Lake Louise ski area in Alberta says that it is enjoying its snowiest start to the season in 75 years.
"You have to rewind back to the 1950/51 season, before many of us were even around, to find a start this deep at Lake Louise. No wonder everyone's been calling it #DeepDecember. And it's only the beginning of the season," a spokesperson said.
Snow conditions in Alberta and the eastern half of BC have been in marked contrast to the rest of western North America where ski areas have been struggling to open at all due to warm and dry conditions in the Rockies and warm and wet along the Pacific coast. That has been changing over the past few days though with heavy snowfall arriving at last along coastal mountains and a bigger fall forecast over Christmas.
North America's largest ski area, Whistler Blackcomb, has gone from less than 10% open with reports of vast lift queues, to around 40% open so far, after a 95cm snowfall in the last seven days.
For now though, most of North America's open steep and deep terrain is in Eastern BC and Alberta, with Kicking Horse (pictured) reporting the biggest snowfall in the last week, 155cm (over five feet) of fresh snow.