Canada’s Marmot Basin ski area, which is due to open for the 2017-18 ski season tomorrow, has announced it will be opening up a new mountain face this winter, some 30 years after it was first envisaged.
Known colloquially as “Tres Hombres” the area is a large, north-facing and treeless slope, some 18 hectares (45 acres) in size within Marmot Basin’s leasehold.
Its’ normally powder-filled bowls and chutes descend 367 vertical metres (1,204 ft.) and is Marmot Basin’s longest, uninterrupted fall-line. It has an average slope angle of 32 degrees with the steepest section being 45 degrees and a run length of almost 700 metres.
Marmot Basin, which is located by Jasper in Alberta, has undertaken avalanche control work in Tres Hombres for three decades although the area has never been opened by Marmot Basin to the public and the area has long been coveted by advanced skiers and boarders who have been anxiously waiting for the day to come when the area would open to public skiing.
Tres Hombres is accessed from the top of the Paradise quad chair where skiers will access the slope through any one of five entrance gates. Skiers and snowboarders will exit the Tres Hombres slope via a short trail that will lead them back to the base of the Paradise Chair making the round trip approximately 30 minutes.
After several years of careful planning, and following the development of a comprehensive operational and trail maintenance plan, Marmot Basin is thrilled to announce that Tres Hombres will be open to the public this winter,” said Marmot Basin’s Brian Rode, adding, “The slope provides some of the very best off-piste advanced and expert terrain in the Canadian Rockies. Tres Hombres is equivalent to 3 times the length of Charlies Bowl, that’s a lot of turns for you and your best hombres.“
Tres Hombres will open for the season once all required fencing and gates are in place and the area deemed safe to ski by the Marmot Basin avalanche control and safety team.