Ski Canada Fall 2025 - Vol. 54 #2

Every time my friend Luca says, “Thanks again for saving my life,” the hairs go up on the back of my neck and I’m immediately taken back to last March. After frantically digging half a metre down into an avalanche path (an avalanche that I’d triggered), I reached his head, then shoved my fingers into his mouth to clear his airway. My PTSD memory starts minutes earlier, skiing tentatively through pea soup fog. In a surreal moment, I suddenly realized that although I was moving, so was the snow. Unlike a nightmare though, I was actually able to repeatedly scream “AVALANCHE!” and was also able to ski out of my nightmare. But the slide fully buried Luca, in a rigid Statue of Liberty pose. Around June, we stopped waking up…

Safer, smoother-running chairlifts. Lift operators and attendants who are focused on chairlift riders rather than on tedious, repetitive tasks. Happier skiers and snowboarders. These are just a few of the factors Quebec’s Sommet Saint-Sauveur will be measuring this winter as it tests one of ski country's first forays into AI: an autonomous chairlift control system. Developed by Zurich’s Mantis Ropeway Technologies, the AI-camera-driven system will be tested on Sauveur’s high-speed, six-seat, Sommet Express. Designed in partnership with Doppelmayr, the tech uses intelligent cameras and algorithms to monitor each chair and its riders from various strategic vantage points near the unloading station. If there’s an issue, such as a skier falling while sliding off the ramp, the cameras will automatically ‘tell’ the lift to stop, so that attendants can come to…

French philosopher Marcel Proust once said of travel that, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Or, as Mark Twain put it, “One must travel to learn.” Last winter, I spent three weeks skiing and sightseeing in Japan. What I found there is that a once-essential part of the Canadian skiing experience (that I had all but forgotten) is still very much alive. Thanks to Australian investment, hundreds of intimate, family-owned lodges flourish, not just in major ski centres like Hakuba and Niseko, but at small, antiquated hills that most Canadians have never heard of such as Madarao and Myoko (see page 34). What’s quite wonderful about the Japanese small lodge experience is that it extends from being somewhat bare-bones to…

Skiing has never just been about vertical metres or high-speed lifts, at least not for me. It’s about the journey—the winding roads to untouched powder, the locals who share their secret lines, the thrill of discovering some place snow-laden and new. This winter, with a Trump-led cold front chilling Canadians’ desire to travel south, I’m going to spend my dollars discovering lesshyped areas closer to home. After organizing ski vacations for decades—from formulating marketing strategy and trip packaging with major ski corporations to figuring bunk-bed logistics with my Tremblant crew, “Les Boys”—I’ve seen first-hand how more than just the geopolitical landscape has shifted. The rise of multi-resort passes has impacted the way we approach ski travel, unlocking new, compelling possibilities. Adventure is no longer tethered to a single mountain. Maybe…

Mountain Collective: Sunshine Village, Lake Louise, Marmot Basin, Panorama, Revelstoke, Sun Peaks— and eastern favourites like Le Massif and Bromont. Indy Pass: Apex and Big White, plus hidden gems such as Sasquatch, Manning Park, Calabogie, Massif du Sud, Loch Lomond, Sutton, Owl's Head and Mont Edouard. Ikon Pass: Blue Mountain, Tremblant, Le Massif, Revelstoke, Red, Panorama, Sun Peaks, Lake Louise, Sunshine Village, Norquay and Cypress. Epic Pass: Whistler Blackcomb, Fernie, Kicking Horse, Kimberley, Nakiska, Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham.…

Heli-skiing is held up as the pinnacle of the sport. But not everyone is dying to hop on a heli. Plenty of capable skiers find the idea of flying to a 3,000m peak with no groomed routes down to be scarier than parking at Stowe. Fifty-four-year-old Barb Sligl was one such skier. The Vancouver writer has felt at home sliding around resorts since she was seven. But when she had a chance to join a day of heli-skiing at CMH Heli-Skiing’s Purcell destination in Golden, B.C., she considered curling up in the lodge with her book instead. For her, heli-skiing was more intimidating than inspiring. We asked her what made her nervous, and what happened. SC: If someone asked you a year ago if you were a heli-skier, you’d say……