August 10, 2025
After checking out the pedestrian bridge over the Kicking Horse River I meandered downtown to get a feel for what the town is like. The highway that takes you to town from the TCH is one block off the street where many of the restaurants and shops are located.
I should mention that some of these photos were taken on different days but I am showing them all in this post.
I drove away from town on the street which brought me in from Hwy 1 as I wanted to go up the mountain to check out the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort. It is the 3rd largest ski area in Canada and has the 4th highest vertical drop in North America at 4,314 feet. It is normally a very busy place in the winter but this past ski season there was an incident which put a considerable damper on things. I will explain what happened in a moment.
The slopes can be seen from the Trans Canada Highway as one descends into Golden from the east. The base is located 4 miles west of downtown. The resort has a very wide footprint and obviously the top is pretty high, at 8,200 feet. I am going to post a map from their website to help illustrate what I am about to explain. Please keep in mind that I am NOT a skier so forgive me if I get some of the terminology wrong. I will try to keep it simple.
(Photo credit: KickingHorseResort.com)
There are two traditional ski-lifts (purple lines) which start at the bottom of the mountain. One is located at the main hotel and lodge (a little right of center at the bottom of the map) and the other further right near the resort “village” (next to the red and white “+” sign). For the moment please disregard the longer purple line between them.
As you can see, the two ski lifts only go part way up the mountain. From where the lift on the left ends one may ski left or right to get to various trails to ski back down to the base. From the lift on the right, which goes slightly higher up the mountain, one may again go left, right or immediately back down and ride one of the lifts back up. Going left from that vantage point gives the skier many more trail options.
OK so far?
Now, the long purple line which is between the two described above is the Golden Eagle Express gondola which goes all the way to the top of the mountain. Those upper trails are mostly rated “double-black-diamond” which means they are ONLY for expert skiers, although there are other “single-black-diamond” trails which are difficult but not as severe.
One of the reasons I went to the resort was to ride the gondola all the way to the top and check out the view looking west towards Glacier National Park (which, as the crow flies, is only a few miles away). This enterprise was suggested to me by the folks at the Golden Visitor Centre.
Everything was going very well until I arrived at the base only to find that the gondola was not running. I subsequently learned that at 920am on March 10, 2025, one of the gondola cars dislodged from the cable and fell to the ground. Fortunately for the 8 occupants (and the resort, no doubt) the car was only a few feet from the boarding station at the base and only fell a little over 3 feet before tipping over. Thankfully there were only minor injuries among the occupants, but the gondola ride was immediately stopped and the occupants of ALL the other gondola cars had to be rescued from where they were, either by rope or by helicopter.
Hence the gondola was still not operating while I as there in August, though they did get it up and running before the current ski season began. I suspect it being out of order seriously curtailed the remainder of the 2025/26 ski season as skiers could only go part way up the mountain, although they do offer a heli-ski option for those who can afford it.
But no gondola ride or Glacier NP view for JohnBoy.
Now that I’ve explained all that, here are some photos I took while up on the mountain:
Using my digital camera with the zoom lens I took a photo of some of the cars near the top, which would have dropped a much more considerable distance if they had become dislodged from the cable).
Aside from skiing, many ski resorts offer the use of their trails to mountain bikers when there isn’t snow on the ground. Because of the severe slope of the upper trails, mountain biking is usually extremely popular during the summer at Kicking Horse, but not being able to ride the gondola to the top also put the kibosh on that activity. The resort was practically deserted when I was there.
There is a bear enclosure (the call it a “refuge”) part way up the mountain which has a single grizzly bear as it’s occupant. One may get to it by riding the left chair lift but I passed, as I felt that seeing a grizzly bear in an enclosure was cheating, and I didn’t see any other takers, either.
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