Lake O'Hara » Skiing

Welcome to the winter of 2012

Lake O'Hara — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:34:40 +0000

Happy New Year!

I trust that everyone rang in the New Year in a fitting and personal fashion. Ours was centred around skiing as they usually do. The mountains around the divide, where O’Hara is located, have seen plenty of white stuff falling. We are excited about our upcoming winter season and will be opening up the doors for our first guests on January 26th. If you are thinking about a winter excursion or escape we still have some openings. Call our office and we can let you know what we have available.

As usual we will be offering a light lunch, Saturdays and Sundays only, of soup, salad and dessert to those skiers coming in for the day. This will commence on Saturday January 28th and will end on the 25th of March. We serve lunch between noon and 2 PM so plan accordingly. Otherwise the Day Shelter is always open for you to light a fire and enjoy your lunch.

Hope to see you up at the lake!

Winter is coming

Lake O'Hara — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 20:20:10 +0000

As I write this I can look out my window and see the snow blanketing the peaks around town. This year the higher mountains have been the recipient of some good dumps of snow. At O’Hara our snow pack is building, 30 to 40 cm the last few days on top of the 30 to 60 we already had. This will provide us with a good base when our season opens in January. The big snow months are yet to come and if everyones predictions are true, including the timeless Farmers Almanac, there will be plenty more snow yet.

While the backcountry is getting primed for skiing, places like the Moraine Lake road, Great divide and Canmore Nordic Centre all have some great cross country skiing trails open for action. National Parks Staff have been grooming and Track Setting in Lake Louise for weeks creating what are likely some of the best early season track set cross country skiing trails in North America. The Canmore Nordic Centre starts their season off with a kilometre or so of man made snow saved from last winter called the “Frozen Thunder”. National and Club Teams have been skiing on this track since October. I might get a little dizzy doing the laps and laps that many of the elite athletes do! Anyway, with the “Thunder” as the starting point the staff at the Nordic Centre have been cranking up their snowmaking and laying down more km’s of trail each week. It is a great place for the family to come out for a ski, they even have a lit loop for night skiing.

All the downhill ski resorts in the area are open, however if you have an old pair of skis those are the best to bring as your bases will meet up with plenty of early season hazards, Rocks!

As you can see winter is here. Enjoy the season!

Bruce

Snow, Snow, Snow !

Lake O'Hara — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:54:51 +0000

What a week it has been! Our first guests were welcomed with over 30 cm of fresh snow. It made both the views and of course the skiing amazing. They all left on Sunday with big smiles on their faces. Check out a few of the shots from the past few days.

Skiing the fresh Powder!

Winter 2010

Lake O'Hara — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:01:49 +0000

The lodge has been open for a couple of weeks now and we have had some of the best early season skiing in years. Tramping through open larch forests, skiing powder on the Opabin glacier and exploring new glades has kept smiles on the faces of all our guests. A few incredible blue sky days don’t hurt either. The staff here have cleared a rink on the lake although we have yet to have our annual guest and staff hockey game. The boys are flooding it today so it should be ready to go!

Lake O’Hara really is a magical place in the winter and all of us up at the lake feel privileged to call it home!