Canada

When I told my parents before the winter of 2023 that my friends and I were going to drive from Golden to Revelstoke, B.C., to ski for 10 days, they thought I was crazy. Before the winter of 2024, when I told them we were going to do it again, they thought I was even crazier.

In 2023, with the help of a borrowed Sprinter van, we drove from Golden to Revy, stopping to camp on the side of the road in Great Falls, MT. Once we drove into the Canadian Rockies from Calgary, we seldom saw the sun. We had some challenging ski conditions at the beginning of our trip, but things finally turned, and we had some great days of skiing at Revelstoke and a bonus day at Fernie.

The scale and ruggedness of B.C. brought us back for another trip the following winter. This time, we would stop and spend some time in Jackson Hole, where we were greeted with great early-season conditions and cheap ski-in, ski-out accommodation at “The Hostel” at the resort base. From there, we ventured into the Kootenay Mountains to Red Mountain Resort. After years of skiing at huge, busy resorts that felt like corporations, Red Mountain was the perfect hidden gem. To this day, Red has some of the craziest in-bounds ski terrain I have ever seen, with near-vertical tree skiing serviced solely by 20th-century fixed-grip lifts.

My time spent in Canada has truly expanded my horizons regarding skiing, the mountains, and the outdoors beyond what you might find in Colorado or SLC.