Kicking Horse, Golden BC Feb. 20th 2016

Well , Left the Quebec Laurentians and arrived in Golden bc after a marathon commute . Our oldest kid after working at Whistler moved to Golden BC last spring. Today , shrugging off all the logistics of the previous day made it to the Gondola base for the opening. Before arriving ,was advised do not be alarmed that there is no snow in town as lots up on the mountain with 8000' of elevation. Once reaching the summit found packed and tracked up powder with all areas open under clear skies for great visibility , Best skiing was in the high alpine as bowls still had loose snow for great turns. KH has one Gondola to the summit so the farther you hike away from the lift the more untracked snow you will find.

DAY 4 AT KH .
There has just been a trace of snow since we arrived last friday but still finding loose snow in the alpine. From mid mountain to the base conditions are had packed with slick bump skiing. No issue with this as this type of conditions in the east would we highly rated. The steep alpine bowls are what we came to experience as they provide great skiing in challenging uncrowded terrain. Brought my ski holding backpack but not really required as the in bound hikes to the ridges are reasonable. Had the advantage of being in Golden last summer so was able to scout out the ridge without snow.

Hiked T2 at KH today with clear skies and great visibility . The hike offers great views and quality snow due to low traffic.

I assume you hiked that to ski Super Bowl on the other side. I've never been motivated to do that, as there's so much terrain accessible from the ridgeline traverses and the short hike up Stairway to Heaven. Was it cool enough for the south faces of the ridges to retain winter snow? The south faces have been good on the upper mountain on all of my prior visits except last year when they were refrozen.

Correct ,skied super bowl from the other side as the farther away from the lift the better the snow as it has not snowed in over a week. The snow in all the bowls has remained dry . Granular from mid mountain down. Environment Canada has a dust particle advisory in effect down in Golden due to the dry conditions and lack of snow in the valley combined with heavy truck traffic and industry.

Looks like beautiful conditions.

Are they ever going to put a lift on the upper half of the looker's left (similar to the Stairway to Heaven lift) so you don't always have to make a complete lap to the base -- or is there not enough business to justify it? Seems like everyone always mentions that the lower half is in significantly worse shape than the top. Of course, that additional traffic would impact conditions up there.

Neither Kicking Horse nor Revelstoke is a smashing financial success. There are locals on Epic who say investment at Revelstoke is at a standstill and I suspect that's true at Kicking Horse also. Both areas have serious lift line problems getting on the hill during busy weekends. I've observed this at Revelstoke but all of my Kicking Horse days have been midweek.

Not having a gondola mid-station at KH was a cheap and idiotic decision. It cost them Christmas of their opening season in 2000-01.