The ski season is here, but it’s going to look different from other years thanks to COVID.

Cole Fawcett is the Sales and Marketing Manager with Castle Mountain Resort.

He says the biggest change will be the minute you get to the mountain.

“We’re requiring all of our guests to wear face coverings in all of our indoor spaces and in all of our high traffic base area spaces. That would include in lift lines, in ticket line-ups, and we’re operating with vastly reduced capacity in our food and beverage establishments and in our day lodge.”

Fawcett says because they’re the second biggest resort in Alberta, by acreage, they have lots of room to move and no enclosed lifts which makes a difference.

“One of the great things about not having gondolas or enclosed cabins or trams is there’s not really a need necessarily to limit chair lift capacity or again, with our expansive terrain, limiting capacity on the slopes.”

Fawcett says having all that room for skiing is a bonus, but when it comes to anything happening indoors they have to follow the rules, so they’ve come up with a plan that they think will bridge the gap for the reduced numbers allowed in any of their buildings at any one time.

“We’ve actually put up a couple of temporary structures as well to help offset some of the seating losses that we’ve had inside and provide temporary shelter space immediately adjacent to the day lodge by way of temporary tents.”

Fawcett says while they encourage people from the same cohort to ski together and use the chairlifts together they won’t force people who are on their own, or an odd number out to use the chairlifts with people who aren’t in their cohort.

 

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