Kicking Horse delivers the steepest in-bounds terrain in Canada, 1,260 vertical metres of bowls, chutes and ridgelines crowned by the Eagle's Eye Gondola at 2,450 metres, home to the country's highest restaurant. The town of Golden sits thirteen kilometres below, right on the Trans-Canada Highway between Banff and Revelstoke.
Kicking Horse is a ski resort with genuine ski-in/ski-out hotels in Canada, in the BC Interior. The village sits at 1190 m and the lifts top out at 2450 m, with 120 km of pistes and 5 lifts. Its BestSnowHotels snow score is 92/100, and the season usually runs Dec 1 → Apr 13.
How we score and classify resortsRun counts and piste kilometres are indicative. Green runs only exist in France, Spain, Andorra, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, the United States, Morocco, Algeria, Lesotho, South Africa, Egypt, Canada, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Chile; Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany start at blue. Indicative average snow depth near the top of the resort, in cm.
A handful of well-rated hotels in and around the resort. Pick one, then compare live prices across Booking, Expedia and Hotels.com.
Excellent · 2.9k reviews
Moments from the lifts in Kicking Horse, so you can ski back to the door and skip the morning queues.
Guests rate this hotel as excellent (4.6/5 from 2,939 reviews). It sits about 100 m from the slopes. A mid-range option for Kicking Horse, with live nightly rates shown for your exact dates so you always see the best price.
Good · 702 reviews
Moments from the lifts in Kicking Horse, so you can ski back to the door and skip the morning queues.
Good · 351 reviews
Moments from the lifts in Kicking Horse, so you can ski back to the door and skip the morning queues.
Very good · 117 reviews
Moments from the lifts in Kicking Horse, so you can ski back to the door and skip the morning queues.
Excellent · 54 reviews
Moments from the lifts in Kicking Horse, so you can ski back to the door and skip the morning queues.
Excellent · 30 reviews
A dependable, well-reviewed choice for a stay in Kicking Horse.
Ratings from Google, prices indicative per night. Live availability and rates via our booking partners.
There is a small ski-in/ski-out enclave at the base village around the Eagle Express Gondola, but the bulk of accommodation is in Golden, thirteen kilometres down a winding road. Plan on shuttles or a rental car. The trade-off is a real working town instead of a manicured resort plaza.
Kicking Horse is an experts' mountain, full stop. Around sixty percent of its 120 piste-kilometres are graded advanced or expert, with four enormous alpine bowls (Bowl Over, Crystal, Feuz and Super Bowl) feeding chute after chute back to treeline. The Eagle Express Gondola climbs in one long swoop to the 2,450-metre summit ridge, where the Eagle's Eye restaurant offers a 360-degree view across the Canadian Rockies to the east and the Purcell range to the west, and where boot-packed access leads onto Whitewall, T2 and the Stairway to Heaven traverse. Intermediates have legitimate cruising terrain on the lower mountain, but it is the unrelenting steep alpine that defines the place. Down in the valley, the working railway town of Golden offers Best Western lodges, craft breweries and surprisingly good restaurants for a mountain town of seven thousand people. The Trans-Canada Highway puts Banff under two hours away and Revelstoke within ninety minutes, making powder chasing road trips entirely feasible. It suits strong intermediates ready to be pushed, expert freeriders craving north-facing bowls and anyone tired of the polished resort experience and ready for an unfiltered Rockies mountain.
Hotels and apartments around the lifts. Compare prices on Booking, Expedia and Hotels.com.
Everything on our site connected to Kicking Horse: its area, the lists it makes, head-to-heads and trip guides.
Kicking Horse offers 120 km of pistes across 5 lifts, from 1190 m to 2450 m. Whether it suits beginners depends on the dedicated learner zones at the base of the slopes, so check the local ski-school options for green and blue run access.
The season runs from Dec 1 to Apr 13, with a snow score of 92/100. The best conditions are usually from late January through February, while spring skiing in March and April brings longer days and softer afternoons.
There is a small ski-in/ski-out enclave at the base village around the Eagle Express Gondola, but the bulk of accommodation is in Golden, thirteen kilometres down a winding road. Plan on shuttles or a rental car. The trade-off is a real working town instead of a manicured resort plaza.
Kicking Horse has 120 km of marked pistes served by 5 lifts, between 1190 m and 2450 m of altitude.
Kicking Horse counts about 100 marked runs in total. The colour breakdown above shows how they split by difficulty, a good guide to whether the resort fits your level.
The closest alternatives, an easy switch if dates or hotels are tight.
Canadian Rockies
BC Interior
Canadian Rockies
BC Interior
Resorts with a similar feel, snow record and size.
Northern Rockies
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Northern Rockies