Clocks have been put forward 3 weeks early for daylight savings this Spring. As from 2am, Sunday March 11th, the clocks here have been put forward by an hour. This gives us more daylight in the early evening so more time to ski! Don’t be late for work!

Book any WestJet flight with rocky-peak Holidays until March 31, 2007, for travel until April 30, 2007, and receive double your airmiles! To book call 1-888-PH-ROCKY (1-888-74-76259).

With many different packages available to visitors from Saskatchewan, this week is surely going to be an exciting holiday in the Rockies. Contact rocky-peak Holidays for discounted ski pacakges for this week.

There will be “Family Fun Races” and “Scavenger Hunts” at Marmot Basin during Saskatchewan Ski Week. Weather permitting, Marmot will also be hositng outdoor BBQs at the mid-mountain Paradise Chalet.

There will be many in-town events to keep Jasper guests happily occupied. If after a hard day’s work on the hill you feel like relaxing, then why not relax in any of the tasteful restaurants of Jasper!

Moose Meadows is probably one of the most oddly named areas of Banff National Park.

Located near Castle Mountain on the Bow Valley Parkway, the name ‘Moose Meadows’ conjures images of the huge ungulates lurking behind every blade of grass.

But how many people can actually say they’ve seen a moose in Moose Meadows?

Very few, and the ones who have seen moose there tend to spend a great deal of time in the park.

“I’m probably one of the few who has seen them in there in the last couple of years. I would say it’s actually less than two or three times a year,” Frank Gee, operations manager for Discover Banff Tours, said Wednesday (Jan. 31).

Recently, however, moose have been seen consistently in the meadows two, three and even four at a time.

Gee said Discover Banff guides and their clients have seen moose in the meadows an average of five times a week.

“We’ve always introduced it as ‘this is Moose Meadows, the most unlikely place you’re going to find a moose’, and then just laughed it off. Now we’re laughing at ourselves,” Gee said.

Banff naturalist Mike McIvor said that in the 1960s and ‘70s, seeing moose west of the Banff town site was common, especially at places like Vermilion Lakes and Moose Meadows.

“In fact, one time, just as we got to Moose Meadows we saw seven bull moose walking one behind the other along the edge of the meadows,” McIvor said.

“The interesting thing that has changed, 30 years ago you went out and expected to see a moose… but as of three or four years ago if you’d see a moose a year in Moose Meadows, you’d be telling everybody about it.”

Moose all but vanished from the Bow Valley in recent years for a variety of reasons, including a loss of habitat to a growing elk population, a liver fluke deadly to moose, the re-appearance of wolves, and road- and train-kill.

According to a 2004 Parks Canada estimate, 40 to 60 of the horse-sized members of the deer family can be found in the Banff National Park boundaries.

“There’s probably no question that this part of the Bow Valley became what’s known as a population sink. There weren’t any (moose) here and if they were up Baker Creek or Red Earth Creek and they came down here they got crunched,” McIvor said.

And so what may have at one time been an appropriate name for prime moose habitat became an oddity.

But according to Jesse Whittington, wildlife specialist for Banff National Park, the moose population in the park has likely seen a resurgence in the past few years.

Every three years, Parks staff follow 150 one-kilometre-long transects located throughout Banff National Park, counting the scat of moose, deer and elk. These pellet transects gives Parks an overall index of abundance, Whittington said.

“It looks like moose are starting to increase in the Bow Valley, which is reflected in what we are seeing between Banff and Castle, the relative abundance is increasing,” he said.

That is contrasted with the Cascade and Red Deer River Valleys, where moose are decreasing, primarily connected to an increasing population of elk.

According to research conducted by biologist Tom Hurd, Whittington said more elk tends to mean less moose.

“What he found was there was a negative correlation between elk and moose. There’s a couple of reasons for that. The first is elk… are a generalist species and they eat a wide variety of food, like willow, which is a primary food for moose.

“So when we have high elk numbers they hit the willow hard, so that takes away some of the moose food. With lower elk densities west of Banff, the willow have recovered so there’s more forage for moose,” he said.

Source: Rob Alexander – Reporter – Rocky Mountain Outlook

With more snow in the past 24 hours and still falling, and even more snow in the forecast, 2007 is off to a great start at the ski resorts in Western Canada!

Check out our up-to-date ski information at rockypeak.ca!

Hollywood’s top stars will again gather to ski the majestic Canadian Rocky Mountains Jan. 18-21, 2007, at The Fairmont Banff Springs Celebrity Sports Invitational in support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance.

The event traditionally attracts dozens of well-known celebrities who compete in an array of snow-filled activities including toboggan, biathlon and dual giant slalom races – well within public view at Sunshine Village. The Fairmont Banff Springs Celebrity Sports Invitational has in the past drawn such Hollywood A-list stars as Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Meg Ryan, Dan Aykroyd and Martin Sheen.

Tickets for this year’s invitational are available through The Fairmont Banff Springs.

Club Med and other top European ski resort operators are bracing for a tough holiday season as they endure the warmest winter in centuries and severe shortages of snow.

In France, the Val d’Isere ski resort had to cancel two World Cup Races scheduled for early December as the snow wasn’t abundant enough to secure the runs.

At the same time, an OECD report this week said Alpine areas are experiencing the warmest weather in 1,300 years, posing a “serious risk” to lower-altitude ski stations.

That’s all adding up to a much happier Christmas in Western Canada, where places like Whistler-Blackcomb, B.C., and other snow-choked ski centres in the Rockies are booked to the max and turning away European customers.

“We are getting an increase in calls from Europe asking about availability, but it’s getting difficult to accommodate them,” said Jeff Pensiero, the owner of Boldface Lodge, a back-country snowcat ski and snowboarding resort that is a five-minute helicopter flight from Nelson, B.C. “They’re usually calling for already sold-out periods.”

Western Canada ski centres have been revelling in record snowfalls so far this year, while Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland try to cope with some of the direst conditions ever — a graphic demonstration, say scientists, of the effects of global warming.

French holiday company Pierre & Vacances said last week that business was down a bit in its mountain locations but the firm kept a brave face, Reuters reported. “The snow will come. It will no doubt lead to a wave of reservations, company chairman Gérard Bremond said.

Canada’s national snowboard team recently competed at an event in Slovenia where grass patches played havoc with the sport, and some said the contest shouldn’t have gone ahead.

Banks in Switzerland are refusing to lend money to resorts below an altitude of 1,500 metres, and some small operations are closing, Shardul Agrawala, who carried out the OECD study, told the Guardian News Service. To be sure, resorts in Eastern Canada and the eastern U.S. have also been struggling with unusually mild temperatures and little or no snow.

Ian Galbraith, spokesman for Intrawest ULC, which owns ski resorts across North America, said that while the company’s ski hills in the eastern half of the continent are up and running, “conditions aren’t ideal.” Mont Tremblant, north of Montreal, for example, has 24 trails open and is in good shape, while Blue Mountain, north of Toronto, is operating thanks to snow-making equipment.

Intrawest’s Stratton resort in Vermont also has several runs in operation, despite warm weather in the region in recent days.

Fortunately for most resorts in the East, there has been enough cold weather for snow-making equipment to kick in and build a good base to start operations.

“With the altitudes we have on the mountains we can usually make snow, so [the warm weather] hasn’t hindered us,” Mr. Galbraith said.

Meanwhile, the West doesn’t know what to do with all its white stuff. Whistler-Blackcomb — also owned by Intrawest — had almost five metres of snow fall in November alone, Mr. Galbraith said. “Visitations are up. This is definitely a great start to the season,” although it’s too early to say if there is an uptick in European visitors, he said.

Intrawest has been getting the word out about the fantastic conditions to European and Eastern Canada skiers through various marketing and e-mail channels, he said.

Legendary heli-skiing operator Mike Wiegele — based in Blue River, B.C. — said he’s hopeful there will be an influx of Euro-skiers this season but says it’s too early to tell.

He’s also wary about the situation, saying poor skiing conditions in Europe could have a general dampening effect.

“The enthusiasm goes down. People start doing other things. That’s the scary part of it,” he said.

“The thing is to get the word out about the superb conditions here.”

Philippe Jolin of Montreal travel agency Skican said he’s seen a significant drop in bookings by U.S. skiers for Quebec’s premier destination, Mont Tremblant.

Tremblant is one of the few resorts in the province that has good conditions, but the uncertainty over the weather has resulted in more Americans deciding to book out West, he said.

BERTRAND MAROTTE from Friday’s Globe and Mail
With files from reporter Richard Blackwell, Bloomberg, Reuters

In what has been heralded as a season for the record books, Marmot Basin has now broken yet another all-time record with the most snowfall ever for the month of November. A total of 163 cm of snow has fallen in the past month surpassing the previous record of 156 cm in 1990. “In my 29 years at Marmot Basin I have never seen such a high quality snowpack” said Marmot’s Brian Rode, VP of marketing. “Conditions do not get any better than this at any time of the year, let alone November. Every run on the mountain is in incredible shape, the runs are buried wall to wall in snow, and those who have made it to Marmot so far this season have had powder skiing and riding each and every day” added Rode.

Marmot Basin has now broken four records so far this season the first being when they opened on November 17, the earliest opening day for the ski area ever. On November 23 Marmot then opened their famous double black diamond terrain in Eagle East breaking yet another record, and then, on November 24, the Knob Chair opened breaking another “earliest opening” record. All this compliments of 163 cm of snowfall in November and the addition of a new 2 million dollar snowmaking system in the lower area.

“We expect record attendance this season now that the word is out that our snow conditions are as good as they get anywhere at any time” said Rode. “I have had the good fortune to ski at many ski areas throughout North America, including world famous heli-ski sites, and I can honestly say that it gets no better than this”, boasted Rode.

Source: Marmot Basin

Goat’s eye opened yesterday.

Thanks to incredible early season snow Sunshine Village’s third mountain is now open. You can now ski and ride on over 80 runs including the ski-out all the way to the base. Delirium Dive has also opened for the season, call 403-762-6511 for current conditions.

Kicking Horse Mountain Resort has a planned early opening of Saturday, December 2nd.

They will operate Saturdays and Sundays until Friday December 15th, at which time we will be open 7 days a week for the rest of the season.

Please call their snow phone at 250.439.5401 for updated snow conditions and operating schedule.