Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort is a ski area located in the province of Alberta in Canada. The resort is in the town of Banff, AB. We recently ranked all of Alberta's ski resorts, so you can see where Banff Sunshine Village stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Banff Sunshine Village is a part of the Ikon Ski Pass network. This allows you to buy one lift pass, and ski at all or most of the Ikon-sponsored slopes with it throughout the year, depending on the type of pass you bought.
Banff Sunshine Village is a part of the Mountain Collective network. This allows you to buy one lift pass, and ski at all of the slopes that are also a part of the Collective.
Banff Sunshine Village Lodging:
Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort Terrain Overview
Banff Sunshine Village has a total of 145 ski trails, which are serviced by 11 ski lifts, gondolas and/or trams. The amount of skiable area in this park is huge, with a maximum of 3,358 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 1,359 hectares, 5 square miles, or 14 square kilometers.
Banff Sunshine Village's slopes see on average 258 inches (102 cm) of snowfall a year. That is almost 21 feet a year!
Total Runs
145
Lifts
11
Skiable Acres
3,358(14 km2)
Annual Snowfall
258"(102 cm)
Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort Elevation
Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 8,957 feet, or 2,730 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 5,447 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 3,510 feet (1,070 meters) high. This is referred to as the slope's vertical drop - or a measure of how high the skiable hill is.
The summit of 8,957 feet makes this ski resort one of the highest in the country. The average ski slope summit is around 4,000 feet, so this is extremely high compared to its peers.
Summit Elevation
8,957'(2,730 m)
Vertical Drop
3,510'(1,070 m)
Base Elevation
5,447'(1,660 m)
Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
78.5out of 100
DID YOU KNOW?
At Parks & Trips, we've created a proprietary Difficulty Score that attempts to show how difficult a particular ski slope is. We get to this number by combining a number of metrics for each resort and comparing them to its peers. Most of the score is based off the amount of easy-intermediate-expert slopes by acreage and the maximum vertical drop of the overall resort, but also includes a few lesser-used metrics as well.
Our algorithm compares each resort’s metrics with all others in North America, then assigns each a Difficulty Score, which we use to rank them accordingly. Resorts with a lower score are easier to ski than those with a higher one. However, a high score does not mean that the resort does not have any easy slopes, or vice versa. This is just an overall score given to the resort based on all its metrics grouped together.
Skiiable Area by Difficulty Level
Banff Sunshine Village has 3,358 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Seeing as Banff Sunshine Village is one of the hardest ski areas in the country, it's no surprise that over 82% of its trails rated as either intermediate or expert-level. This leaves only 18% of its skiable acres for the beginners.
Beginner
18%(604 acres)
Beginner trails (identified by a green circle) are the easiest trails on the hill with a gradual 25% or less gradient, and are usually wide to accommodate beginner skiers.
Intermediate
26%(873 acres)
Intermediate trails (identified by a blue square) are usually the most popular and crowded runs, which have a slope of anywhere between 25-40%.
Expert
56%(1,880 acres)
Expert trails (identified by a black diamond... or two) are the hardest slopes on the mountain, and have very steep gradients over 40%.
Is Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort good for beginners?
This is one of the hardest ski areas in the country to ski at, so it is not great for beginners. Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort ranks in the top 10% of the most-difficult ski resorts in the country. It has 56% of its trails rated as expert, or black-diamond level.
Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort Location
Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort is located in the province of Alberta, Canada. This ski area is nearby the town of Banff, AB.
Address:
Banff, AB T0L Canada
View on Google Maps
Website:
skibanff.com/
GPS Coordinates:
51.11500, -115.76500
Getting to Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort), its coordinates of 51.11500, -115.76500 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of Banff, AB to get close.
By Air: If you are coming in from across the country, then you may need to board an airplane to get here.
A large airport has scheduled major airline service with millions of passengers per year. This type of airport always accepts international flights. Here are the closest large airport(s) to Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calgary International Airport | YYC | Calgary, AB | 122 km |
| Edmonton International Airport | YEG | Edmonton, AB | 286 km |
A medium-sized airport has scheduled regional airline service. This type of airport may or may not accept international flights. Here are the closest medium-sized airport(s) to Banff Sunshine Village.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cranbrook/Canadian Rockies International Airport | YXC | Cranbrook, BC | 167 km |
| Castlegar/West Kootenay Regional Airport | YCG | Castlegar, BC | 242 km |
| Lethbridge County Airport | YQL | Lethbridge, AB | 267 km |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort, but we didn't list them here due to the fact that no major airlines go through them.
Other Nearby Ski Resorts
Skiers will - especially if coming from far away - try and visit a couple different slopes all in the same trip. Here are the closest other ski slopes within 100 miles of Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Norquay | Banff, AB | 8,038 ft | 47% | 15 km |
| Lake Louise | Lake Louise, AB | 8,652 ft | 64% | 46 km |
| Nakiska Ski | Kananaskis, AB | 7,415 ft | 58% | 47 km |
| Fortress Mountain Resort | Kananaskis, AB | 8,400 ft | 55% | 50 km |
| Panorama Mountain Village | Panorama, BC | 7,875 ft | 71% | 80 km |
| Fairmont Hot Springs Resort Ski Area | Fairmont Hot Springs, BC | 5,200 ft | 42% | 86 km |
| Kicking Horse | Golden, BC | 8,033 ft | 82% | 92 km |
| WinSport (Canada Olympic Park) | Calgary, AB | 4,100 ft | 31% | 108 km |
| Kimberley | Kimberly, BC | 6,500 ft | 60% | 159 km |
Banff Sunshine Village Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 8,957 ft |
| Base Elevation | 5,447 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 3,510 ft |
| Trails | 145 (18% Beginner, 26% Intermediate, 56% Expert) |
| Lifts | 11 |
| Skiable Acres | 3,358 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 258 inches |