Getting to Western Canada Ski Resorts: A Comprehensive Guide
Western Canada’s ski resorts are incredibly remote, but with the right planning, travel is very doable.
Western Canada is home to some of our favorite ski resorts. Most of these mountains host stunning terrain and strong lodging options either on-site or nearby, making them practical for destination vacations.
However, getting to these mountains from the nearest city or airport can be quite the challenge. Western Canada’s destinations, which span the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, are generally remote and fairly spaced out—and unlike nearby Washington state, most of them involve a few extra hours of travel after leaving the airport.
This all said, with a bit of planning, it’s more than feasible to make it to the vast majority of these destinations. Here are our recommendations for making it to and from your Western Canadian resort of choice.
If you need help figuring out which airport to go to or how to get there, check out PeakRankings Trips, our recently launched trip planning service! We can help you plan every aspect of your ski trip, including resort choice, transportation, lodging, lift tickets, and more.
Note on airport access
If you’re coming from the US, or elsewhere in Canada, you’ll likely be coming from one of three Western Canada airports: Vancouver International Airport (YVR), Calgary International Airport (YYC), or Kelowna International Airport (YLW). Vancouver and Calgary offer significant direct flights from all Canadian cities and limited direct flights from most major US cities, while Kelowna offers limited direct flights from most Canadian cities and very few direct US flights.
In a handful of cases, it may make sense to fly into the Kamloops (YKA), Spokane (GEG), or Seattle-Tacoma (SEA) airports, although direct flights are extremely limited to the former two, and the latter is much further from the resorts it practically serves.
Several shuttle options provide service between Vancouver and Whistler Blackcomb.
Whistler Blackcomb
Best way to get there: Shuttle
Whistler Blackcomb is the largest ski resort in North America, former host of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, and our #1 ranked North American ski resort for 2023! Whistler is one of our favorite ski resorts and a lot of other peoples’ too, meaning that there’s more than one way to get to the mountain.
If you’re flying out to make a ski trip at Whistler, we recommend that you take one of the many shuttle options that exist between YVR and Whistler. Whistler’s basecamp village is actually more like a small city, so be sure you know where your lodging is and to get off at the correct stop. Shuttles for the 2024 season are available for as low as C$54 per person each way for the approximate two hour drive.
For those coming from the US, direct flights are much more ample to the Seattle airport. In fact, many US itineraries to Vancouver, especially from the East Coast, involve a connecting flight through Seattle itself! To avoid connecting flights—and potential delays (which can happen quite a lot during the winter)—some guests may want to drive or shuttle from Seattle to Whistler. Public transportation along this five-hour route—which involves a border crossing—is fairly scant, but travelers can book a private shuttle or rent a car.
From the town of Banff, guests can shuttle to Lake Louise for as little as C$10 each way.
Banff Sunshine Village and Lake Louise
Best way to get there: Shuttle
Banff Sunshine Village is our top rated ski resort in Alberta, closely followed by Lake Louise, both located about two hours west of YYC. Because of Sunshine Village and Lake Louise’s close proximity to the town of Banff and its other associated resorts, if you’re interested in trying out several resorts on your trip, be sure to check out the network of shuttles—some free!—between them.
Shuttle options directly to your resort of choice, or the accommodations surrounding them, are available. However, we’d recommend staying in the Banff and taking one of the shuttles from YYC to the town itself. Once there, a free shuttle runs to Sunshine Village, and shuttle options to Lake Louise can be priced as low as C$10 per ride.
Norquay is closer to Banff than the other two SkiBig3 mountains, and operates a convenient free shuttle.
Mount Norquay
Best way to get there: Shuttle
Even closer to Banff than Sunshine Village and Lake Louise are the smaller but more wind-sheltered slopes of Mount Norquay. From the YYC airport, take one of the aforementioned Banff-bound shuttles to town. Once you’ve made it to Banff, Norquay operates a free shuttle to their own slopes, less than 15 minutes away. If a bad storm rolls in or you just need a break from the (modest) crowds at Sunshine Village or Lake Louise, a day off at Mount Norquay could be an easy change of scenery from Banff’s other resorts.
Kicking Horse’s incredibly remote location leads to less-than-ideal shuttle options.
Kicking Horse
Best way to get there: Car
Located deep in the Canadian Rockies, four hours from YYC or YLW, Kicking Horse is one of the most remote mountains on this list, residing in the northeastern corner of the famed Powder Highway loop. The shuttle options for reaching Kicking Horse are frankly unimpressive, which is why we recommend getting a rental car or making a road trip if you want to visit.
Just a short drive from the nearby town of Golden, Kicking Horse could serve as an efficient home base for a multi-resort tour of the area or a stop on your Powder Highway trek. Just one hour east of Golden, you can find the slopes at Lake Louise, while heading two hours south will bring you to Panorama’s famed verticality.
Fernie does have some shuttle options from Calgary, but due to fickle core season conditions, it’s best enjoyed as a stop on a Powder Highway road trip.
Fernie
Best way to get there: Car
Typically the Albertan entrance to the Powder Highway (although it’s just west of the British Columbia border), Fernie isn’t nestled quite as deeply into the Rockies as Kicking Horse, but it’s no less remote.
Around three and a half hours outside of Calgary, Fernie’s shuttle options are really only useful if you intend to only ski at Fernie. However, due to its inconsistent snow conditions and difficult-to-access expert terrain, we’d recommend stopping at at least one other resort on your trip to Fernie to boost the odds of a good snow day on the terrain types that you enjoy.
Additionally, Fernie could serve as a useful exit to tours of the other Powder Highway resorts. Fernie is located a short ways off of British Columbia Highway 93 and its southern terminus at the US border, where you can continue on into Idaho towards Spokane International Airport in Washington for a total drive time around five hours.
Panorama’s shuttle options aren’t bad, but the resort is best enjoyed as a Powder Highway road trip stop.
Panorama
Best way to get there: Car
The last of the extremely remote Powder Highway resorts, Panorama has some truly unique terrain that is worth the odyssey to reach it. For the skier or rider looking to maximize bang for their buck, we would recommend making Panorama a stop on a Powder Highway rental car road trip.
The shuttle options for Panorama aren’t nearly as bad as for some of the other Powder Highway stops, but they aren’t cheap or especially practical.
A shuttle runs to and from Calgary International Airport twice a day to make the three hour trip. However, departure times are set in stone and nonrefundable in the case of travel-day delays. For C$175 per person each way, this option is subpar at best. There is an option to take a shuttle running to and from Banff once per day that could be more useful for the non-road-tripping skier to be able to spend a few days at Panorama—this being a two hour trip at a price of C$159 per person.
While the resort is lightly visited versus other regional mountains, guests can get to Red Mountain via decent shuttle options from multiple airports.
Red Mountain
Best way to get there: Shuttle
Another stop on the Powder Highway, Red Mountain Resort has some of the best expert terrain in the entire Pacific Northwest—if not the continent. Despite being three hours away from the nearest major city, Red is serviced by the reliable Kootenay Gateway shuttle.
Shuttle buses operate out of both the Spokane (GEG) and Kelowna (YLW) airports. The Spokane shuttle runs five days a week (Thursday-Monday), running roughly three hours for US$175 per person plus tax. The Kelowna shuttle runs Friday-Sunday, offering a roughly three-and-a-half-hour trip for C$200 per person plus tax. Kootenay Gateway is also available to charter shuttles outside of scheduled dates, but details will be limited prior to the beginning of the season.
For the Powder Highway road tripper, Red is also a worthwhile stop along the loop.
Big White is approximately an hour from Kelowna, making it one of the easiest Western Canada resorts to get to from a major airport.
Big White
Best way to get there: Shuttle
Big White’s Kelowna Airport shuttle is probably the most cost efficient way to get to and from the slopes for most mountain goers. At only C$45 per person each way, the hour-long ride is fast and cheap in comparison to some of the other mountains’ offerings.
Bookings must be made seven days in advance and the schedule for the season won’t be available until November. That being said, if you need to make plans with less than a week of headway, you can also be added to any existing shuttle with space.
Sun Peaks offers shuttle services from both the Kamloops and Kelowna airports.
Sun Peaks
Best way to get there: Shuttle
Sun Peaks has a handful of charter shuttle options, although details on price and availability are sparse prior to the season.
The closest airport, Kamloops Airport (YKA), is less than an hour away from the resort, and offers multiple shuttle options. However, the extremely limited flight options mean that most guests won’t find it practical to fly into Kamloops.
Kelowna International Airport is the nearest of the three large airports. Visitors can book direct shuttles from Kelowna to Sun Peaks, which take about three hours each way.
For car renters, the distance from Sun Peaks to other resorts makes it a bit more difficult to tour between mountains. However, the committed road tripper will note that Big White is only around four hours away, and Revelstoke—the nearest Powder Highway resort—is just three hours east.
Whistler Blackcomb is technically also about four hours away from Sun Peaks, but we would highly recommend avoiding Highway 99 north of Whistler at all costs. This is the sketchiest marked highway we've ever driven on during the winter months.
Revelstoke does offer decent airport shuttles, but you’ll want a car to explore the nearby town.
Revelstoke
Best way to get there: Car
Rounding out the list of Powder Highway resorts that we’ve visited, Revelstoke is our favorite of the bunch and a must-include for road trippers confident in their riding abilities. With the largest vertical drop in North America and excellent advanced-expert level terrain, Revelstoke is a big mountain with lots to explore.
While Revelstoke’s shuttle service is surprisingly affordable and operates fairly frequently throughout the day, we’d still recommend a rental car. This is because Revelstoke lacks some of the variety of on-mountain lodging options that many of the other resorts have access to. While the nearby town of Revelstoke has a few more options, the city center is a good hour-long hike from the base of the mountain, cut down to just 10 minutes in a car.
Additionally, you’re just two hours west of Kicking Horse, making a potentially easy second stop on your tour. If you’re only interested in seeing Revelstoke, however, and are able to secure lodging on the mountain, the shuttle is a perfectly fine option.
Kimberley can be a fun stop on the Powder Highway, but it’s near impossible to reach without a car.
Kimberley
Best way to get there: Car
Logistically, Kimberley and Fernie are similar mountains to reach. Kimberley is only an hour and a half further from Calgary than Fernie is and sits along the Powder Highway loop, giving those who want to continue on to other resorts along the highway a few different options for continuing on. While Kimberley is a natural stop for those taking tours of the Powder Highway, it’s nearly impossible to reach for any rider without a car. Private shuttles can be chartered, but very little information about that will be available prior to the beginning of the winter season. Based on the costs of similar services in the region, however, you can be fairly confident that such an option would be far from the most cost effective.
Despite its close proximity to Calgary, Nakiska has no scheduled shuttle services.
Nakiska
Best way to get there: Car
Nakiska is a bit of an odd one. The resort is much more of a commuter mountain than the other resorts on this list, and despite its close proximity to both Banff and Calgary—an hour from either—no scheduled shuttles run to Nakiska. There are options to the nearby town of Kananaskis—which has the closest accommodations to the resort—but you’d have to figure out how to get to the resort from there. Charter options are available, but the details are sparse.
We’d recommend stopping at Nakiska if you’re headed to Banff on a longer trip with other stops deeper in the mountains. Nakiska can serve as a nice bit of variety on either end of your tour.
It is important to note that a Kananaskis Conservation Pass is required to park vehicles at Nakiska, but a pass can be purchased for $15/day per vehicle or $90/year for up to two vehicles.
Silver Star is about an hour from Kelowna, with convenient shuttle services from downtown and the airport.
Silver Star
Best way to get there: Shuttle
Silver Star is a bit of an oddity. A “partial upside-down mountain” like Big White, Silver Star’s layout allows you to take your first turns before sitting down on a chairlift and make it to your door before unclipping from your skis. The mountain doesn’t have the same vert as some competing British Columbia mountains, but lines generally stay manageable and terrain is varied. And Silver Star is less than an hour away from YLW, accessible by a C$45 shuttle each way.
Due to the proximity to Kelowna and its other resorts and the quality of the shuttle network in the town, visitors could conceivably do a tour of Silver Star and Big White exclusively using public bus options.
Final Breakdown
Western Canada may be remote, and it may be daunting to try to get to the resorts in this off-the-grid region. But several resorts are close enough to major airports that it’s as simple as hopping on a direct shuttle to get to them. For the more adventurous tourists who are willing to rent a car, the more remote mountains are within a few hours of at least one other major resort, making for excellent road trip opportunities. Road conditions can get rough during the winter months, but a tour around the Powder Highway will make for an unforgettable adventure!
Considering a ski trip to Western Canada this winter? Check out our full Western Canada destination ski resort rankings.
Still not sure where to go? Use PeakRankings Trips, our new trip-planning service, and let us book every aspect of your trip. We can plan your mountain itinerary, flights, and even a custom Powder Highway road trip to fit your needs!
