O O Ø O O O O
Sunshiny Day
Or, 2,000 Words On Why I Hate Sunshine
There’s a certain skiing element that has placed Sunshine Village on a pedestal. These skiers’ love of the hill comes from its historic reputation of having Alberta’s best and deepest snow, and being the first mountain to open and the last to close. This may have been arguably true in the past, but these last few drought years have brought to light Sunshine’s numerous flaws, previously masked by good snowfall and bald idolatry.
I’m here to knock Sunshine off that pedestal.
Parking and Lineups
We went to Sunshine three times during our return to Alberta last month. Our first visit was on a weekend, the next on a holiday, and the last on a week day. From my observations on these days, I can say that Sunshine has an overcrowding problem.
Due to the narrow, constrained aspect of the base, parking usually involves a space that is literally out of sight of the gondola and ticket office, and either humping the distance à pied, or catch a “convenient” people-mover tractor.
There are enormous lineups at the ticket counter, rental booth (thank Jebus I don’t rent), and the new high-speed gondola. And even though Sunshine promised the elimination of gondola lineups, we waited at least as long as at the old lift on each of the three days.
As for gondola travel time,there was a slight improvement. The old six-person gondola took an hour and a half. The new eight-body lift takes slightly less than that.
The Sunshine triple play of parking, lineups and gondola ride means that on our best day it took us only an hour to get to the actual ski hill. By comparison it takes only a little over an hour to drive to Sunshine from Calgary, which is the one thing going for that hill. But the same is true of Norquay, Fortress and Nakiska.
Lifts
Once on the hill you have easy access to the high speed detachable Angel Express quad lift, which whisks you to exactly nowhere, from which you can take precisely zero runs, although there’s a great run-out to get you to another high speed quad, Continental Divide, which then takes you to one run, and then the run-out again.
With all this talk of detachable quads, you might be inclined to think Sunshine’s terrain is well serviced, and if you read their snow report, your belief would be confirmed: 92 of 92 runs open, 12 of 12 lifts operating.
At first, I thought a total of 12 lifts seemed optimistic, but I counted them up (while sitting on a lift, between run-outs), and there truly are that many. Here’s the list:
- Angel Express Quad
- Continental Divide Express Quad
- Standish Double
- Strawbaby Double
- Jackrabbit Quad
- Goat’s Eye Express Quad
- Wawa T-bar
- Wolverine Express Quad Haul-Back
- Tee-Pee Town Double
- The magic carpet beside Strawbaby
- The magic carpet beside Wawa
- The gondola
Yes, the gondola counts as a lift. Bravo, Sunshine.
Now to count the lifts that service useful terrain:
- Divide
- Angel, to get to Divide
- Standish
That’s as many lifts as Fortress, if you don’t count the latter’s two T-bars. Not bad!
I refuse to include Goat’s Eye mountain in any tally of Sunshine, because my concept of a run does not include chutes demarcated by snow fences. Goat’s Eye is also perpetually windy and icy. The only people on Goat’s Eye are season ticket holders from Edmonton who think Sunshine is the cat’s ass, because they don’t know any better. There will be no further discussion of Goat’s Eye.
Mountain
Let’s talk about Sunshine’s terrain. First, you should know that I ski, so traversing is not an issue for me. However, I usually slide exclusively with snowboarders, so we’re quite selective about the pitch of the runs we take, to minimize the amount of unstrapping and huffing going on at the end of the run, and consequent waiting on my part.
Unfortunately, with the exception of the Standish chair, every single run at Sunshine finishes with a slow, flat run-out. What’s worse is the merging of two enormous collector trails just above Divide, where the speed nuts and GORBIES literally collide, resulting in more unstrapping, huffing and waiting.
From the top of the Divide lift, you can see the bright, silent majesty of the Rockies laid out below, with serviced terrain to the north, and snow covered meadows opening up to the south. One glance proves that this space would be one of the most entertaining and versatile recreational areas in Alberta. On a snowmobile.
You don’t have to hike out at the bottom of Standish, and there’s interesting runs off it too. Additionally, since the quads are more popular with typical patrons, there’s fewer people with which to collide on the Standish side.
I have a soft spot for Standish. It reminds me of earlier, better times at many mountains, before the quads, lineups and CDN$60 lift tickets ruined the sport. But the problem with the Standish double is that the lift runs parallel to the short slope of the mountain. The grain of the hill is wrong, so while the lift runs over there, you want to ski down here. What you wind up doing is skiing down a ways, then over, then down, then over again. It makes for very short, disjointed runs, and it’s hard to even get your heart rate up.
Treeline
I love tree skiing. It’s all about the suddenness of it, and the opportunity to discover some patches of snow the hordes and groomers haven’t yet defaced. Sunshine is largely above the tree line. Need I say more?
Gouging
For those of us who bring lunch, there’s no way to keep it in the car to retrieve later in the day. (See the Fucking Gondola section, above.) You have to rent a locker in the impossibly crowded day lodge. The alternative is to shell out $25 for burger-and-fries fare. No thanks. I guess I could wear a backpack all day like the teenagers do, but after seeing that woman dangling off the chair last week, I think I’ve decided to choose life instead.
A pitcher of beer, domestic or imported, is $18.25. Sunshine is not alone in the ranks of ski hills gouging in their lounges, but it doesn’t help, either. Service at their base restaurant is atrocious, too. Be sure to give the machined hot chocolate a miss.
Perhaps I should now concentrate on factors dearer to real skiers and snowboarders, and less on minor grievances only yuppie posers care about anyway.
Conditions
By the end of any given year, Sunshine has the largest accumulated base, and since they don’t manufacture a flake of it, I can safely conclude that it must snow there. Unfortunately, I’ve never been there on a big snow day. (In the name of full disclosure, you should know that I’ve probably only made a little over a dozen trips to Sunshine in my 23 years of skiing. So perhaps one big snow day is too much to ask for that few attempts. My dad, however, assures me the bowl off what used to be Brewster is fan-fucking-tastic when it dumps. My interjection, not his.)
Fair enough, but this defence is weak. Any hill is fantastic under a foot of new snow. The test is how well that hill stands up to extended droughts.
Sunshine fails this because because of two factors: volume and wind.
Volume
When you only have a handful of interesting runs off of even fewer serviceable lifts, 7,000+ people a day for a couple of weeks will stomp that coverage straight into the gravel.
By contrast, Fernie Alpine Resort née Snow Valley now handles similar volumes with much less degradation of their skiable slopes. How? More, better terrain. Thousands of skiers a day for three weeks can’t ski off Fernie’s coverage. I know, because I was there before New Year’s on day 21, and still managed to find plenty of soft, chopped manna. It was the best day of the season.
Sunshine, however, on day 16 after their big dump, was little more than snow fences, hard pack and shale.
Wind
To make matters worse, the lack of tree protection on most of Sunshine’s runs means what snow remains after the hordes are through is either nicely sculpted into little frozen waves, or blown to Saskatchewan.
Not only does the wind make the chairs miserable, it drastically reduces the range of the hill. Picture this: snow fence, shale, narrow skiable zone, snow fence, etcetera. Some bowl!
Patrons
I think it has something to do with the $60 price of admission, but the crowds at the base of the hill are pushy and inconsiderate, not at all what I would consider appropriate skier or snowboarder etiquette. For example: I was kneeling down adjusting the bindings on my wife’s snowboard. Four feet from me a young man was standing in his skis, perpendicular to the slope of the hill. Within the span of ten seconds two skiers flew between us. The first was going so fast he hopped over the backs of this guy’s skis. Someone around me gasped and exclaimed “Jesus, did you see that?” The second guy was not quite so quick, and skied firmly right over the backs of the skis. I was astonished. We weren’t 20 feet from the racks of skis and snowboards in front of the day lodge, and these guys were blowing past us at Mach I. I shouted some advice after the second guy, who had stopped at the racks of gear. “Hey, that’s horseshit!” He stared dumbly back. No apology to the guy who’s skis he marked. No cognisance he had done anything wrong. He turned stupidly away. Maybe breakneck speeds in constricted spaces make you moronic. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
Perhaps there are circumstances where it’s necessary to ski over, or ride up the backs of someone’s skis, but I have never, ever, found it necessary. Not when I was snow ploughing at six, stem christie-ing at 12, or mashing painfully at 16. So for the down-at-full-speed, in-line-at-all-costs crowd, hear this: the bottom of the run is not for sliding. It’s occupied by pedestrians, children and beginners. There are people facing away from you, others making equipment adjustments, and still others just daydreaming. Slow the fuck down. Kapische?
Light
As if all this weren’t enough, take the flat hard snow, the flat dull terrain, and add to it flat, useless, light.
Half of the time Sunshine is bathed in brilliant, blinding light, the likes of which you wouldn’t see this side of Provence. The other half of the time however, the cloud cover eliminates all distinction on the surface of the snow. This is partly a benefit, because it makes a sort of reverse space mountain roller coaster out of the many run-outs, but have you ever tried pounding down moguls you couldn’t see?
If you think your goggles or your cool wrap-arounds can save you, you’re mistaken. The contrast is actually better without. Lovely day.
Inhale
Have I left out anything?
How about the moratorium on any improvements to the whole mess by a meddling Sheila Copps? Yes, that’s right. Sunshine is in Banff National Park, so on top of the $10 per car additional charge, there’s the knowledge that no matter how bad the situation on the mountain gets, our inspired Heritage Minister will ensure the owners can’t do anything about it. Very nice.
Okay aside from all that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? If we can skip the raceway conditions on Highway 2 with the duelling SUVs, or Sunshine’s predilection for erroneously reporting all runs as open, and the mandatory danger funnel run, then that’s about it.
I guess it could be worse. It could be a Charlie Locke hill.
Evan Spence
Tuesday, January 8,
2002
PD DXXIX