fairmont.com/lakelouise; doubles from 299 Canadian dollars.

Where To Eat

And Drink

Bison Restaurant and Lounge, 213-211 Bear St., Banff;

(403) 762-5550; www.the

bison.ca; dinner, about 55 Canadian dollars per person, not including wine.

Elk & Oarsman, 119 Banff Ave., second floor, Banff; (403) 762-4616; www.elkand oarsman.com; dinner, about 25 Canadian dollars per person, including drinks.

Maple Leaf Grille & Lounge, 137 Banff Ave., Banff;

(403) 760-7680; www.banff

mapleleaf.com; dinner, about 55 Canadian dollars per person, not including wine.

Post Hotel Dining Room,

200 Pipestone Road, Lake Louise; (403) 522-3989; www.posthotel.com; dinner, about 100 Canadian dollars per person, not including wine.

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