Swimming in snow at Marmot Basin

DOC POW

John Day,(centre) Chairman of Marmot Basin, along with Jasper National Park Superintendent, Greg Fenton (to Day's right)cuts the ribbon on Dec. 5 officially opening the new Canadian Rockies Express chair at Marmot Basin. Others in photo include Marmot Basin shareholders and Parks Canada officials.
Courtesy MARMOT BASIN

JASPER, AB — I have been shredding up the slopes of Alberta's Marmot Basin now for over eight years, never in my days on those slopes, which probably tally’s up to 80 odd days, have I ever seen it in this good of shape.

You know that feeling when you enter into a white out, face shot after face shot, leaving you screaming back to the lift for more – those were the type of days all visitors experienced during Marmot's celebration weekend of the hill's new Canadian Rockies Express chair.

Pair the new chairlift with the fantastic conditions and Marmot’s a whole new mountain this season.

The Canadian Rockies Express is not only smooth, but it literally opens up new terrain. Okay, not really new, but stuff that I didn’t even know was there.

For a great cruiser of a run be sure and hit up Dromedary on the lower half of the mountain – just watch out for the humps in the camel’s back.

One of the big boys

“I think Marmot has been known as that little brother of a mountain, but now with this new lift, we are in with the big kids,” said Dave Gibson, Marmot's president and CEO at the official ribbon cutting. "We have never seen such spectacular early season conditions as Marmot is being continuously blanketed with fresh powder. Today again demonstrated that our shareholders are fully committed to investing to improve the magical experience for which Marmot Basin is famous worldwide."

Marmot Basin's Megan Gibson rips through some snow-covered trees on Dec. 5.
DOC POW/SnowSeekers

Once the ceremonies were over, SnowSeekers' good friend Megan Gibson, one of Marmot’s marketing gurus took us up for a hike over along the shoulder of Charlie’s Bowl off the knob chair. We launched in and with the powder euphoric state I was in, I barely realized that our SnowSeekers camera crew were so close. Snowing a highend HD camera not once, but twice is pretty bad form, but it did make for some outstanding footage.

Taking a dive

Running out from Charlie’s Megan got tripped up and literally was swimming to try and get herself back up – the snow was that bottomless and it was that light, dry fluffy stuff that we all love so much. It’s lines like those that define why we do what we do, lines like those live with you forever and produce a feeling that very few things can ever come close to emulating.

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