The Best Hill Around Here Is a Hole

The Peace Country does not have mountains. It has the opposite of mountains. It has rivers that spent a few thousand years carving trenches into the prairie, and if you want vertical around here, you don't climb up to it. You drive south on Highway 40 until the land falls away under you.

That is the whole trick of Nitehawk. The ski hill is a valley wall. You don't look up at it on the approach the way you would in Jasper. You crest the edge of the Wapiti valley, the road tips, and suddenly you're above the runs. It's a bit like discovering your basement has a basement.

People from away tend to be polite about it. The runs are short. Nobody is pretending this is Marmot. But short runs have an underrated virtue, which is volume. You can get a lot of laps in before the cold wins, and in January the cold always wins eventually. That is when the lodge earns its keep: boots off, hands around something hot, watching the next group of kids learn what an edge is the hard way.

And this is a learning hill, unapologetically. Half of Grande Prairie seems to have taken its first wobbly turns here, usually in a snowsuit two sizes too big so it would last another winter. There's something to be said for a hill where the beginners aren't treated as an inconvenience to the real skiers. Around here, the beginners are the real skiers. They just haven't grown into it yet.

The tube park is the honest choice for anyone who has given up on dignity. No technique, no lessons, no gear beyond warm pants. You sit, you go, you shriek a little, you trudge back. Adults who swear they're only there to supervise tend to be the ones still lining up after the kids want to leave. I've watched it happen. I have been it.

Then the snow goes, and the hill changes jobs.

Summer is when Nitehawk gets interesting for a different crowd: mountain bikers who've worn out every trail in town and want gravity to do some of the work. The same slope that's gentle under skis feels considerably steeper on two wheels, and the valley's clay can turn slick after rain in a way that humbles people quickly. Go after a dry spell. Wear more armour than you think you need. The roots don't care how confident you are.

There's also the Wapiti itself, which most people only notice from the bridge. It's a working river, brown and fast in spring and lazier by late summer, curling east until it joins the Smoky. Floating it on a lazy afternoon has a certain appeal. Treat it with respect anyway. Rivers fed by mountain snowmelt are colder and stronger than they look from the deck of a truck, and the banks are steep in the places you'd most want them not to be. Lifejacket, a plan for where you're getting out, and someone on shore who knows that plan.

If I'm picking a season, and I am, it's September. The bike trails are dry, the aspens down the valley walls go yellow all at once, and the bugs have mostly given up. You get the valley at its best without the ice or the crowds. Winter is Nitehawk's reputation. Fall is its secret.

But mostly I like the idea of it. On a flat, wide-open stretch of the province, where the horizon is the main event, someone looked at a river trench and decided that was the mountain. The Peace Country has never had much patience for waiting on things it didn't have. It just digs down until it finds them.

The turn for Nitehawk is south of the city on Highway 40, just before the bridge. Watch for the drop.