Fernie

Getting to Fernie is a piece of cake: from Vancouver it’s a one-hour flight into Cranbrook and a one-hour drive through the pretty East Kootenays. From Calgary it’s a three-hour drive.

A globetrotting, van-living Australian-skiing through Europe with only one change of clothes-shamed me into going to Fernie. We were the only deep-snow devotees on a ski-racer’s mountain in the Alps, and, after a lull in conversation on our fourth chairlift ride, he turned to me. "I envy you," he said.

I assumed he was talking about my skiing. Or maybe my fashion sense. "You get to ski at Fernie whenever you want."

"I do," I replied, taking in what he’d said. "I do get to ski at Fernie whenever," I stretched the syllables out, "I want."

I’d never skied at Fernie. Growing up in Edmonton, I’d always found it easier to stop at Sunshine, Lake Louise, Norquay or Marmot than pressing on the extra few hours. When I lived in Calgary I had two young kids, so skiing radical chutes was not on my agenda. And, since moving to Vancouver, I was faced with either a flight or a monster drive.

But I’d never once met a skier who didn’t love Fernie, and I’d wanted to go for as long as I could remember. My tête-à-tête with the Aussie only reaffirmed my vow to do so once I returned to Canada.

I’d made arrangements to meet up with Pat, a friend from Calgary and a Fernie habitué, and by buying lift passes we essentially doubled the number of people skiing on a sunny weekday. Pat explained that the mountain is grouped into a series of five bowls-Siberia, Timber, Currie, Lizard and Cedar-that abut massive cliff faces. The entire set-up screams, "Serious skiing happens here."

Eager to source fresh snow, Pat led me on a number of well-trod traverses, cut through the trees by the legions of big-mountain skiers who call Fernie home. And while each of the bowls has an easy way down, it’s the long steep pitches and chutes-faces so precipitously inclined that they demand the friction of fresh snow to make them manageable-that the mountain’s all about. That and clicking off the skis and going for a little hike to fresh snow-another great Fernie pastime.
With no lift lines, we devoured run after run, carving through each of the bowls; by the time 3:30 came around I screamed no mas. My legs-supposedly fine-tuned by the heavy snow of Whistler-were spent. Pat checked the altimeter on his watch (guys who ski Fernie invariably have altimeters on their watches): 13,000 feet in less than three hours. It’s a ridiculous amount of skiing.

I skied for a few more days-the numbers swell on weekends, but not so that lift lines ever exceed 10 minutes-giddy that I’ve discovered this gem in my own backyard. I’m confident that the next time I come across some skiing vagabond Aussie living in his van-a breed as common as kangaroos in Canberra-I’ll look him in the eye and say, "You’re right, my friend, I am lucky that I get to ski Fernie."