Vegetation and Ski Run Management

The Lake Louise Ski Area has a unique mix of rare trees and plants and our Vegetation and Ski Run Management Strategy is designed to help us maintain, protect and enhance that diversity.

From creating new and maintaining existing ski runs to building proposed new facilities, our Long-Range Plan ensures protecting the ski area’s natural landscape is paramount.

Measures and strategies in our Plan include:

• Protecting, restoring and monitoring Whitebark Pine
• Minimizing vegetation and terrain disturbance where possible
• Encouraging natural vegetation recovery
• Restricting summer activities such as hiking to designated trails
• Using native vegetation zones or restricted access to protect sensitive areas
• Improving ski run vegetation management to reduce the amount of snowmaking required to provide safe and comfortable skiing
• Managing ski run development to control erosion
• Maintaining native vegetation by preventing the spread of invasive species in the ski area
• Using measures such as forest thinning and glading to restore forest stand structure to a more natural state
• Using measures to reduce the overall risk of wildfires

Our monitoring system evaluates all activities to make sure we continue to do the right things to protect trees, plants and wildlife habitat and respect the natural environment and valued ecosystem.