Rolling · last edited 22 September 2026 · by S. & T. · 5-min read

The four seasons, from the kitchen window

Same view, four months apart. Left: October. Right: February. We keep taking the same picture. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons · Aardvark · CC BY-SA 3.0.

A rolling post — we keep adding to it every few months. Four short entries about how the mountain and the valley change across the year. If you’re trying to pick when to visit, this is the honest answer.

First snow (October) · T.

It happens every year on a Wednesday in October and every year Sarah wins the bet. I always say “another two weeks probably” and she always says “no, it’s coming this weekend, it always does.” The aspens down in the valley turn yellow first — the classic postcard shot along Vermilion Lakes — and then one morning you wake up and the ridge lines are white and it’s official.

The gondola is still running (they run it more or less year-round with weather closures). The cabin ride in the first week of the snow is one of our favourite versions: green trees underneath, white peaks above, still-warm mornings, empty parking, no queues. If you can time a visit for the fortnight after the first proper dump but before the town fills up for ski season — roughly late October to mid-November — do it.

Then it gets properly cold, which we’ll talk about somewhere else.

Larch week (late September) · S.

The alpine larches turn golden for about ten days. Ten. Not twelve, not two weeks, not “autumn.” Ten days. And every year we obsess about it. The larches are up higher than the townsite — on the passes and ridges above about 2,200 m — and the ones you can see easily from the gondola boardwalk are on the north side, catching the light beautifully in the late afternoon.

Peak larch is usually the third week of September, sometimes the fourth. It moves with the summer. A cool August with lots of rain tends to push peak a week earlier; a hot dry August pushes it a week later. There is no way to book this — you just have to be within an hour’s drive and clear your calendar.

Our advice: come the second-to-last weekend of September and if you’ve missed it, come back next year. It’s that kind of thing.

Late-September larches on the ridge from the boardwalk on the summit — the whole point of coming up in September. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons · Wing-Chi Poon · CC BY-SA 3.0.

Summer evenings (July to mid-August) · S.

By far the busiest season and by far the most photogenic evenings. Cabin queues at midday in July are twenty minutes plus; at 07:30 or after 18:00, none. Sunset in early July is around 22:00; blue hour goes on until nearly 23:00. If you’re coming up for photos, do the evening ride, watch the sun drop behind the west ridge, and come down in blue hour with the townsite lit like a doll’s house.

The one thing to know: it gets warm. Not warm like Toronto warm, but warm enough that the outside boardwalk is comfortable in a t-shirt. This is the only season we’ve gone up without a jacket. We would still bring a shell in your bag — the wind is the wind — but you probably won’t wear it. Bring water and don’t bring the fleece.

Spring melt (April to early June) · T.

The quietest and, honestly, my favourite season for the ride. From late April to early June the townsite is between the ski crowd and the summer crowd. Restaurants close for two weeks each for owner holidays. The lift line at the gondola in mid-May is zero. Snow is still on the peaks, the valley is greening up from below, and the light has that slightly hazy, spring-melt quality that photographs like an oil painting.

There is a catch. On the boardwalk in early May, you can absolutely still get caught by a snow squall that appears from nowhere and dumps three centimetres in fifteen minutes. We have been on the ridge in flip-flops in mid-May and we have been on the ridge in a proper jacket with the hood up in mid-May, within four days. Layers matter more this season than any other.

Come in spring if you can. It’s the version of the valley we recommend to friends.

— S. & T.