Panorama

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Jayne and Kevin had reserved a condo for a short family vacation at the Panorama Mountain Village Resort which is 12 miles out of Invermere which is at the southern edge of Kootenay National Park. The resort was built as a ski resort and has dozens of ski runs, from the very basic bunny hills to heli-skiing; for the small price of $4500/person you can rent a helicopter for the day to carry you repeatedly to the top of the particular ski runs that the cable cars don’t reach.
Kootenay NP is south of Banff National Park and is usually a bit warmer. Located in one of the most beautiful spots in the Rocky Mountains, over the years the resort has added summer attractions to keep the accommodations occupied. The Kootenay Valley also enjoys a terrific climate, warm in the summer and cold but not frigid in the winter. We experienced daytime highs in the 80’s Fahrenheit which was just perfect. During the winter Panorama gets multiple feet of snow so all the condos are comfortable large attractive self contained units. The resort boasts a very large swimming pool and numerous hot tubs are located throughout the resort so the girls were able to enjoy those, play mini golf, tennis and ride the cable cars as often as they wanted. On one of the days the family decided to go white water rafting - not my cup of tea I’m afraid. I was excited for them though and warmly waved them off!!
We all thoroughly enjoyed our short vacation. It was a real treat for me to travel through the Kootenay National Park again. We were there just after a forest fire had recently decimated thousands of acres and the landscape was still blackened by fire. Needless to say the forest in that area has recovered. The forestry folks now do controlled burns to try to minimize the devastation that a carelessly thrown cigarette butt or lightning bolt can cause. They also do controlled burns to battle a pine beetle which is killing a lot of the trees; the insect attacks one tree yet the one next to stays healthy and the governments of both Alberta and British Columbia have spent billions of dollars to control and eradicate it. They think it will have exhausted its cycle in 2012. Here’s hoping it doesn’t do too much damage before then.

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Photos

View
The views all around the village are breath taking, this is one I took during my early morning walk

Condo
All the condos are large and comfortable, most have wonderful views too

Cable car
On the way up the to the top of one of the Novice runs on the ski lift

Granddaughters
The girls enjoyed riding on the lifts. This particular one took you from the village to the ski lift

Top
This picture was taken at the top of the Novice Run.

Ski Runs
This shows the amount of ski runs on this particular mountain.

Kootenay River
Fast running, VERY cold and the same colour as the rivers and lakes further north

Rafting
The girls were pretty excited to go white water rafting

Rafting along
Close to the end and expert by now

Village
Panorama Village taken from the log cabin restaurant

Village
The village taken from the ski lift

Manditory Shot
Here is the 18th hole at one of the golf courses in Panorama

Lake Windermere
This area was obviously inhabited by English transplants

View
From a scenic overlook just outside Invermere on the main highway that runs north to south through Jasper, Banff and Kootenay National Parks

View 1
Another view from the scenic overlook

Chipmunk
This little guy was enjoying a "goodie" just outside our condo

Deer
This doe really wasn't concerned about my close proximity