Castle Mountain Resort marks 60 years of skiing
A skier makes turns at Castle Mountain Resort on Feb. 12, 2026, during the resort’s 60th anniversary season and days after the Stagecoach Express officially opened to the public. Nicholas L.M Allen photo
Local Journalism Initiative
Stagecoach Express adds 22 trails and expands lift accessed skiable acreage by about 25 per cent, resort says
Castle Mountain Resort’s first high speed chairlift officially opened to the public this week, with the resort tying the launch of the Stagecoach Express to its 60th year of operations.
Cole Fawcett, Castle Mountain Resort’s sales and marketing manager, said the lift began with a soft opening on Feb. 10 before the official ceremony the following morning.
“The Stagecoach Express was soft open starting on the afternoon of Tuesday Feb. 10 with the official grand opening having taken place Feb 11 at 9:30 a.m.”
The chairlift is a high-speed quad that previously operated at Sunshine Village as the Angel Express. Castle said the lift arrived in summer 2024, underwent a comprehensive retrofit and has now been fully commissioned.
The resort said the project unlocks 22 new trails and opens terrain that had previously been reserved for its cat skiing operation.
“The Stagecoach Express serves 22 new trails, including new connecting trails from the Huckleberry zone. While most of the terrain is black diamond, the terrain has a distinctly different feel from most of the advanced terrain on Gravenstafel Peak.”
In its announcement, Castle said the new terrain represents an expansion of about 25 per cent to its lift accessed, skiable acreage, increasing the run count from 94 to more than 115. The resort also described the Stagecoach Express as the largest infrastructure project in its history, expected to improve capacity and flow while supporting long term growth.
Fawcett said the lift’s length and vertical rise are now among the defining features of the resort’s network.
The lift has an operating speed of up to five metres per second, which the resort said is about 18 kilometres per hour and roughly double the speed of its fixed grip lifts.
Fawcett said the Stagecoach name was chosen as a nod to the area’s history in the resort’s cat skiing program.
“Stagecoach Express comes from the name given to our former cat skiing operation, the Powder Stagecoach. Cat skiing operated in this same area, for 16 years, prior to this lift being installed”
Castle has framed the Stagecoach Express as a foundational project for future upgrades, saying increased visitation is expected to help enable capital improvements including phased modernization of the resort’s legacy lift network.
The Huckleberry chairlift carries riders uphill at Castle Mountain Resort on Feb. 12, 2026, as skiers and snowboarders connected into the expanded Stagecoach zone following the opening of the resort’s first high speed quad. Nicholas L. M. Allen photo