Lake Louise to Banff Loppet

Due to low temperatures the annual Lake Louise to Banff Loppet has been postponed for one week and will now take place on Saturday Jan 31st.
This 71km cross country ski race first debuted as far back as 1929, and has been running in its modern day format since 1979. The race includes both team (relay) and individual categories and starts at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise at 8am. Most of the course follows trails close to Highway 1A and the finishing line is in Central Park in Banff.
Further information and track conditions can be found at www.loppet.ca, where you can also view a map of the course on Google Earth.

Celebrity Ski in Lake Louise

Hollywood stars will be descending on Lake Louise on Jan 16 and 17 2009 as part of a fund raising event for Robert Kennedy Jr’s Waterkeeper Alliance.

Skiers and riders at Lake Louise Mountain Resort will be able to view the various events, such as tobogganing and ski racing and many well known celebrities such as Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Peter Fonda, John McEnroe and Kevin Lowe will be in attendance.

Tickets for the Saturday night gala at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise are available to the public and start at $500 per person for the gala evening, while packages including gala tickets, accommodation and breakfast start at $1,460 for 2 people. A gold table for 12 people can be yours for $10,000 and includes 10 of your own guests plus you’ll have the pleasure of the company of one of the celebrities and their partner.
Tickets are available from the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise by calling 403 522 1832.

Update
The Canadian Tourism Commission kindly let us know about Celebrity Ski videos they have posted to YouTube, some of which you can see below. Thanks guys!

Ski Holidays from the UK

Banff Canada is a very poplar destination for UK skiers who love the fantastic snow, uncrowded slopes, exceptional customer service, and high standard of hotels in Banff.

Most British skiers come to Banff with one of the UK tour operators, but many regular visitors wonder whether they might be able to save money by booking their hotel and flights independently. We thought it would be interesting to compare the prices of a Banff ski holiday booked through a tour operator with the price of an independently organized trip.

As an example, we chose an 11 day holiday for 2 adults departing from London Gatwick on March 14th 2009, staying at either the Inns of Banff or the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

For the tour operator, we used Inghams who are known to have some of the lowest prices to Banff from the UK.
The package price with Inghams including flights to Calgary, airport transfer, and accommodation in Banff was £1379.00 staying in a superior room at the Inns of Banff, or £2345.00 staying in a Fairmont room at the Fairmont Banff Springs.

For the independent trip we found flights for £458.00pp with Canadian Affair and airport transfers for $110.00pp through the Brewster Airport Shuttle.
On the Inns of Banff website we were quoted $1633.53 including taxes for the superior room, and on the Fairmont website we were quoted $3650.79 for the Fairmont room.
Using today’s tourist exchange rate of £1.00 = $1.71, the total for the independent Inns of Banff package came to £1868.32, and the independent Fairmont Banff Springs package came to £3175.75.

Conclusion
Booking the Inns of Banff ski holiday with Inghams resulted in a saving of £489.32 compared to booking independently, and the saving for the Banff Springs holiday was £830.75. The savings in both examples were considerable at around 26%. We found the savings to be consistent for several Banff hotels for various dates and durations, and it seems as though the UK tour operators are difficult to beat on price, at least for winter 2008/09.

For your own research, here is a list of the larger UK ski tour operators that operate in Banff:
Inghams
Neilson
Crystal
Thomson

Also, Ski Holidays Canada is a well run locally based tour operator offering Banff ski holidays, as well as holidays to other major ski resorts in Canada.

*The prices quoted above were found on the relevant websites on Jan 12th 2009, and are for illustrative purposes only. These prices may change. Please do your own price check before booking.