Skiing Banff February 13, 2026

I recently spent a couple of days over President’s Day weekend skiing just outside of Banff at Lake Louise with Ray and his church friends Ji and Jerry.¹ Although Banff is not a new destination to me (I had previously been with high school classmates), I’d only been during the summer, so I was quite excited to go back and see what it was like during the winter months. And of course, as someone who generally enjoys skiing but doesn’t go that often these days, the thought of Canadian Rockies powder was quite enticing.

Arrival and preparations

We all took the same flight out of LaGuardia, stopping at Montreal before heading on toward Calgary. This was my first time flying out of LaGuardia in a long time, and I was actually pleasantly surprised at how nice the experience was. While there isn’t direct train service from Manhattan like there is for Newark and JFK, taking the LIRR to Woodside and then hopping on the (free!) airport bus was reasonably convenient. The only minor inconvenience that I encountered during this journey was stopping at a Chinese bakery in Woodside in the five minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive; I had wanted to buy a breakfast pastry, but unfortunately there was a minimum for credit card purchases, and I basically never carry cash with me nowadays.

When we arrived at Calgary, we picked up the rental car and drove over to a local Chinese supermarket to pick up supplies for the long weekend; we, uh, may have gotten carried away with the Asian snacks. The supermarket also had a hot bar, Chinese barbecue station, and noodle kitchen, so of course we grabbed a quick (and delicious) dinner. We unfortunately realized at this point that we had neglected to pack any grocery bags, but by a stroke of great fortune, we happened upon an empty orange crate on the walk to the car, and so we were able to organize everything reasonably well. What a friendly and fortuitously-placed crate.

Anyway, with our Calgary chores done and dinner out of the way, we drove on to our accommodations in Banff. From my previous visit, I seem to recall this drive being quite scenic, as the plains around Calgary dramatically give way to the towering Rockies, but we didn’t get to see much because it was already nighttime. Ah well, there would be plenty of mountain views over the next few days.

The first day of skiing

Our first day of skiing was Saturday, on which there was some unforecasted snow.² On the bright side, this boded very well for the conditions the next day. On the less-bright side, it meant that visibility was quite poor the first day, and we didn’t get to enjoy most of the view that Lake Louise is famed for. Still, the skiing itself was quite good; I enjoyed being on the mountain again and getting some turns in. I think this group was slightly less intense than the one Ray organized to go to Snowbird last year, and we correspondingly took the day a bit more chill; for instance, we allowed ourselves a later wake-up time.

Speaking of “chill,” in another stroke of fortune, the infamous Banff winter cold did not manifest during our trip; I’ve heard that at times, the weather there can drop down to minus thirty Fahrenheit or so! This was good news for me, because I had not brought a particularly heavy jacket, instead choosing to rely on the layering of some combination of a warm base layer, thin synthetic jacket, lightweight down jacket, and an outer shell. It actually ended up being quite warm, probably hovering around freezing at the base of the mountain; my base layer, synthetic jacket, and shell were plenty.

After an enjoyable day of skiing, we went into town for dinner. I was excited for this part, as I seemed to recall the food in Banff being quite good the last time I went. We ended up eating at a Korean restaurant that was not bad at all, if a little short-staffed. While waiting for our tables, we stopped by an adjacent gift shop, where I bought a tin of maple syrup candies to bring home.

The second day of skiing

The second day, we were treated to absolutely pristine conditions: a bit of fresh powder from the snowfall the day before, and mostly-clear skies with patches of cloud coverage. It wasn’t a perfect bluebird day, but honestly, I think the occasional cloud adds a bit of visual interest to the scenery. This made the drive from Banff over to Lake Louise incredibly scenic; Ji put all of us to work taking pictures and videos of the drive for the shared album. And as if the view on the drive weren’t pretty enough, the view from the mountain itself was even better. The Canadian Rockies are just stupidly beautiful.

The skiing was also really good; I spent the morning mostly lapping the back side of the mountain, and then joined Ray in the West Bowl going through some widely-spaced glades.³ I actually enjoyed this a lot, and so I spent much of the afternoon on that part of the mountain. At one point, I got lost and ended up in some dense woods that were definitely beyond my ability, but I managed to slip and slide my way down in one piece, although I took only a handful of “real” turns. In one place, I was so severely lost that there were no tracks to follow at all! Still, I had lots of fun and made it down safely.

I also tried to really ski moguls for the first time in my adult life.⁴ I’m still very bad at them, but I started doing what could approach being described as skiing, rather than merely skidding down the slope.

I was having so much fun that I really wanted to maximize my time on the mountain, and so I tried to make it up to the top right before the back side of the mountain closed, so that I could squeeze in one more run before heading down the front side back to the lodge. Tragically, I mistimed this and arrived at the summit right as ski patrol closed it, so instead I just headed back to the lodge to meet back up with the others.

We cooked our dinner that night, the main part being an amazing stew that Ji made from our Calgary Asian grocery haul. My contribution was limited to cooking a bit of bacon for our sandwiches the next day, but I almost messed this up severely…I almost used dish soap instead of cooking oil. In my defense, the dish soap was yellow, and it was stored in a cooking oil container.

Hiking Tunnel Mountain

For our final day in Banff, we elected to do other winter activities instead of skiing. The first order of business was catching the sunrise at Lake Louise itself, which was maybe a little less spectacular than I had hoped. The lake is frozen, so you can walk on it (which is quite fun), but the overall effect of the sunrise isn’t that amazing, because the best view is toward the west (i.e. the opposite direction of the sunrise). I think the summer view of the lake is actually better, although the winter view is nothing to scoff at, either.

We also did a short winter hike up Tunnel Mountain on the advice of Jerry, who had previously done this hike before. The trail was fairly icy, so we rented ice cleats at a local shop. This was my first time hiking with ice cleats; I was honestly a little disappointed. I had thought that they would make me invincible on the ice, but it turns out that ice is actually still kind of slippery, even with traction devices. Anyway, the summit was quite nice, and we took a little side trail to a spectacular viewpoint of Mount Rundle. Ray and I got a little lost on the way back, but this turned out to be a good thing, because we met a friendly deer off the side of the trail.

Finally, it was time to drive back to Calgary, where we ate pho and spent the night at a hotel near the airport before flying back to Newark the next morning. We arrived back home on Chinese New Year, so I went directly to my parents’ place to celebrate.

Random Gear Thoughts

I have very few opinions on skiing gear, because I rarely go skiing, but some random auxiliary thoughts are below:

• I tried out a new buff instead of my old balaclava, reasoning that it would be more versatile (meaning that you can actually uncover your mouth if you want). It worked fine, but I’m not sure that it was practically much more versatile, mostly because it’s hard to adjust your helmet when you’re wearing glasses.
• On that note, if I got really serious about skiing, I would probably get contact lenses. But I’ve never worn them before, and it doesn’t feel worthwhile to try them out given that I only ski a couple of days a year. (Maybe if I swam they would be more useful?)
• It turns out the expiration dates on hand warmers are legit. I don’t typically use hand warmers while skiing, but I brought some ancient ones I had found in the back of my closet to contribute to the communal pile; these had expired in 2014! I was kind of curious to see if they would still work, so we cracked them open, but alas, one was a dud and the other produced only a trace amount of heat.
• I actually really like the camera control button on the new iPhones, because you can take pictures without taking your gloves off.
• My personal first aid kit came in handy again, when someone cut their toe on the edge of a ski. Somehow, this kit often comes in handy when I bring it, though never for myself. (I guess I should count myself lucky in that regard.)