Starting with the first ski runs cut in 1926, Ski Banff @ Norquay now encompasses a wide variety of terrain to suite everyone. Terrain ranges from gentle beginner runs that provide areas to build confidence and skill, up to the heart pounding double black diamond runs that will challenge any expert. Norquay's long-standing reputation for challenge is based on the first runs you see upon approaching the area: a quintet of super-steep, mogul-studded freefalls served by the original Norquay double chair. For hardcore Norquay regulars, no runs anywhere can match Upper Lone Pine and Gun Run, a dynamite black-diamond duo as demanding as any trails in the Rockies. Memorial Bowl isn't a bowl at all but a generous, consistent swath with an average 34-degree pitch that rarely feels the blade of a snowcat. Even the North American, the easiest of these runs, legitimately earns its black diamond.

Three more chairs climb up parallel ridges and serve the area's beginner & intermediate runs. In addition to a small, sheltered beginner slope, you'll find the Cascade Quad chair which services most of the beginner terrain and provides access to Spirit quad chair and to the long Pathfinder Express quad. Because the terrain lies deep in a valley under some very steep summits, it has a really rugged and interesting feeling. Norquay also provides some of the most weather sheltered terrain in the area.