Enjoying scenery and lots of cocoa

The year I first experienced the Canadian Rockies, one of those "This is your captain speaking" announcements came from the cockpit of the aircraft as we were about to land in Calgary. It informed the passengers that the temperature down on the ground was roughly equivalent to that found in your average home freezer.

I would be told any number of times, once we touched down, that this was the coldest winter in 30 years.

Never let it be said that this intrepid traveller doesn't know how to make an entrance.

When I landed – and taught myself how to breathe in a kind of atmosphere that seared your lungs as you inhaled – I made my way to the waiting bus of the Banff Airporter shuttle service operating between the Calgary International Airport and Banff.

Very quickly we left the city and the mucky gray snow on its roads, and were among snow-covered firs in a magnificent forest, climbing toward peaks capped in blinding white.

Long before we passed the gates to the Banff National Park, I was in love with the place.

I was there to ski in the Rockies – and for this, without a doubt, Banff is probably one of the best-known and most-renowned sites on the planet. With three world-class ski areas within a short shuttle hop, the skier is almost spoiled for choice.

The closest, Mount Norquay (which the locals pronounce Nor-kwai, as in "The Bridge on the River Kwai"), may be a little daunting to the beginner, with its focus on more advanced runs.

It also boasts the idiosyncrasy of having a "blue" (intermediate) section inserted neatly in between two "green" (bunny slope) runs, so that the psychological effect on the green skiers is to fall over like skittles as soon as they hit the "blue" section – because, they think, being beginners, naturally they cannot do this harder stuff.

When I was there, this usually meant that the section was littered by fallen beginners, most of whom could not get up without help, waving their arms and legs in the air like overturned turtles.

But this sneaky blue run was one of my proudest moments. I was caught alone on the top of the slope while the rest of my ski class (all fellow skittles on the blue stretch on at least two previous occasions) was riding the ski lift or down at the bottom of the slope.

So I made the decision to ski it on my own. This was the subject of some internal debate – Wait for my classmates? Go solo? – but I was uncomfortably aware that if I did wait, I would be faced with negotiating the usual obstacle course of fallen skiers, and I would probably fall, too, as had happened before.

I was a rank beginner, my efforts so far not distinguished by either precision or speed, but on this occasion, almost alone on the slope and to my own utter astonishment and delight, I did the run with such easy and unusually accomplished grace that I didn't come down from the high for days.

My ski instructor, a wiry Frenchman from Quebec, happened to be in the chairlift as I streaked down the pristine slope below him. From his perch, I could hear him enthusiastically yelling, "Magnifique! Magnifique!"

For that alone, I treasure the memory of skiing in Banff.

Lake Louise, with a number of runs more accommodating to the beginner, is a short drive away, and frequent shuttles operate to most hotels.

But snow isn't its only attraction. Lunch at Cháteau Lake Louise, with a dining room whose windows open up to a glacial lake surrounded by magnificent mountains provides a view spectacular enough to make you stop chewing from sheer awe.

It's a must for any visitor to this part of the world.

The area's third ski area, Sunshine Village, is also the highest, with a cable car ferrying skiers from base camp (itself at more than 2,000 meters) to the upper camp with its ski lodge and access to ski runs.

It's higher and drier, and provides more powder-skiing experience than the other two areas.

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