This turned out so well, glad to have been a part of it!

You forgot that Nakiska's family season pass is only $900 (early bird), so the resort gets heavily flooded with season pass holders on the weekends, even worse when it has snowed heavily the night before the long weekend.

Should have been a big deduction for no terrain park. You are exactly correct, management is outdated and caters to ski racers only. The culture there is very bizarre, never seen so many Jerry’s in one place… hoards of them. If you are a novice or beginner that doesn’t associate with the cool kids, Nakiska is your spot.

Yay finally a video on Nakiska! This is my home hill and where I’ve skied for most of my life so glad to see a Peak Rankings video on it!

Good video. You are far too generous with your rating for snow. Chinook winds hammer Nakiska and the thaw / freeze cycles make for some of the worst conditions i have ever skied. The fact that Nakiska was even built (funded by government) for the Olympics is testament to the fact that government never does anything right. Such an embarassment to have the Olympics here when there were world class ski areas 30 - 60 minutes further west. Even the now defunct Fortress Mountain just down the road (which was still open in '88) had far, far better snow. I used to get a season pass at Nakiska when they used to sell them for (incredibly) around $100 CDN a decade or more in the past. I wouldn't ski there for free again. On top of the terrible conditions, awful overpriced food I also had my skis stolen there while I had lunch. Nice work on the video.

For those who lived in Alberta prior to the 1988 Olympics, there was overall disappointment in the bad decision making and choosing the location of the ski hill. Due to its horrible location, the conditions are usually icy, which has led to probably more deaths on the ski hill than most other resorts. It's a crap ski hill. But, thanks for the realistic review.

Nice. Nakiska is indeed weird and not only for the reasons mentioned in the video. There are additional quirks. I find it uncomfortable to ski a full day at the place because many of the runs have of a sideways tilt to them you have to constantly fight. Meaning your turns are all right turns to stay on the run: right turn, straighten which makes you go left because of the angle, turn right etc.

Both my wife and I worked there the winter of 90-91, I was a liftee on Olympic, and she worked as a Snow Host. Back then (at least) it was great place to work, and employees had a pass to all of the other Western resorts to ski free. The winter I worked there the upper platter was running and staffed.

While living in Calgary my favorite was Sunshine, but Nakiska is great for a day trip in the middle of the workweek. Like taking a personal day from work on an average Wednesday take the car at 8am and be skiing by 9 at Nakiska and be home for dinner. I would avoid Nakiska on weekends and holidays since it's packed.

Love nakiska. Home resort since I was a kid. For the whole permanently closed thing upper alpine thing. For upper north axe it's a natural animal highway for the park and was only permitted to be used for the Olympics. "I've seen mountain goats on that crest a lot as well.". Also it out of bounds and not patrolled. You are skiing back country at that point. Second for the bowl / platter lift. The snow pack in k-country is extremely unstable dew to the natural warm winds in the area. There are avalanches on that slope all the time !! Again in the 80s they got away with the start being up there because the run was a few meters two short for FIS at the time. Really happy to see a review of one of my favorite resorts. Also disclaimer. This is what I've bin told throughout the years. So if.i am wrong. Please let me know.

Here is a little tip: Make friends with the patrol, and if the day is on your side, they might just let you lift up to the top to get to some of the bowls. Coming from someone who may or may not have skied those areas...

I call Nakiska a big Blue Mountain for those from Toronto. I ski 20-40 days there for $319 for a full seniors's pass bought early last year. Great value. Arrive early and ski the Silver chair which generally has 2=4 freshly groomed runs off it. I ski for 3 hours and I am at my desk by 1:30 PM. It is my training hill. Louise is much better when it has snow. Of course, if I am skiing in May, I go to Sunshine. I am surprised Fernie is so low on your list. When it has snow, it is epic. .

While it did get last in western Canada I'm honestly not sure if you were hard enough on it. Snow at 5 seems too high, it's VERY icy. Some sections that they can't groom become a massive sheet of polished ice. The glades usually have a huge amount of rocks and roots exposed. Crowd flow at 5 is also too high, it's so busy at the base it's insane. A half an hour wait for a chair deserves WAY WAY lower than a 5 when the runs are as short as they are. It would be different if you were skiing for a long time after the lift but you aren't. And it goes get this busy at the base frequently. Some bottlenecks on greens and blues near the base are also horrifically busy to get down, you need to go so slow to avoid everyone. Facilities 5 is also too high. I went on a busy weekend and the upper mountain restaurant literally ran out of food at 12:30pm and closed. This made the other food places twice as busy. They only had 1 lift ticket booth open and my friends had to wait in line for two full hours to get their day pass. They almost waited so long they considered buying the afternoon pass because it was 11:00am already by the time they got their day pass. I would have put it in last by a much larger margin

Definitely a difference between what makes an area good for recreation or good for racing. I went by Whiteface last week. Recreational skiers sometimes complain about icy, windblown conditions, but racers WANT it icy. Conversely, Park City had a problem of TOO much snow for racing. No one pays much attention to the weather reports in Big & Little Cottonwood Canyons because it seems to snow a foot any day of the week at random. Great for recreation, pain in the butt for racing. If it snows 8" during a race event, the racers at the end of the line get screwed out of fast conditions.

Really well done!

Looks better than I thought. I always ski sunshine and Louise. Looks fun for racing

I tried to learn how to snowboard there in the late 90's. Nice hill when you aren't flying into trees or slamming your head...

Fortress was a far better hill. Some kinda bs that Nakisha even went through. Icy wind blown usually the conditions unless ya catch it after a dump. Not worth the lift fees.

Used to go to Nakiska and Fortress mountain on school field trips. Lots of fun (25 years ago)!

it's incomprehensible for the european mind to think that someone could come and forbid me from skiing down somewhere haha. ski patrol is such a strange idea

Woot! I just went to Quebec to ski Mont saint anne. It’s a nice mountain.

I like the two CLD-260’s they have. Their two out of base detachable lifts - silver and Olympic are Doppelmayr cld260’s, and they were built in the late 80’s. Very cool technology.

Like the reviews when they have a specific cool feature of the resort analysed such as the old trails or banned slopes

Nakiska is a nice place to learn, close to Calgary. I like it

This is an excellent review of a some what dubious skihill. It accurately presents the pro and cons in a very accurate and complete way. Kudos! I will definately watch more of their videos. Very well done! A big thank you for leaving the chart at14:40up for long enough for us to get a good look at it, or to easily pause and read it. Most videos flash text on the screen so fast that it's a big challenge to even pause it, which is is very disruptive to the experience of watching a video. Usually, by the time you've realized you need to pause to see something important, 2 or 3 other text things have also flashed by already, making it difficult and very disruptive to pause and read 1 or more of them. I wonder why on earth most video makers are so afraid of adding time to a video, especially when in most cases, in order for us to actually read the text, it would only add another an extra second or two for each instance of text! What's going on with these video makers? It's not like even the youngest people can read them when they flash by so fast. So I'm extremely impressed that this video maker left the chart there for so long, while continuing to talk about very relevant things. I was able to take a good look at it, and decide whether or not it would be worth the trouble to pause the video. We usually are not given the choice, so we either miss important things by not pausing, or we waste our time pausing to read stuff that didn't matter. HUGE KUDOS to this video for giving us the choice! I have never been so impressed by a video review of a ski hill! Thank you SO MUCH for this!

From the UK, we visited Banff to ski all 3 resorts and lucky for us we were introduced to Nakiska on our first of 15 years skiing in Alberta. It is only 50 minutes from Banff on the highway, exit where you see the wigwams and casino exit 155. We were informed to miss the weekends so we did. Quiet during the week only problem not all lifts were on but still enough to ski in a day. Enjoyed the Poutine at the resturrant, it has a shop with everything you might need and lockers for your gear.

what happened to skiers 1-71?

Awesome review dude. I went to Norquay for the first time this year and was pleasantly surprised. It is similar in a lot of ways. I was chatting with someone about Nakiska at the time, as I've never been. I grew up skiing primarily at Sunshine and am interested in the spots that I haven't been to.

As a local it’s great for beginners to mountain skiing and a bit of a warm up for the bigger resorts, it used to be a cheaper option but that’s changed it’s definitely hit or miss for conditions I’ve had terrible and perfect days

I actually just went skiing there yesterday because I live just outside of Calgary

The low season pass cost makes it appealing to families and people that are learning. It gets busy on weekends

My first time skiing as a kid on this mountain, almost died impacting the safety fence near the bronze lift when I came down from silver and couldn't figure out how to slow down 😆

I was skiing in Panorama resort in the late 2000s and the guys there told me that Nakiska got sued by a parent of a kid that paralysed himself skiing their park. Apparently they had poor transitions... Not sure how true that was, but the guy i was talking to was a surveyor, who was checking the design of the park at Panorama following a paralysation....

Bring back Fortress.

I worked a season there, back around 2001/2 ish, looking after the base area, I don't recall ever seeing the crowds as busy then as they were in the video, mid mountain was always empty when ever I went up there for a lunch. Back then RCR was in trouble, and had the hill up for sale, barely had enough equipment to keep things running, had a terrain park then and I think they may have just put in a half pipe that year as well. Also a couple of stunt scenes from the movie "Snow Dogs" were filmed there.

I've held a season's pass here for the last 4 seasons. Great mountain for the whole family.

Please do a full review video on magic mountain vermont

I was there two days ago!

Funny how at every other resort, avi techs use a gun, helicopter or simply walk up the terrain. they keep that lift there to keep patrol happy and give them incentive to work there.

Great place to train for alpine. I probably have more kms skiied here than any other mountain but an absolutely dismal location for free skiing

Sounds like Ski Patrol just wants their own area

From a hiking perspective, the area up high does have a seasonal closure (Apr 1 to Jun 21) for wildlife (Bighorn Sheep). Centennial Ridge, Olympic Summit and further on Mt Allan. Outside that time one can hike there.

As a former resident of Calgary, I was thinking the whole time "Lake Louise & Sunshine are FAR nicer than Nakiska"... And I was about to close the video around the 14-minute mark, but wanted to see your rating. I concur with your rating chart @ 14:43 !

I like the way the name sounds

Just a quick correction, upper grand trunk is just a nickname, the run appeared on trail maps for many years as “Bearspaw”. Strangely the cat track was often drawn out of those maps but Bearspaw was still listed, I guess as hike up? Anyway yeah, Nakiska I think is the dog of the Calgary-area resorts with how icy and busy it gets, but I suppose saying "well it's not as good as worldwide #5-ranked Sunshine or #10-ranked Lake Louise" isn't really that much of a black mark. It’s great if you only want groomers and below treeline ungroomed runs, with fast lifts. In my youth it was always seen as the "next step" mountain, you'd learn the basics at WinSport, then move up to Nakiska to move through intermediate and basic advanced terrain. Personally though, I would go to Mt. Norquay any day over it, similar prices for much better terrain in my opinion, and no crowds. Sunshine Village absolutely has much more interesting low-intermediate through low-advance terrain with way better snow. However, I should note that I haven't been since the last terrain expansion in 2009 which added a bunch of ungroomed glade terrain. Maybe I'll give it a shot during the 2024-25 season. Even the old hidden savings of not needing to pay to park isn't a thing any more with the conservation pass. Y'all need to try Castle Mountain next! It's the last of the big Alberta resorts, until Fortress finally manages to reopen one of the twenty years they've been saying they will.

Please review some of the resorts in New Mexico. Nice vid!

When did they start enforcing a conservation pass? Been going there years, have never bought a pass, nor gotten ticketed for it

I've had some of my best pow days at Nakiska!

Lots of negatives with this mountain.

When is the Marmot Basin review going up on YT/Your website? I'm pretty sure its the largest resort in NA missing from your rankings, and its the mountain I grew up snowboarding so it has a special place in my heart.

Back when nakiska had their $200 seasons pass I rode here a lot and had a great time

I broke my thumb here 25 years ago, never did like this hill when theres so many nicer mountains close by.

Hey! My kid and I are in this video waiting in line!

I live in the bow valley and have for most of my life. If you're visiting the area, Nakiska is the best ski hill in the area! Everyone who visits should go. Just kidding, Ive been to Nakiska once and will never go back. Its a terrible resort unless you're a ski racer.

as a racer the only thing good about nakiska is racing. if ur looking for park or literally anything else even WinSport is better

First comment/like/view. Awesome and interesting video!

I wish fortress was still open 😢. At least you can go there with backcountry skis and ski the abandoned ski resort 😂.

Do they open the lifts for mountain biking in the summer?

It is not permanently closed. I rode my motorcycle around the barriers and had the road for myself up to Jasper.

It's called Ka na nas kis not kenanaskis. Junior national ski team and Olympians from around the world train there too.

That run off to skiers left is not called north ax. It’s called legacy. North ax is under the silver chair

I grew up on this hill. We were there every weekend. My dad was a ski bum in his 20s, and a sponsored (K2) bump skier. He would drag me to the top to hit the moguls all the time. Got pretty good for a kid. He was not happy when I moved to snowboards in my teens 😂

I love your narration voice and cadence.

Worst hill I have ever been on haha

Probably the worst possible location to build a ski resort, panic decision because of the Olympics.

The run you called "Upper Grand Trunk" was actually called "Bearspaw." Bearspaw was a black diamond (run #4), adjacent to Upper North Axe on early Nakiska trail maps. Not sure why they named the run and gave it a slot on the original trail map when they never opened it.

Please review Sun Peaks soon. I've heard it's the second best ski resort in Canada after Whistler

bonus find the tunnel under the men's downhill course

Nakista is gnarly

And if you don’t ski or you wanna go there in the summer, bellow the hills are miles of walking and hiking trails and some nice water falls.

It honestly is a pretty good hill for what it is feels more like s non mountain hill but it huge potential if there was money pumped into it

I remember going here for tubing

Next winter please do a full video on my home hill Magic Mountain, Vermont

Fortress was always my favorite

Just sucks when the wind picks up

On a weekday it’s you and the workers.

East coast riding in the West. 😂

I WISH THE BACKSIDE OF WHISTLER WAS STILL CLOSED. :P

The reason Nakiska is so busy is the season pass rate. It's cheap!!!! . I taught my son to ski there and it was frustrating at times. They also would close the gold chair for hours for the racers which IMO was idiotic. They also treated their staff like garbage when COVID closed the resorts in March by not returning their calls and hanging up on them. I can honestly say I will never spend another dime at Nakiska. I try to stay away from RCR resorts (They closed Fortress mountain and kept open this junk hill) but I do like Fernie. Anyways great video and Nakiska does its job by keeping people away from the real ski hills in Banff. On a side note the second choice for the Olympic downhill events was Mt. Sparrowhawk . It was further from Calgary so that is why Mt Allen was chosen. It's to bad because Sparrowhawk would have been so much better. I've scrambled up it a few times.

Pretty good video. I'm not sure what your source is for the "consistent cold weather" stat, but it's not accurate. It gets regular Chinook winds that often creates icy slopes.

Please do cypress next season

1:50 Can-Ah-Nass-Kiss

bro i was there two days ago

4:52 superb biff

soooo many jerries 🤣

You mentioned “The Town of Kananaskis” during your lodging segment, there is no such town. FYI I’m a local

Get up 45 minutes earlier and just go to bloody Sunshine.

This ski hill has always been a reminder of how well Government led developments can be so marvellously FUBAR'd.

this resort needs to open a lift up to the bowls and it would prosper

Nakiska, the original white elephant.

No park. It sucks. But I still buy their season pass coz its affordable compared to Lake louise or sun peaks.

Im glad nakiska exists to hold most of the kooks away from sunshine and louise. All good if you’re a kook but its watcha are!

My children learned to ski there, none ski now.

It's the wind. That's all

8:55 why would they do that

Hi

Nakiska SUCKS!!! What a waste of money and effort. Anyone who know snow knows gives this dump a miss! Skiing in the trees is a deathwish. There’s no decent glades. It doesn’t get powder. And the parking lot is often underwater 🤦🏼

The snow quality at Nakiska is top tier awful.

Sounds like the resort should have a new owner..

You are so wrong on many counts. Every run is groomed every day. Their grooming is spectacular. Because they are a training ground for provincial and national ski teams, the hill relies on snow making to get runs open for early November. Norquay and Lake Louise rely on snow making too. I have experienced icier conditions at those hills than I did all this season (23-24) at Nakiska. And they get many up-sloping snow storms that make the ski resorts in Banff envious. As far as green and blue runs go, ALL the runs off of Silver Chair are suitable for those new to the sport. Also, the Bronze Chair caters to beginners without the distraction of experts speeding by. The Magic Carpet beginner area is ideal for those first starting. Nakiska is the best place for those that want to take up the sport. The jump for beginners at Louise is to great from the magic carpet to the rest of the mountain. Sunshine's magic carpet is way too small and always way to busy for someone to give skiing a try. Just like the other Banff areas, patrollers have the final say when to open more difficult runs based on lack of snow or avalanche danger so don't make it sound like Nakiska is withholding runs on purpose. I have seen patrollers at the other Banff areas enjoying powder while the lifts to the public are closed. I have also seen the other Banff hills open runs with very little snow just to open more lifts and therefore charge more for a lift ticket. When a run is opened at the beginning of the year at Nakiska, it is in perfect condition. True there is no terrain park and if that is what you are looking for then Sunshine and Louise will be happy to welcome you however you will have driven another hour or 2 to get there. In short, Nakiska has a great origin story and since then has made racing accessible to many local teams with ideal conditions. The management makes it easy for the remaining public to enjoy skiing. And, their cost of seasons passes are far more favourable than the other resorts. I give Nakiska 2 thumbs up. Kudos to them.