Altitude Sickness: The Sadness You Feel When You Leave the Mountains.

Frontside at Lake Louise Ski Resort at the top of the Gondola.

Yep, I got weepy my last day at Lake Louise.  The mountains are way too beautiful and the skiing way too awesome not to feel a little sadness at leaving.  I am pre-menopausal, so maybe the weepy was partly that too.

Looking over the back bowls at the top of the Platter lift at Lake Louise.

 We skied at Nakiska, Lake Louise, Sunshine Village, and Panorama.  All of them were in fabulous condition and the skiing was wonderful.  I think though we have a new favourite mountain and it would be Panorama.  Quiet, well signed, a terrific lodge with storage for your stuff, great well maintained runs, lots of bathroom facilities and smaller lodges sprinkled throughout and friendly staff who gave us great advice on where to ski.  We are very good intermediate skiers by big mountain standards.  Black diamond runs with smaller bumps were typically no problem and steeps with few bumps were also manageable.  We have no experience with powder and as Eastern skiers are at home on hard pack and ice.  With all that, we still found plenty to ski comfortably and managed to challenge ourselves and grow our skills a little.  I am definitely going to spend more time in the moguls next year.  Riding the bumps is a required skill out west and a working knowledge of how to handle this type of terrain will definitely add to the amount of skiable terrain you have to work with. 
  We stayed at Hidden Ridge Resort, which is located on a ridge overlooking Banff.  This resort is comprised of a series of little cabins divided into rooms.  Our room could sleep eight people if we had wanted it to, but as it was the girls each got their own queen bed and we got our own room.  The loft set up was wonderful and left us with a living room kitchen area where were prepared most of our meals and crashed at the end of a hard day of skiing.  The resort also had an outdoor hot tub and pool which helped ease away the muscle strain from the day.  The value at this resort was really good and the kitchen helps take some of the bite out of eating at restaurants, both by way of cost and by way of calories, fat, sodium etc. 
   This was a hugely enjoyable vacation.  We loved it!  Now to start planning for next year.  I think we're going to head south in the mountain range and try Fernie and it's environs.