Real Ski Report: Castle Mountain, Fernie and Panorama have best snow coverage

Each week, CBC Calgary's Paul Karchut speaks with dozens of dedicated skiers and boarders across eastern B.C. and southern Alberta to get the real scoop on conditions at resorts, on cross-country trails and in the backcountry.

Ifyou'relooking for the most fresh snow this week, you'll have to ventureoutside of the Bow Valley.

• Revelstoke: 24cm of snow in the last week and a 160 cm base.
• Panorama: Forecast iscalling for more snow and there's already a95 cm base atthe summit. This time last season, the hill only had68 cm on the ground.
• Kimberley: 22cm of fresh snow in the last seven days and a 93 cm snowpack. The resort only had a 47 cm base at the same time last year.
• Castle Mountain: Nearly 60 cmof the white stuff has fallen in the last week with a healthy 155 cm base at the summit.

"We've had two storms giving us over 80 cm of fresh snow and things are looking like winter We've got all the major runs and zones open," said ski reporterRoss Jansen, who has been shredding it at Fernie.

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• Lake Louise: A few more runs opened this week on the back-side and the resort got 8cm of fresh snowthis week.
• Sunshine Village: "It's getting a little bit icy because the temperature just dropped," saidSue Shih of the7 cm of new snow in the last week.
• Nakiska:A dusting of snow this week amounting to 6cm. Similar story for Norquay, which received 2 cm.
• Kicking Horse: Only 1cm of snow in the last three days and 14cm thisweek.

Cross-country skiing

The cold weather this week has really set things up nicely for the cross-country crowd. The trailsinPeterLougheedProvincial Park are looking good, but the coverage is even better near Calgary.

"WestBraggCreek is going to be the place to go this weekend," saidBob Truman, the man behindskierbob.ca.

"They got the snow and they've been grooming and track-setting and it should be in the best conditionit's been for years."

Even further afield, we'vebeen getting great reports from the Dawn Mountain cross country networkin Golden, B.C. andthe Allison Chinook trail system on the way out to Castle Mountain.

Backcountry skiing

Backcountry skiers have been reporting some really excellent ski conditions around B.C. and Alberta this week.But with those high winds, it willbe a good time to keep an eye out for wind slabs and wind loaded pockets forming in the alpine.

According to the forecasting team atAvalanche Canada, below thetree linein open areasthere'sa buried layer of surfacehoarthat's been seeing some sliding results too.

Have photos of yourself shredding it? Tweet them to @CBCoutside or send an email to calgaryphotos@cbc.ca

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