Fortress Mountain Resort
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fortress Mountain | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Fortress Mountain Location within Alberta  Fortress Mountain Fortress Mountain (Canada) | |
| Location | Kananaskis, Alberta Canada |
| Nearest major city | Calgary 115 km (71 mi) |
| Coordinates | 50°49′40″N 115°12′06″W / 50.82778°N 115.20167°W |
| Vertical | 700 m (2,300 ft) |
| Top elevation | 2,500 m (8,200 ft) |
| Base elevation | 1,800 m (5,900 ft) |
| Snowfall | 600–900 cm (236–354.5 in) |
Fortress Mountain was a ski resort in Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada.
The resort is situated on a 14.7-square-kilometre (3,600-acre) Provincial Crown Lease surrounded by Spray Valley and Peter Lougheed Provincial Parks. The original lease was granted in 1967, which pre-dates both Kananaskis Country itself by eleven years, as well as the provincial parks which now surround it.
The resort is located near the Kananaskis Trail, 115 km (71 mi) west of Calgary. It is owned and operated by Fortress Mountain Holdings Ltd.
The resort is currently being used by Canadian climate researchers to gather data on the effects of climate change on the region.
Snowridge was the original name of the resort when it opened in 1967. It operated until 2005, when it shut down suffering from neglect.
Before being purchased by Fortress Mountain Holdings Ltd., the area had previously been owned by Banff Rail Company, as well as Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR). Aspen Skiing Co. owned the resort in the 1970s and 1980s.
In late November 2009, scenes from the film Inception were shot there.[1]: 22 In December 2011, the resort hosted the cast and crew from The Bourne Legacy. The area has been featured in many other movies, such as The Claim (2000), Van Helsing (2004), Brokeback Mountain (2005), RV (2006), The Revenant (2015), and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), as well as many television commercials.
Historic ski lifts
In the 1980s, an additional surface lift was installed parallel to the back side of the Curve T-bar to bring skiers from the base of the far-side chair back up to the front side. One summer, Hugh Smythe, then manager of Blackcomb, who also worked at Fortress, took this additional lift apart and took it to Blackcomb Mountain and installed it on Blackcomb glacier, thereby making Blackcomb's high alpine glacier more accessible.
The now dismantled Curve T-Bar lift installed at Fortress Mountain was of novel design. It operated in a big loop, draped over a ridge, so that it could pull skiers up both sides of the ridge with a single motor and loop of cable. There was not a similar lift in the Canadian Rockies for the very good reason that any breakdown shut down both sides of the ridge.