Banff Ski Day Pass: A Lift Ticket, and Where to Actually Buy It

If you typed “banff day pass” and meant skiing, you are in the right place for about ninety seconds — long enough for us to point you somewhere useful and get out of your way.

A Banff ski day pass is a lift ticket. It is sold by the ski resorts. It is not park admission, it is not a sightseeing bus pass, and nothing on the rest of this website will help you ski.

What you’re actually buying

Banff has three ski areas, marketed together as SkiBig3:

• Banff Sunshine Village
• Lake Louise Ski Resort
• Mt Norquay

One SkiBig3 lift ticket covers all three mountains. That is the pitch, and it is a genuinely good one — you can ski Norquay in the morning and Sunshine the next day on the same ticket type, rather than buying three separate resort passes.

Tickets are sold from 1 to 14 days, and multi-day tickets come with grace days, meaning you can take a rest day in the middle without burning a ski day.

The price: we’re not going to make one up

SkiBig3 lift tickets are priced dynamically by date. There is no fixed published day rate. You choose a date on the resort’s calendar and a price appears; it moves with demand, season, and how far ahead you book. Advance purchase is generally cheaper than the ticket window, and the resorts run periodic sales.

We checked, and there is no honest single number to quote. Any page that tells you “a Banff ski day pass costs exactly $X” without attaching a date to it is guessing — and probably guessing from an old season.

Go straight to the source: SkiBig3 lift tickets. Pick your date, see your price.

Do you still need a park pass to ski?

Yes. All three ski areas are inside Banff National Park (or, for Lake Louise, within the park boundary), so you are entering the park to reach them. The Parks Canada day pass applies: C$12.25 adult, C$24.50 for a family/group in one vehicle.

Note that the Canada Strong Pass free-admission window — 19 June to 7 September 2026 — is a summer window. It will not help you in ski season. Winter visitors pay the normal entry fee on top of their lift ticket.

So a ski day in Banff involves two separate purchases from two separate organisations: the lift ticket from SkiBig3, and park entry from Parks Canada. Neither includes the other.

And the hop-on-hop-off bus pass?

A third thing, and not one you need for skiing. The hop-on-hop-off day pass is a summer sightseeing transport pass running a lakes route — Johnston Canyon, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake. It does not serve the ski hills, and Moraine Lake Road is closed all winter anyway.

The resorts run their own ski shuttles from Banff and Canmore hotels. Ask your accommodation, or book through SkiBig3.

The one-line summary

Three passes. Three sellers. Only one of them is ours, and in ski season it isn’t the one you want. Enjoy the snow.