There is a little resort in Canada so precipitous and uncrowded that you may as well be heliskiing, but for $59 a day. The snow falls light and deep, 30 powdery feet of it a year.

Here it is normal to find yourself alone on the slopes any midweek day, possibly with a bear or moose for company. A place where resort shareholders bed down in a trailer park at the foot of the slopes, living the high life in old Airstream trailers and converted school buses bedecked in fairy lights.

This is Castle Mountain. Two-and-a-half hours south of Calgary in the Canadian Rockies, just east of the Continental Divide, north of the US, and right off Highway 3, known locally as the Powder Highway. Twelve years ago, it was a financially floundering hill, owned by the local district and threatened with closure. But Castle’s fanatical skiers and riders came to the rescue. Determined to save their slice of paradise, 140 powder hounds clubbed together to buy it.

It is not hard to see what inspired such devotion. Some of the steepest fall-lines in North America plunge from the 2,766m summit, through open bowls, steep chutes and glades of evergreens. Although the resort has only six lifts, traversing left or right across the Gravenstafel ridge opens up a world of challenging off-piste.

Castle’s skier-owners embrace their mountain’s wild and woolly side, even listing precarious local back country descents on the resort website.

But Castle is not just for experts. Before the shake-up, one of the resort’s problems was that the slopes were, says Andrew Rusynyk, the director of snow sports, “mildly discomforting to fairly terrifying” for the average skier. When the current stakeholders took control, they implemented a modest and sustainable development plan.

By far the biggest project was the installation of a lift on the lower slopes of Mt Haig, to create a sheltered area of novice and intermediate runs. The Huckleberry chair opened last year, much to the relief of the slower friends and families of Castle’s diehard fans. Less of a priority is the slow growth of permanent housing at the base of the hill. Although a few residents have built homes on private lots, there are only eight cabins to rent. That is a cabin in the North American sense, an extremely well-appointed family chalet, with acres of space and all the latest mod cons. Visitors can also stay at the small Castle Mountain Ski Lodge and Hostel, booked out at weekends but busy only with school groups in the week. Everybody else stays in trailers, from the children who run the lifts and concessions to the Calgary shareholders who drive down every weekend.

Eventually, the trailer park will be moved from its prime position at the foot of the slopes and a small hotel erected. This will be a shame. You do not come to Castle for plush, that is part of the allure.

Upstairs in the no-frills lodge is a single restaurant and spartan cafeteria, with plenty of tables and public microwaves for family picnics. Along the walls are cabinets displaying trophies and rows of cubbyholes in which to put your gear. Downstairs are the offices and a lounge, the latter a collection of comfy old chairs and couches, rickety tables and well-thumbed books and board games.

Other facilities are limited or nonexistent. The nearest supermarket is in Pincher Creek, a windswept town 20 minutes down the road that is little more than a liquor store, Wal-Mart and A&W burger bar. You can rent equipment to ski cross-country, snowshoe or snowmobile, but, Rusynyk says: “This is not a hand-holding sort of a place; you need both maps and gumption.”

Castle has a rental shop with basic gear, a small ski shop and a pub. Walking into the T-Bar is akin to walking on to the set of Cheers, only cosier. Locals will know that you are a stranger, but that does not mean that they will not talk. Canadians are blessed with a friendly gene and Castle residents are bowled over that any foreigners have made it down south. Tourists typically zoom west out of Calgary, straight up the highway to Banff and Lake Louise. Castle takes more effort to reach and is consequently overlooked.

This means that there is all the more snow for those in the know, at least for now. Castle is off the road to Fernie, an undiscovered gem ten years ago. Now firmly on the skiing map, Fernie is bustling; although still quiet compared with Europe, empty slopes on a powder day are a thing of the past. But east over Crow’s Nest Pass you can still be king of the castle.

How to get to Castle Mountain

At Castle Mountain, Alberta, day lift tickets cost C$59 (£30) for adults, C$20 for children under ten and there are discounts for teenagers, students and pensioners or the over60s; www.skicastle.ca.

Castle Mountain Ski Lodge and Hostel has hostel beds from C$20 and lodge double rooms from C$100. The lodge is also the rental agent for cabin accommodation; www.castlemountainskilodge.com. The comfortable Castle Keep cabin sleeps 10 to 14 at C$300 a night.

A visit to Castle Mountain combines well with a longer stay at Fernie Alpine Resort in neighbouring British Columbia, which is an hour and a half east on Highway 3; www.skifernie.com.

UK specialist Frontier Ski has information on planning a Canadian resort road trip and can put together a package including flights, car rental, accommodation and lift tickets; www.frontier-travel.co.uk.

Tamsin Leach travelled with Air Canada from Heathrow direct to Calgary; www.aircanada.com

Some wild and wooly alternatives

Mt Baker, in Washington state, is a rollercoaster of a mountain, two hours east of Seattle. It boasts the most snow in the United States (more than 16m annually). Facilities are basic, however, and there are only seven lifts. Mt Baker is much loved by the nation’s best skiers and snowboarders for its terrain and downhome attitude. A day pass costs just over $41 (£20); www.mtbaker.us.

At La Grave, in the southern French Alps, a day pass is €34 (£24). With only two groomed pistes and a vertical drop of more than five miles, hiring a guide to explore this renowned French mountain is standard practice and donning an avalanche transceiver is de rigueur; www.la-grave.com.

Riksgransen, in Sweden, is the world’s most northerly ski resort. Ski under the midnight sun in June, above the Arctic Circle. Only one hotel cum restaurant cum ticket shop graces the base area but, close by, you can sleep it off in the original Ice Hotel. A day’s lift pass costs SKr310 (£24); www.riksgransen.nu.

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