And Kimberley and Castle are alternatives that are easy drives. Both Island Lake Lodge and FWA offer worldclass cat skiing and are just minutes away. If you book a vacation here and everything is skied out, there still are options. Tunnel Creek is one of the world's best "tree skiing" touring areas. In addition to the sidecountry, there is a fair bit of touring in the area. And I find the comment here about "Fernie has no sidecountry" to be absolutely bizarre - has to be someone who never figured out where to go. Snake Ridge when it opens after a storm is some of the best skiing in western Canada. Skiing from Polar Peek through Skydive is a pretty awesome run. Looking at the vertical on consistent 40 degree pitches, if that's your thing (it is mine) - Fernie is pretty much as good as anywhere. Terrain park could be upgraded but it is there if you like to play on pipes and dance floors. You basically can ski anywhere without worrying about accidentally ending up at the top of a 40 foot cliff (unlike Revy - "cliffed out" is a common recurring issue there as I learned, repeatedly. From Siberia Bowl to Snake ridge there are only a very few very well marked permanent terrain closures, and while there are cliffs to drop here and there they are all very well marked and/or pretty clear where to drop. Also, compared to same Revy or Red you are far less likely to run into "trouble" skiing Fernie. There is far more tree skiing in Fernie than most hills, roughly the same as Revy, with beautiful cedars (but I find more variety in the runs - personally I find the terrain off Revy's "The Ripper" to be almost "too much trees" - at times you are really buried in the forest). Kicking Horse may have "more" alpine double black terrain, but Fernie has quite a bit, along the spine between Currie and Lizard bowls. In terms of terrain, Fernie really has everything. So while any ski vacation is a crapshoot, if your goal is "powder skiing" Fernie is as reasonable a bet for a 20 cm+ powder day as any hill. While Fernie can have terrible conditions (rain, heavy mucky snow, avy closures, etc) one thing worth noting is that Fernie has, season to season, one of the most consistent number of 20 cm+ days. In the end, I realize Fernie is, all in all, amazing: if you know where to go, and you get great conditions (which is true at every hill). I am going to try to be as honest as possible with my take.įor several years I basically had to ski here and developed some FOMO wondering if other hills in the area were better and if anything had a negative take on Fernie, so the last few years I have spent some dedicated time skiing other hills. And some of the overhyped reviews clearly got good weather. Clearly some of the negative reviews are people who just booked a vacation in bad weather.
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