photo: Courtesy Emerald Lake Lodge
Insider’s Luxury Guide to Banff: Off the Hill
Among the advantages of skiing in a national park is that, well, you're surrounded by a national park and all its associated wilderness activities.
Kingmik Dog Sled Tours (877/919-7779) offers half-hour introductory runs through the woods, as well as 1.5- to 2-hour trips that venture for miles through some of the park’s most stunning scenery; guests who feel up to it are invited to drive the team home. Hikers will find memorable trails through narrow, ice-encrusted canyons, a stunning landscape of frozen rivers and waterfalls often dotted with ice climbers. Four-hour guided trips explore Johnston Canyon Ice Falls and Grotto Canyon.
For day-skiers looking to heli-ski, Purcell Helicopter Skiing (877/435-4754) has three- and five-run packages as well as bus service from Lake Louise and Banff.
Banff Snowmobile Tours (888/293-8687) takes adventuresome types into the backwoods just west of the park (about an hour from town) on a three-hour tour that includes a shuttle from Banff or Lake Louise and a hot lunch.
At The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise (866/540-4413), merely sitting beside the jewel-like lake can elicit reverent odes to nature, but skating on its frozen surface, or snowshoeing or taking a sleigh ride around its perimeter, evokes pure delight. At the hotel, book a horse-drawn journey through the majestic landscape, Nordic skiing on 20 miles of well-maintained track, ice skating on the lake itself, or take yourself on a snowshoe trek along the Great Divide, about three hours from the resort.
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