5 Days in Banff

Banff Avenue is the main street, and it is a street of ski shops, gift shops and pubs with Cascade Mountain filling the end of it. The SkiBig3 Adventure Hub is at 114 Banff Avenue, and it is where you pick up tickets or rent gear; check its hours, as it does not open at dawn.

Rent in town rather than at the hills, where the Lake Louise shop takes no advance bookings. The Banff Visitor Centre at 224 Banff Avenue sells ice cleats, which you will want on Friday.

Norquay is the oldest of the three areas. It opened in 1926, produced Olympic and World Cup racers, and is a small hill with four chairlifts, a vertical drop of about 500 m and around 300 cm of snow a year. It is a locals' hill, a short drive from town.

Start on the Cascade chair, which the resort uses for its easy night-skiing laps, and move up from there. Snowmaking covers about 85% of the terrain, so the hill has a surface even when the weather is bad. Verdict: not a destination mountain, a very good first or last day.

The Lone Pine Pub is Norquay's pub and calls itself a full-service lunch and après spot, with classic pub food and a Kölsch brewed with Banff Ave Brewing Co. The hill also has a cafeteria.

Eat early, at 11:30, or after the lunch rush. It is pub food on a small hill, not fine dining.

After lunch, take the North American chair and the Mystic Express toward the steeper side of Norquay. This is the steeper side of the hill, and the resort says it is a training ground for Olympic and World Cup athletes. If you have been skiing blues all week, this is the afternoon to try a black on a hill small enough to bail out of quickly.

Tubing at Norquay comes with a SkiBig3 ticket, so check the season dates.

The gondola takes 8 minutes to climb about 1.6 km to the summit of Sulphur Mountain, where there is a boardwalk along the ridge to Sanson Peak and a view of six mountain ranges. It runs year-round. In winter the cabins are not heated and the summit is windy, so bring the same clothes you wear skiing.

Go in the evening, when the town lights below beat the midday view. Winter hours are longest in the holiday weeks (late November to New Year, running to 10pm with the last ride up at 8:30pm in 2026), and shorter after that, so check the day you go. It is an expensive 8 minutes, and the view is good enough that most people do not mind.

Grizzly House opened in 1967 as Western Canada's first disco, and turned to fondue when it needed a way to serve food. It is now Banff's famous fondue restaurant at 207 Banff Avenue, and the telephones on the tables, which let you call other tables, are still there. The menu has cheese fondue and meat, including game such as elk, bison and venison, cooked at the table on a hot rock.

It is a gimmick, and more fun than refined, but a sensible first-night dinner when you are cold.

Lake Louise sits on the southern slopes of the Slate Range, with most of the terrain on Whitehorn Mountain. Three mountains, 13 lifts and a longest run of 8 km make it one of the largest ski areas in North America. The resort says it has beginner, intermediate and expert runs from almost every chair, so groups of mixed ability can ski the same lift.

Take the Grizzly Express Gondola from the base to get the lay of the land, then ski a few easy laps to warm up. Look at the map before you pick a line: the resort rates about 25% of its terrain beginner, 45% intermediate and 30% advanced, so intermediates get the most of it.

The Glacier Express quad takes you up the front side, the face you see from the base. Until West Bowl opened in 2020, the front side held the groomers and the back held the bowls.

Work your way left and right across the hill rather than doing the same lap, and keep the harder runs for later in the day when your legs are warm.

Whitehorn Bistro is the resort's farm-to-table restaurant, and the better of the two lunch options. Mountain restaurants in Banff are not cheap, and neither is this one.

Go before noon or after 1:30 to skip the queue.

The Top of the World six-pack takes you high on Whitehorn Mountain. The resort is upgrading the chair for 2026/27 and adding glading and snowmaking at Richardson's Ridge, and it says there is more terrain this winter than last. Expert terrain off the Top of the World, Paradise and Summit chairs opens as the snow builds.

Take one run off the top, then stop for photographs: a big, open mountain in a national park, not a village with lifts.

The base-area lounge is where the day ends and the casual lunch alternative. The resort lists pizza, wings, nachos, soups and chili, and it is the obvious après stop because it sits at the bottom of the lifts. Last chair is 4:30pm.

Don't linger too long. The drive back along the Trans-Canada in the dark takes 45 minutes or more.

Banff Avenue Brewing Co is the town's own brewery, on the upper floor of the Clock Tower Village mall at 110 Banff Avenue. It has an IPA for beer people and milder beers for everyone else, and a menu that has listed local game such as elk pie and bison stew.

If you want a pub instead, Banff Avenue has plenty of them, and many have live music.

Banff Sunshine is the one area where the gondola is the only way up. Parking at the base is free, the gondola ride to the Village takes about 20 minutes, and you are high on the mountain before you start skiing. The free Sunshine shuttle leaves Banff from select hotels, the town parking lot and the Brewster bus depot, with several departures a day.

The resort lists 3,358 acres and averages about 7 m of snow a year since 2018, all natural with no snowmaking. That is the reason to come: it has the highest top of the three (2,730 m), it gets the most snow, and its season runs into late May.

Sunshine sits on the Continental Divide, with Alberta on one side and British Columbia on the other. Three mountains, Mount Standish, Lookout Mountain and Goat's Eye, make up the ski area, and the Great Divide Express climbs toward Lookout Mountain, where the expert zone of Delirium Dive starts.

Spend the morning on Standish and Goat's Eye, then move over to Lookout Mountain after lunch, when you know how the snow is skiing.

The Village at the top of the gondola has most of the food. Nikko Ramen serves from 11am to 3:30pm once it opens for the season (around Christmas), the Alpine Grill does quick grab-and-go meals, Chimney Corner has two wood-burning fireplaces and a sit-down menu, and Eagle's Nest is the evening restaurant. Goat's Eye, the mid-mountain stop, has a lunch spot for a faster break.

A bowl of ramen on a cold mountain is a very good lunch. Go a little before noon, when it is easier to find a seat.

Delirium Dive is the reason ski magazines write about Sunshine. It is a steep, ungroomed alpine zone reached from the top of Lookout Mountain, and Wild West is a similar chute-filled zone on Goat's Eye. Both are for experts, with rocks, cliffs and avalanche terrain.

Entry rules are strict: a working 457 kHz transceiver switched on before you enter, a shovel and probe in a pack, and a partner with the same gear. Both zones open and close with snow safety. If you don't own the gear, skip it, and don't enter because a friend did.

Mad Trapper's is the Village's après place, listed as open 10:30am to 11pm. The resort sells it as comforting classics, frosty drinks and après energy. Come for one drink, not the evening, unless it is a Friday and you plan to ride the late gondola. On Wednesday the last ride down is at 6pm.

The Upper Hot Springs are on Sulphur Mountain, a short drive from Cave and Basin where the park began, and the renovated bathhouse and pool opened in 1932. It is open daily 10am to 10pm, last entry 9:30pm, including Christmas Day. Entry is first come, first served and paid at reception.

Hot water with snow on the surrounding mountains is what tired legs want. The pool closes for a few weeks of maintenance each autumn, so if you come at the start of the season, check it has reopened.

You reach the Summit Chair from the top of the Top of the World chair, and it is a 4-minute ride along the ridge of Whitehorn Mountain. From the top you drop into the back bowls, wide open alpine terrain that skis best after fresh snow. The old Summit Platter that did this job before has been replaced.

Boomerang on the backside is rated intermediate and Whitehorn 1 advanced, so they are the runs to test your legs on before you commit to anything ungroomed.

West Bowl opened in 2020, the first new in-bounds terrain at Lake Louise in 25 years, and it used to be side-country. It is not cut into runs but into zones of steeps, powder bowls and glades, with no grooming, and it funnels into a 2-km exit trail that rejoins the front side. The boundary change handed grizzly habitat back to Parks Canada.

There is no beginner or low-intermediate terrain in it. Once you drop in, you are committed. SkiBig3 recommends skiing with a buddy and carrying avalanche gear, and Lake Louise does control work and patrol in the zone.

The Larch Express and the Richardson's Ridge Express serve the eastern side of the ski area. The resort says the 2026/27 season adds new terrain options, more glading and better snowmaking on Richardson's Ridge, so this is the part of the mountain that changed most since last winter. Ask at the base which of the new terrain has opened.

Plan the afternoon around the last chair at 4:30pm; Lake Louise is wide, and a late run from the far side takes a while to get home.

The Lake Louise Visitor Centre at 201 Village Road, next to Samson Mall, has information from both Parks Canada and Banff & Lake Louise Tourism. This is where to ask about winter trails and conditions before Friday. Winter hours run to about 4pm, before the last chair, so leave the hill by 3:30 or stop on the way in. The mall around it has a small grocery store, an outdoor shop and cafes.

Lake Louise Village began as a railway outpost in 1884 and was called Holt City and Laggan before it took the name of the lake. Today it is a small place with a handful of restaurants and a lot of quiet.

Poutine is chips with gravy and squeaky cheese curds, and it emerged in Quebec around 1959, though its exact origins are disputed. Banff Poutine on Bear Street is a dedicated poutine shop that appeared on a Bow Valley readers' choice list, with toppings such as smoked meat and bacon. It is a heavy dish, which makes it a good after-ski dish.

Queues can be long at dinner time.

A BeaverTail is stretched fried dough shaped like a beaver's tail, topped with cinnamon sugar, chocolate hazelnut spread or maple butter. There are two shops on Banff Avenue, at numbers 120 and 201, and the company's store finder showed both open until 10pm.

It is a sweet, greasy thing you eat while walking, and a hot one in winter air is better than it has any right to be.

Wild Flour Bakery on Bear Street opens at 7am and bakes sourdough, mixed-grain loaves and baguettes in a stone hearth oven, with croissants, cookies, brownies and tarts in the daily case. It also does breakfast, coffee and sandwiches.

Buy a coffee and something to carry for the canyon. Ask whether the case has butter tarts or Nanaimo bars.

Johnston Canyon is 25 km from Banff on the Bow Valley Parkway. A trail of catwalks and bridges with railings runs into the rock for 1.2 km to the Lower Falls and 2.5 km to the Upper Falls, which freeze into a 30-m column of blue ice. Parks Canada says the trail is usually very icy and strongly recommends ice cleats; you can buy them at the Banff Visitor Centre and most outdoor shops.

Parks Canada closed the canyon trail and its main parking lot in late 2026 for rock slope work, and its page said the Upper Falls and the Ink Pots, 3.2 km beyond the falls, stay reachable by the Moose Meadows trail meanwhile; ask at the visitor centre about the route first. When it is open, go early on a weekday.

The community takes its name from Princess Louise, and the lake was reached in 1882 by Tom Wilson, a railway worker led there by a Nakoda guide, who first called it Emerald Lake. In winter it is a flat white bowl under Victoria Glacier, with the Fairmont Chateau at one end. The lakeshore trail leads to a frozen waterfall at the far end, but do not go past the end of the lake, which is avalanche terrain.

Moraine Lake is closed in winter: its road is closed to personal vehicles year-round, and shuttles run only from June to mid-October. The Lake Agnes and Plain of Six Glaciers teahouse hikes are also unsafe from November to mid-May.

The rinks on the lake usually open from mid-December to mid-April, depending on the ice, and the snow is cleared daily. They are lit until 11pm. The ice should be at least 15 cm thick for a single skater and 20 cm for groups, so ask the Fairmont or the visitor centre whether the rinks are open that day.

Skates can be rented at the Fairmont's ski and snow shop by the lobby (no advance booking), or bring your own.

The Fairmont Banff Springs opened in 1888 as a Canadian Pacific hotel. The original wooden hotel burned down in April 1926, and the north and south wings went up in 1927 and 1928. It became a National Historic Site in 1988.

Come for the building and the setting, a hotel known as the Castle in the Rockies that looks down the valley toward Mount Rundle, and warm up in the public areas. It is about 1.5 km from Banff Avenue, an easy walk back for dinner, and Bow Falls, on the river just below the hotel, is a short walk away.

Park Distillery makes its own spirits in Banff, serves them in cocktails and flights, and puts comfort food next to them. A Caesar, the vodka, clam and tomato cocktail invented at the Calgary Inn in 1969, is the Canadian drink to order, and Calgary is only 130 km down the road.

Finish the trip in a booth. If you still have energy, Norquay's night skiing is the alternative to a restaurant on a Friday in season, and the Sunshine gondola runs until 10:30pm on Fridays.