Castle Mountain opening early
By Herald on November 30, 2020.
Lethbridge Herald
Under many new health and safety measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Castle Mountain Resort has announced its earliest opening in more than a decade with a sneak peek this past weekend.
That began Friday and continued until Sunday, with the official season opening Dec. 4.
In keeping with pandemic protocol, a variety of new health and safety measures have also been implemented to ensure guests can enjoy good, clean fun.
Castle Mountain Resort has introduced a number of key initiatives to maximize safety and provide a seamless and safe experience for guests, including enhanced cleaning and sanitization, reduced access to shared indoor spaces, the addition of temporary weather-proof structures to help limit crowding, mandatory face coverings and social distancing mandates.
They have also ventured out into neighbouring communities including Calgary, Okotoks, Lethbridge and Pincher Creek, to facilitate advance printing and pick-up of seasons passes to pre-emptively reduce potential lineups onsite at the resort post-opening day.
“We continue to face the challenges of 2020 with careful consideration of our guests and look forward to providing them with access to one of the few remaining recreational activities that has been left relatively untouched by pandemic-related restrictions.” said Castle Mountain Resort Sales and Marketing Manager Cole Fawcett in a release. “We have gone to great lengths to ensure the health and safety of all and remain committed to creating a fun, family-friendly environment for new and returning guests this season.”
Adjustments have also been made to allow for backcountry enthusiasts to continue enjoying Castle’s Powder Stagecoach Cat-Skiing operation, one of the only resort-based cat-skiing operations in Western Canada.
The sizes of the groups have been reduced from two groups of 12 per day to one group of up to 12 guests per day.
Operations have been proportionally expanded to offer cat skiing five days per week rather than the previous three days per week. With 60 scheduled cat skiing days this year, Castle has nearly doubled the number of days it will be providing access to this unique recreational offering.
Snow school programs will proceed as planned, with a few exceptions.
Supervised lunches and child-minding services will not be available this season.
The resort will continue to provide frequent communication on COVID-19 related changes on its website at http://www.skicastle.ca/covid19 and is committed to aligning all operations with local, provincial and national health guidelines and mandates.
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