Kicking Horse
Kicking Horse Ski Resort is a ski area located in the province of British Columbia in Canada. The resort is in the town of Golden, BC.
We recently ranked all of British Columbia's ski resorts, so you can see where Kicking Horse stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Season Passes
Kicking Horse is not a part of any nationwide lift ticket system. Passes such as Epic, IKON, or Mountain Collective allow pass holders to ski at multiple mountians with a single purchase. Unfortunately, none of those passes work with Kicking Horse Ski Resort. To purchase season passes, you'll need to visit Kicking Horse's website.
Lodging Options
There are numerous options to stay at Kicking Horse around the resort. Check out the available options with the form below.
Kicking Horse Mountain Resort Terrain Overview
Kicking Horse has a total of 120 ski trails, which are serviced by 5 ski lifts, gondolas and/or trams. The amount of skiable area in this park is huge, with a maximum of 3,486 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 1,411 hectares, 5.4 square miles, or 14.1 square kilometers.
Kicking Horse's slopes see on average 288 inches (7.3 meters) of snowfall a year. That is almost 24 feet every year!
Total Runs
120
Lifts
5
Skiable Acres
3,486(14 km2)
Annual Snowfall
288"(732 cm)
Kicking Horse Ski Resort Elevation
Kicking Horse Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 8,218 feet, or 2,505 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 3,900 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 4,314 feet (1,315 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 8,218 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
8,218'(2,505 m)
Vertical Drop
4,314'(1,315 m)
Base Elevation
3,900'(1,189 m)
Kicking Horse Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
90.5out 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.
Skiable Terrain by Difficulty Level
Kicking Horse has 3,486 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Seeing as Kicking Horse is one of the hardest ski areas in the country, it's no surprise that over 80% of its trails rated as either intermediate or expert-level. This leaves only 20% of its skiable acres as beginner terrain.
Beginner
20%(697 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
20%(697 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
60%(2,092 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 Kicking Horse 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. Kicking Horse Ski Resort ranks in the top 10% of the most-difficult ski resorts in the country. It has 60% of its trails rated as expert, or black-diamond level.
Kicking Horse Ski Resort Location
Kicking Horse Ski Resort is located in the province of British Columbia, Canada. This ski area is nearest the town of Golden, BC.
Address:
Golden, BC V0A Canada
View on Google Maps
Website:
kickinghorseresort.com
GPS Coordinates:
51.29787, -117.05090
Getting to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Kicking Horse Ski Resort), its coordinates of 51.29787, -117.05090 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of Golden, BC 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 Kicking Horse Ski Resort.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calgary International Airport | YYC | Calgary, AB | 212 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 Kicking Horse.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cranbrook/Canadian Rockies International Airport | YXC | Cranbrook, BC | 208 km |
| Kelowna International Airport | YLW | Kelowna, BC | 222 km |
| Castlegar/West Kootenay Regional Airport | YCG | Castlegar, BC | 226 km |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Kicking Horse 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 Kicking Horse Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Louise | Lake Louise, AB | 8,650 ft | 66% | 64 km |
| Revelstoke | Revelstoke, BC | 7,300 ft | 100% | 86 km |
| Banff Sunshine Village | Banff, AB | 8,957 ft | 68% | 92 km |
| Mount Norquay | Banff, AB | 6,998 ft | 53% | 101 km |
| Panorama Mountain | Panorama, BC | 8,038 ft | 87% | 109 km |
| Summit Lake Ski Area | Nakusp, BC | 3,018 ft | 11% | 133 km |
| Fairmont Hot Springs Resort Ski Area | Fairmont Hot Springs, BC | 5,200 ft | 44% | 137 km |
| Nakiska Ski | Kananaskis, AB | 7,415 ft | 60% | 138 km |
| Fortress Mountain Resort | Kananaskis, AB | 8,400 ft | 57% | 139 km |
Kicking Horse Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 8,218 ft |
| Base Elevation | 3,900 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 4,314 ft |
| Trails | 120 (20% Beginner, 20% Intermediate, 60% Expert) |
| Lifts | 5 |
| Skiable Acres | 3,486 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 288 inches |