What are your thoughts on this proposal? Seems fairly lofty but would definitely add more tourist locations to the the area. Seems like they are going for an Alpine Swiss village destination.
Forget tourists, with Metro Calgary expected to reach 2 Million people in 5 years, there will be greater demands for skiing and recreation sites.
But, with lift tickets exceeding $150 in Alberta, skiing could become the province of the wealthy.
We have three young kids and I want to send them to ski or snowboarding lessons. Those are affordable but my concern is that outside of the lessons, actually taking them to the mountain for a day could be very expensive.
I wonder how much the government will pay for this? Gotta think they have friends here and they'll make this work with kickbacks.
The issue with Fortress as a ski destination is no vertical drop. Short runs in a pretty location.
That said, I have a vague recollection of skiing the far-side and wondering why they didn't extend the lift higher, so maybe that is the ability to get longer runs back there?
I also wondered why they didn't extend trails all the way down to the road, just cut runs in the forest. At least that way you could create some longer groomers.
Anyways, I really like Sun Peaks, and it seems like we could make something like Sun Peaks here, which would save me a 7 hour drive!
Forget tourists, with Metro Calgary expected to reach 2 Million people in 5 years, there will be greater demands for skiing and recreation sites.
But, with lift tickets exceeding $150 in Alberta, skiing could become the province of the wealthy.
Its always been trending towards being the exclusive domain of the wealthy. After breaking my leg twice I gave up on skiing. I just...it just wasnt fun for me anymore and thats before it got insane expensive.
Trekking all the way out to the ski hill, equipment, its cold, waiting in endless lines! Thanks, but I'll take a whiskey by the fire at the cabin instead.
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I wonder how much the government will pay for this? Gotta think they have friends here and they'll make this work with kickbacks.
The issue with Fortress as a ski destination is no vertical drop. Short runs in a pretty location.
That said, I have a vague recollection of skiing the far-side and wondering why they didn't extend the lift higher, so maybe that is the ability to get longer runs back there?
I also wondered why they didn't extend trails all the way down to the road, just cut runs in the forest. At least that way you could create some longer groomers.
Anyways, I really like Sun Peaks, and it seems like we could make something like Sun Peaks here, which would save me a 7 hour drive!
Yeah, we'd hike up that extra vertical at the far side. I even have video of my friends and I doing it in 2000. Could definitely keep the lift going up there.
Also, there was a cut through you could take to access a bunch more mountain out of bounds. I think it was colloquially called Tower 5 or something. I only did it once and it'd spit you out onto the road down below. There were other awesome out of bounds riding that could be accessed with some investment there. I know because I lacerated my spleen out of bounds at fortress and ended up in the hospital for three weeks last semester of university.
Fortress rules, but I'm not going to get my hopes up again. Been fooled two too many times on this one.
Anybody know if those condos built at the base are still inhabited? They built maybe four units in 1998 or something.
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Forget tourists, with Metro Calgary expected to reach 2 Million people in 5 years, there will be greater demands for skiing and recreation sites.
But, with lift tickets exceeding $150 in Alberta, skiing could become the province of the wealthy.
I remember my dad calling it "a rich man's sport" in the 1980s. It has always been expensive and people have always complained about it being so expensive.
Personally, I don't see it that way. Buy the equipment once and it basically doesn't wear out. Get a pass or a discount card and you can get it down to pretty cheap. My best year was a few years ago with a family Louise season pass and we got it down to under $30 per day. That's insanely cheap for the incredible infrastructure you're riding on.
Where it's super expensive (on a per-visit basis) is if you go just a couple times a year and rent.
I remember my dad calling it "a rich man's sport" in the 1980s. It has always been expensive and people have always complained about it being so expensive.
Personally, I don't see it that way. Buy the equipment once and it basically doesn't wear out. Get a pass or a discount card and you can get it down to pretty cheap. My best year was a few years ago with a family Louise season pass and we got it down to under $30 per day. That's insanely cheap for the incredible infrastructure you're riding on.
Where it's super expensive (on a per-visit basis) is if you go just a couple times a year and rent.
Dad would budget $500 a day in the mid 80s. That was for 4 of us. I haven’t been in years due to crap knees mostly, but I probably can’t afford it, either.
I'm all for Fortress coming back, but this is a broken record at this point. It's possible this new designation from the province will help, but I'll get excited when shovels are in the ground.
I took a gander through the 185MB document from the website, and it honestly looks great and pretty impressive. But, I'll be super disappointed if they don't do a rebuilt version of the day lodge. That thing is iconic.
I have great memories of not only skiing there, but of the drive up to the hill. The Fortress mountain access road was a blast to drive.
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I took a gander through the 185MB document from the website, and it honestly looks great and pretty impressive. But, I'll be super disappointed if they don't do a rebuilt version of the day lodge. That thing is iconic.
#### Murray Edwards for ####ing that up.
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I'm all for Fortress coming back, but this is a broken record at this point. It's possible this new designation from the province will help, but I'll get excited when shovels are in the ground.
I took a gander through the 185MB document from the website, and it honestly looks great and pretty impressive. But, I'll be super disappointed if they don't do a rebuilt version of the day lodge. That thing is iconic.
I have great memories of not only skiing there, but of the drive up to the hill. The Fortress mountain access road was a blast to drive.
That fireplace in lodge was sooo cool. It was my favorite part.
I wonder how much the government will pay for this? Gotta think they have friends here and they'll make this work with kickbacks.
The issue with Fortress as a ski destination is no vertical drop. Short runs in a pretty location.
That said, I have a vague recollection of skiing the far-side and wondering why they didn't extend the lift higher, so maybe that is the ability to get longer runs back there?
I also wondered why they didn't extend trails all the way down to the road, just cut runs in the forest. At least that way you could create some longer groomers.
Anyways, I really like Sun Peaks, and it seems like we could make something like Sun Peaks here, which would save me a 7 hour drive!
The runs were short, but those 4-5 runs off the Canadian chair were some of the best fall line mogul runs around. I spent half a dozen years as a Skimeister, and got to be a pretty strong mogul skier just doing those runs over and over. I thought they were about the perfect length to non stop and then recover on the chair which you could often hop right on. I'd have some burning legs after those days.
I always thought it was great as a local place for good Calgary skiers though. Turning it into a destination resort wouldn't be the same.
That doesn't sound so bad to me for 8000 skiable acres vs spending $150USD for my kid to go to our crappy little VA ski hill with 129 acres of manmade snow.
Also, avid skier would be getting Epic passes or season passes, and not spending much more than 1000-1500 for unlimited skiing at multiple places.
That's a whole lot less than you could play unlimited golf at world class places for a year, or below average courses, really.
Fortress Mountain Mega Project?
