Kicking Horse Resort
| Kicking Horse Mountain Resort | |
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Top of the gondola at Kicking Horse
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| Location | British Columbia, Canada |
| Nearest city | Golden |
| Coordinates | 51°17′21″N 117°03′31″W / 51.28917°N 117.05861°W |
| Top elevation | 2,450 m (8,033 ft) |
| Base elevation | 1,190 m (3,900 ft) |
| Skiable area | 11.14 km² (2,750 acres) |
| Runs | 106 (Beginner 20%, Intermediate 20%, Advanced 45%, Expert 15%) |
| Longest run | "It's A Ten" (10km long) |
| Lift system | 1 gondola, 3 chairlifts, 1 surface lift |
| Terrain parks | 1 |
| Snowfall | 7 m (23 ft)/year |
| Website | KickingHorseResort.com |
Kicking Horse Mountain Resort (KHMR) is a ski resort located 14 km outside of Golden, British Columbia, Canada. It features what is currently the fourth highest vertical drop North America, at 4,133 feet (1,260 m). It is only 6 feet (1.8 m) shorter than Jackson Hole. In total the resort includes over 2,800 acres (11 km2) of skiable lift-served terrain. The resort was named after the nearby Kicking Horse River and Kicking Horse Pass, although the resort is in the Purcell Mountains while the Kicking Horse is across the Rocky Mountain Trench in the Rocky Mountains.
Whitetooth Ski Area, a smaller facility owned by the town of Golden opened in 1986 with the installation of the Pioneer Chair and three runs on 2,000 feet of vertical. Over the following years, additional runs and glades were cut expanding the skiable terrain. The mountain became popular with skiers from adjacent towns on Powder Fridays as the hill was closed Monday through Thursday, so any new snow that fell during the week was untracked.
Towards the end of the 90's, locals became increasingly concerned about the financial viability of Whitetooth in the event that the Pioneer chair ever needed to be replaced. Ballast Nedam, the company that constructed the Confederation Bridge, was obligated to re-invest in Canada as part of its contract and purchased Whitetooth in 1999 after the community voted 97 percent in favour of the sale.
The expanded resort, now featuring the Eagle Eye Gondola and Catamount fixed grip chair, reopened under the new name on December 8, 2000. The majority of the skiable area consists of four large bowls (Crystal Bowl, Bowl Over, Feuz Bowl and Super Bowl) that combine about halfway down the mountain into a single area, with a fairly gentle ski-out to the lifts at the bottom. One run, It's a 10, is a 10 km long green run that connects the runs in the main Bowl areas. In 2002 a new chairlift (Stairway to Heaven) was added to allow access to a third bowl (Feuz Bowl), which generally sees less traffic. In 2010, a fourth bowl to the south of the existing resort (Super Bowl) was added to the area adding over 300 metres of new vertical.
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Wikipedia