Located in the beautiful Banff National Park in the southern Canadian Rockies, Banff’s Sunshine Village is known for its abundant snow, extra long ski season and array of excellent intermediate runs, as well as good beginner and expert slopes. Sunshine Village also has the distinction of having the world’s fastest gondola, while nearby Banff town provides extensive activities and sightseeing.

Care has been taken to make the buildings of Sunshine Village complement the spectacular surroundings - no art deco here! The historic 1928 Old Sunshine Lodge (Sunshine’s first log cabin) still stands. There is also a day lodge with all essential services and amenities, and childcare facilities take children from 19 months to six years.

The Sunshine Inn is a slope-side lodge with 85 rooms, and the only one of its kind in the Banff National Park. Another 10,000 beds are available in Banff town, and Canmore also offers accommodation. Mountaineering and ice-skating are among the non-ski activities, and the après-ski at the resort consists of a restaurant, cafés and bars in the day lodge; while Banff has an array of pubs and bars, as well as two nightclubs.

Sunshine Village ski resort boasts 107 runs down a 1,072-metre vertical; more than half of these are given over to intermediate skiers and snowboarders while expert thrill-seekers should head for Delirium Dive. The longest slope is a respectable 8.1kms, and 12 lift systems, including high-speed quads and arguably the world’s fastest gondola, service the runs with an hourly capacity of 20,000 people.

For alternative skiing and snowboarding, Sunshine Village is part of the Tri-Area Mountain ski pass that also gives access to Lake Louise and Mount Norquay resorts, the latter of which has some great expert terrain. A couple of worthwhile museums in Banff town are the pagoda style Banff Park Museum, built in 1903, and the Whyte Museum, containing fine art exhibits and cultural/historic displays.

Sunshine Village’s ski season runs from mid-November to late May and the most convenient means of transport is to fly to Calgary International Airport and take a shuttle bus to the resort.