My final day of skiing was at Castle Mt. on the way from Fernie to Calgary. Not the powder fest of 2 years ago, but it still exceeded expectations. The last snow was a modest 7cm a week before, and there had been no big dumps in January. Nonetheless it was all packed powder with no melt/freeze activity, even in the steep south chutes.
I took a warmup on the Huckleberry chair. By the way Castle has added 600 acres of snowcat skiing above and south of the lift on Haig Mt. By combination of lift and cat skiers get ~15K of open powder skiing on a pitch somewhat mellower than the main mountain for $215.
View of the south chutes from Haig:
View of Drifter and Huckleberry Ridge from Haig:
I moved on to the main mountain. Views of first Tamarack and then Sheriff/Outlaw from the upper Tamarack chair. While there were modest Saturday liftlines of up to 5 minutes, notice the skier traffic:
I alternated laps on Tamarack runs like those above with longer top to bottom runs like Drifter:
Snow is still loose and soft here. You can get 2,000 vertical of fresh tracks here all day long when there's new snow.
I hit a couple of the south chutes (all 30+ degrees for 1,000+ vertical). Lone Star was tight chalk, so you would go for a long ride if you screwed up. High Rustler shown here had softer snow:
View north across Outlaw and Bandito with access road from Pincher Creek in distance:
I skied 2 runs of 2,000+ vertical beyond what you see in this pic, the groomed Sendero and Siwash, a steeper line through stunted trees.
Total for the day (I had to leave for Calgary airport by 2:30) was 22,500. Castle impresses me more on each visit. To put its terrain in terms more FTO readers can relate to, think of Castle as a taller and steeper Alta with Powder Mt.'s skier density.
I took a warmup on the Huckleberry chair. By the way Castle has added 600 acres of snowcat skiing above and south of the lift on Haig Mt. By combination of lift and cat skiers get ~15K of open powder skiing on a pitch somewhat mellower than the main mountain for $215.
View of the south chutes from Haig:
View of Drifter and Huckleberry Ridge from Haig:
I moved on to the main mountain. Views of first Tamarack and then Sheriff/Outlaw from the upper Tamarack chair. While there were modest Saturday liftlines of up to 5 minutes, notice the skier traffic:
I alternated laps on Tamarack runs like those above with longer top to bottom runs like Drifter:
Snow is still loose and soft here. You can get 2,000 vertical of fresh tracks here all day long when there's new snow.
I hit a couple of the south chutes (all 30+ degrees for 1,000+ vertical). Lone Star was tight chalk, so you would go for a long ride if you screwed up. High Rustler shown here had softer snow:
View north across Outlaw and Bandito with access road from Pincher Creek in distance:
I skied 2 runs of 2,000+ vertical beyond what you see in this pic, the groomed Sendero and Siwash, a steeper line through stunted trees.
Total for the day (I had to leave for Calgary airport by 2:30) was 22,500. Castle impresses me more on each visit. To put its terrain in terms more FTO readers can relate to, think of Castle as a taller and steeper Alta with Powder Mt.'s skier density.