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Mitchell Scott: Elevate magazine article rightly marvels about heli-skiing with an AStar helicopter : )
Helicopter View
Elevate Magazine — All-Inclusive
“Riding powder in BC also has a decadent element, whereby the entire experience - from the snow to the service and everything in between - is as world-class as the riding itself.”
“With unlimited vertical, Great Canadian Heli-Skiing out of Golden will also dish up more than you can handle. A Eurocopter AStar B2 - the heli-equivalent of a Porsche - will whisk you, along with three friends and your guide, to the top of 3,000-metre peaks on the edge on Glacier National Park. Nearby Rogers Pass presented a major barrier between the east and west in colonial times, and the glaciers and old-growth forests Great Canadian Heli-Skiing utilize are still as rugged as they were then.”
Heli-skiing Cruise
Bernhard Krieger via dpa: Informed article about deep snow skiing in the Canadian Rockies
Lake Louise, Alberta - Swaying back and forth through the powdery snow feels like a dance down the slope, and then at the bottom it’s a thrill to look back at one’s own tracks. A run down a deep-snow slope away from the crowded ski areas can give experienced skiers a burst of euphoria. But is it really a dream that is out of reach for skiers with average skill and experience? Not if you ask Bap Koller, a Bavarian whose second home is the Canadian Rocky Mountains. “Anyone can learn deep snow skiing,” said Koller, who feels right at home in the western region of Canada, which gets up to eight metres of new snow per season. A skier who has mastered parallel sweeps on the slopes has the ticket for deep snow skiing, said Koller. A skier who has done some conditioning is even better prepared for the adventure. The alpha and omega of deep-snow skiing technique is maintaining the rhythm and avoiding leaning back. Skiers who do that will have burning thighs after just two runs down the slope. So it’s important to learn the right technique. “Having the right skis also makes it easier,” Koller said. Slalom and Race Carver skis popular in Europe are anything but optimal for deep-snow skiing in the Canadian Rockies. Narrow skies don’t give enough lift in deep snow. Powder Fat Skies, nearly twice as wide, make deep-snow skiing a lot easier. While the right skis make everything easier, the right snow makes the skiing experience perfect. And nowhere in the world is the snow drier and therefore easier to ski in than in North America. “In the US and Canada every skier can ski a class better than at home,” Koller observed. Unlike Europe, the Canadians don’t roll over every snowflake that falls on the slope with a snow groomer and flatten it out. In the large ski resorts in Alberta and British Columbia, including Lake Louise, Banff-Sunshine, Panorama and Fernie, many slopes are well primed, but others are left untouched. In addition there are many natural bowl-shaped dips and valleys. They are under constant observation for avalanches by the ski patrol, making them secure places for deep-snow skiing adventures in the middle of the ski resort. For a change of pace, the Powder Cowboys offer a wonderful experience with nature on their Cat Ski tour in southeastern British Columbia. Starting at a ranch, participants are hauled to the peak of the mountain on a snow cat. From there the group is led through forests and down open slopes into valleys where the snow cat awaits them for the next ride up. Groups of eight to 14 people sign up daily for the adventure. For some, heli-skiing is even more spectacular, though it does have more critics because it disturbs the environment and because it is expensive. Among the services offered in Canada is a luxury helicopter flight for four guests to the peak of a mountain. There’s no mountain height limit and skiers can accomplish up to 12 runs a day this way. The service is offered by Great Canadian Heli-Skiing at a location two hours by car west of Banff. As with the snow cat trips, skiers attend an avalanche information seminar before their first trip up the mountain. Afterwards, they are given a helicopter orientation. Only then they can lift off and head for the region’s massive glaciers and virgin deep-snow slopes all hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town - a dream in white. Koller said beginners also can take a chance on heli-skiing. An ideal way to try it out is to sign up for a tour that includes three days of skiing on regular slopes followed by two days on deep-snow slopes included in the heli-ski service. Internet: www.canada.travel, www.canadas-west.de
Deane Pickering: A-Star made history on Everest - Isn't that the machine that we use?
The Eurocopter Ecureuil/AStar
AS 350 B3 approaches Mount Everest
A client recently brought it to my attention just how proud we should be of the A-star helicopters we use.
Check out the link for the article that I found in a 2005 issue of Great Outdoors.
World Record for the highest altitude landing and take-off ever!
Very Cool!
Deane
Office Staff GCH
Melissa Jameson: Quality cuisine at Heather Mountain Lodge by Chef Dan Bracko
Aug 01 2007
Chef Dan Bracko Shows off Some of the Herbs
and Vegetables Growing in His Garden
If you consider all the food at Heather Mountain Lodge is made in a one-man kitchen, That in itself is an impressive feat. However, couple that with the truly delicious food chef Dan Bracko presents and it’s nothing short of amazing.
Using locally sourced ingredients, coupled with what’s grown in his own garden, Bracko spent a considerable amount of time researching his menu in order to keep the dishes as local as possible.
“I tried to find hand written recipes,” he said. “I looked at cook books that dated back to 1856.”
His research took him to museum’s in Golden and Banff where he discovered that dishes like meatloaf and macaroni and cheese - both of which are available on Heather Mountain Lodge’s menu - were staples even back then.
Bracko said his idea to keep the menu as local as possible came from being in the Rockies and the amount of international guests who visit the lodge.
“I thought I would focus on the historical food and it supports local producers,” said Bracko.
The first dish Bracko presents is crostini - summer sweet Naramatta peaches presented slightly grilled atop a fresh baguette crostini with double brie camembert. This is served with Poplar Grove chardonnay. Along with the food, the wine is as local as possible. Bracko has built his menu on the premise of the 100 Mile Diet, although he admits that due to the remote location of the lodge it is sometimes nearer to 200 miles.
The chef encourages his guest to take a bite of the baguette and then a sip of wine. The flavours mingle together in a perfect menage a trois for the mount - brie, peaches and wine.
This is followed by vegetable Napoleon with a roasted garlic compote and Cambozla cheese and is paired with Kettle Valley Winery shiraz or cabernet. While the portion seems small, the presentation is well done and the flavours mingle delightfully. Of course, after having been served garlic a palate cleanser is needed before continuing. This was done with raspberry sorbet on grilled pineapple paired with Township 7 chardonnay, and then it was time to dig into the main course.
As with all of the previous dishes, it is apparent that the chef has taken the time to make art on a plate. The pesto baked wild coho salmon on wilted char with roasted yams is piled onto the middle of the white plate which makes the pink,orange and greens of the dish seem to pop. The flavours are simple and memorable, however, a little less salty would have been nice. The wine pairing for this course is Township 7 rose.
Of course no good meal could be complete without a little dessert and Bracko doesn’t disappoint. His house made moist chocolate cake served with a rich vanilla bean ice cream and a side shot of double chocolate pouring sauce is a delight to a chocolate lover and sure to be appreciated by all. Served with Taylor Fladgate 10-year-old port it reminds one of black forest cake.
The entire meal has been served on the patio at Heather Mountain Lodge. Here, diners are able to enjoy the spectacular scenery of the Roger’s Pass while tantalizing their taste buds with local fare. From the deck, guests are also able to view Bracko’s garden which includes fresh fruits, veggies and herbs.
While the food is delicious and the scenery majestic, the cost isn’t cheap. The breakfast menu runs between $8 and $12.50, appetizers between $9.50 and $14.50, entrees between $12.50 and $40 and dessert between $6 and $15. However, the experience is well worth it and while perhaps locals would pass off the resort as being for tourists it would be the perfect place to celebrate an anniversary, or to make a stop in after a long hike (the resort also offers packaged lunches for guests to take with them).
Heather Mountain Lodge is located in the Roger’s Pass, just over an hour’s drive from Revelstoke. This year’s summer season runs until Sept. 4. The resort offers a variety of outdoor packages from a day trip to Glacier National Park, to 3 or 5 day adventure packages which include white water rafting, heli-sight seeing and horse back riding. For those who wish just to wine and dine there are two packages available. The Dine and Dream includes one night accommodation for two, three-course dinner and breakfast. Tasteful exit offers one night accommodation and breakfast for two. There is also a wine and dine night happening Aug. 25 where you can enjoy a seven course meal. For further information about the lodge visit www.heathermountainlodge.com or call toll-free 1-866-344-7490.
Colin Payne of The Golden Star: Sublime Mountain Scenery and Dining at Heather Mountain Lodge
High Mountain Inspired Cuisine
and Hospitality
Accessible Timberframe Lodge at
Glacier National Park
Heather Mountain Lodge at Glacier National Park
Driving through Rogers Pass on a sublime summer evening, I rounded a turn to face yet another epic vista which absorbed me so much that I missed the unassuming left turn to Heather Mountain Lodge, my destination for the evening.
All I knew was I was going to a lodge in the mountains to eat a meal and take a tour, other than that it was all up in the air.
Upon arrival, I was greeted by Marketing Director Kati Strickland, who graciously showed me around the place.
Heather Mountain Lodge Dining
Heather Mountain Lodge is a beautiful chalet with 22 cozy, comfortable guest rooms, which are regularly filled with tourists from all over the world.
The main chalet is spacious and modern, yet has a rustic feel to it, with historic photos decorating the walls, and a hand-built canoe hanging in the dining room.
The downstairs area of the main chalet is geared totally towards the clients of Great Canadian Heli-Skiing, who stay at the lodge in the winter season.
A bar area, hot tub, storage lockers, and a boot dryer await weary guests returning from their day of powder skiing or snowboarding in the 2,000 square kilometres of epic mountain terrain that Great Canadian Heli-Skiing holds exclusive rights to.
Then it was on to the main order of the evening, my first experience with fine dining in the mountains.
Seated on the west-facing deck, looking out on the aforementioned mountain view, we were treated to a gourmet, five-course meal, prepared by chef Dan Bracko.
The meal, which ranged from a vegetable napoleon, to pesto-baked wild coho salmon, to homemade chocolate cake, was created using what Bracko calls a “100-mile diet”. All of the ingredients come from within a 100- to 200-mile radius of the lodge, including some that are grown locally and even on-site, like herbs fresh from the garden.
Bracko has spent much of the two years he’s worked at the lodge researching and preparing his menu.
From his research in the Golden Museum and Archives, he was led to the Whyte Museum in Banff, where he discovered handwritten cookbooks used by the early explorers of the Canadian Rockies, such as the Brewster family, and Mary Schaeffer.
From those books, he built his menu to resemble as closely as possible, the diet of those who first settled this area.
Each course of the meal was accompanied with a different wine that was selected specifically to compliment the food it was served with.
In addition to their Rocky Mountain-influenced dinner menu, the lodge also offers bagged lunches for people exploring Glacier National Park.
These are no ordinary bagged lunches, however. Each lunch is prepared specifically for the area of the park you plan to discover, with a food theme that suits the history of the area.
The fine dining concluded with a glass of port and homemade chocolate cake, the sun was setting over the mountains, and the conversation was flowing freely.
The atmosphere was unbeatable, and food goes down much better with lively conversation and fresh mountain air.
So if you’re travelling on the Trans-Canada Highway and have a craving for a fantastic dining experience, need a comfortable place to stay, or just want to stop and soak in some more of the incredible mountain scenery, check out beautiful Heather Mountain Lodge.
For more information, visit heathermountainlodge.com
Greg Porter (Photo Mike McPhee): Collaboration during TGR filming of “Lost and Found”
TGR Heliski (Mike McPhee)
It is true Jeremy Jones and Seth Morrison see the world in a slightly different way.
In 2007 during their visit to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, Teton Gravity Research filmed a part for their up and coming 2008 movie "Lost and Found" at Great Canadian Heli-Skiing.
Thanks to our guides Dave and Julian, no one was lost and they did find some great new lines. The TGR guys from talent to crew were all pros, and a big thanks goes out to Ruby, Mike and Mike from KHMR for swinging by our way.
Trent Edwards, Calgary Herald: By offering unlimited vertical and trips as short as two days, a B.C. company makes heli-skiing possible for mere mortals
Heavenly heli-skiing
By offering unlimited vertical and trips as short as two days, a B.C. company makes heli-skiing possible for mere mortals
Trent Edwards, Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, March 22, 2007
Unlimited vertical.
These words are enough to ignite a heli-skier. They make you want to banish chit-chat, inhale lunch and scheme ways to ski as much as humanly possible.
On a recent Saturday morning at Great Canadian Heli-skiing in the Purcell and Selkirk mountain ranges near Roger’s Pass, B.C., I found myself cursing the thoroughness of our guide’s helicopter and avalanche safety lessons. Yeah, yeah, it can save my life, but ski time’s wasting! After all, for most of us cash-limited mortals, heli-skiing is a dream that doesn’t often come true at an average cost of $9,000 a week. Short of refinancing the mortgage and dipping into Junior’s college fund, a week of heli-skiing is a privilege for reserved for the rich. Heli-skiing companies know this. That’s why most create seven-day tour packages that lure guests with the promise of skiing up to 30,000 vertical metres (100,000 feet). This sounds like a lot to first-timers, until they realize that they can easily reach this limit in four or five days if the weather’s good. After that, it’s pay as you go for helicopter time. The temptation for heli-skiers in this predicament is high this season as operators in B.C.’s interior experience their best snow season in decades.
Yet Great Canadian Heli-skiing, the most accessible destination heli-ski operator for Calgarians is letting its skiers go powder-crazy at no added cost this season, offering unlimited vertical with all of it’s two- to six- day packages.
My adrenaline rises as thunderous beating signals an approaching helicopter. I have just one day to test how much heli-skiing I can squeeze in before time runs out or the nasty clouds covering nearby peaks ground our A-Star B2 ’copter. I soon realize this is an addictive sport.
Greg Porter by T. Rhodes
The average heli-skier carves up about 7,000 vertical metres per day, quickly reaching the package limit of 30,000 metres. A dilemma arises: twiddle your thumbs in the lodge for the remainder of your stay, or fork out $75 per 1,000 vertical metres to feed your new obsession. But for Greg Porter, who co-owns GCH with his wife Maaike, presenting an extra $900 bill to clients at checkout smacks of bad business.
“A lot of people don’t know what 100,000 vertical feet means,” Porter says.
At 11 a.m., after a short but thrilling flight between giant peaks, we reach the top of our first run.
Low clouds threaten to keep us on treed ridges like this one all day, and I fret about missing epic glacier runs in the neighbouring Selkirk range.
Then I start to ski in calf-deep powder that’s untracked and light as lint. In an ultra-competitive industry where operators are dependant on repeat business, slapping a customer with a surprise fee after they spend $9,000 for a week of heli-skiing doesn’t make for a great last impression. Porter says customers at GCH, which has been operating since 1988 and under Porter’s direction since 2000, consistently complained about the extra vertical fee in past satisfaction surveys. Even some well-heeled guests who tip their guide $1,000 said they felt like they were skiing with a credit card in their back pocket.
So this season the Porters are bucking the industry standard, earning the ire of some of B.C.’s other heli-ski operators.
“You can come here and not have to worry about anything,” Porter says. ”In a few years we think a lot of heli-ski operators are going to be offering this.”
I launch over a steep snow ridge into sudden weightlessness on my third run.
Skiers live for this natural high, but rarely attain it at a ski resort. This healthy alternative to street drugs only lasts a few turns until the slope mellows, but it makes my season.
Most of the runs take us through terrain that brings to mind Dr. Zeuss’s mountains above Whoville: steep slopes dominated by evergreens whose branches hold snow pillows. On the mellower slopes, huge powder mushrooms dot the ground. Stubborn clouds keep us in the low-elevation trees, yet the light is somehow rarely flat so we can see bumps and drops. Snow is boot- to knee-deep. Dropping 1.5 metres off a giant mushroom, I brace for a hard landing. Yet instead of getting a sudden jolt I get a thigh-deep cushion of natural duvet.
Porter is keen to attract Calgarians to GCH and Heather Mountain Lodge, the sister company where his heli-skiers stay.
At the edge of B.C.’s famous heli-ski belt, the boutique operation is just 3 1/2 hours’ drive west of Calgary off the Trans-Canada, well within long-weekend striking distance.
While most of the heli-skiers at GCH are American or European, Porter says Canadian business has jumped from five to 20 percent in three seasons since he began offering three- and four- day stays. This season, Porter has added a two-day package for $2,714 to tempt Calgarians.
At GCH, groups are limited to four per helicopter, the smallest group size in an industry where most operators take 11 skiers per flight. Smaller groups allow GCH to split fast, aggressive skiers and slow, timid skiers. Using two helicopters, GCH can take up to 24 heli-skiers on a staggered schedule of lifts.
It’s hard to find a customer unhappy with anything about GCH. All of them rave about the unlimited vertical, the friendly lodge atmosphere and delicious meals, the flexibility offered by short stays and the joys of skiing in small groups. Sven Berg of Stockholm, Sweden, bought the six-day package for $9,350 to celebrate his 50th birthday, and gave his daughter Elsa, 19, and son Edvard, 15, the same package for Christmas. Despite the hefty price tag, the car dealer has no complaints. “It’s by far the best skiing I’ve ever had,” Sven says. ”I’ve skied a lot in the Alps, but I’ve never skied anything like this.”
All advanced skiers that are fit and hungry for vertical, the Bergs have almost reached the industry standard package of 30,000 vertical metres in just their first three days at GCH.
My group of advanced and expert skiers, led by ski guide Julian Anfossi of Golden, hops between mountain ridges as the afternoon speeds on.
We only ski for 5 1/2 hours, and are kept from racking up big vertical by stubborn clouds that blanket most of the 2,000 square kilometres of GCH’s tenure. Yet we pack in 11 runs and 5,700 vertical metres.
Porter knows he can’t compete with remote heli-lodges that comfortably host up to 150 heli-skiers. So he offers convenience and flexibility to small groups. “We’re trying to lead our industry and make our customers happy.”
On my last run, my legs are getting leaden. Yet the mind is willing, and the hero snow begs bravado.
My eyes dart ahead, scanning routes between tight trees on steep slopes. Miraculously, my legs follow. I feel so good I should have my own theme song. But on our last helicopter ride I struggle to be content with my Warren Miller memories. Delicious nachos and a hot bath await at the lodge, but all I want is one more run.
tedwards@theherald.canwest.com
Craig Altschul, Mountain News: Whirlybird Boutiques Flying High As Latest Heli-ski Trend
Canadian Helicopter Skiing
There’s something to be said for intimacy. Even when that intimacy is offered in the vast snowfields of the Purcells or Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia. Most of the world’s heli-skiing is done in Western Canada where the industry is growing bigger while trending smaller. “There are new operators coming into the industry and all of them are choosing the small group format with small lodges,” Greg Porter, proprietor of Great Canadian Heli-Skiing (GCH), told The Industry Report. “It’s a very mom and pop style, focused on small groups that cater to the specific interests and needs of the modern-day heli-skiers. It’s the latest trend.” So, how small is small? Porter defines a “boutique” heli-ski operation as having small capacities of 12 to 30 skiers, compared to the more traditional heli-ski operations such as Canadian Mountain Holidays, Mike Wiegele, and Selkirk Tangiers, where guests number from 33 to 120 skiers at one location. Some of the key boutique players, in addition to GCH, include Bella Coola Heli-Sports, Mica Heli-Guides, Peace Reach Adventures, and Last Frontier Heli-Skiing. There are presently 28 independent operating members, and 10 probationary members, of the British Columbia Heli and Snowcat Skiing Operators Association (BCHSSOA). About 16 of those operations offer heli-skiing out of lodges. The trend toward boutique does not so much reflect the need for more intimate vacations, as some people enjoy the camaraderie of larger groups and don’t care about “matching up” with like-minded, or like-ability skiers. “Canadian Mountain Holidays is a great company and was the groundbreaker. They have 12 lodges with up to 44 guests per lodge and fly groups of 10 to 11 guests in Bell 212 helicopters, generally in four groups,” Porter said. But, one size doesn’t fit all. “What we know is that there is more than one customer profile so we need to offer different products to different customers at different times,” Porter says. Porter defines today’s heli-skier as people with “limited holiday time who want to make it the heli-ski vacation of their dreams.” Those desires often make the smaller boutique operations a strong option. The myth that a skier must be an expert no longer applies. “We say that someone should be at least a strong intermediate who has been skiing regularly in recent years. They should be capable of skiing a black diamond run in control. The key is a good level of control because of the variable powder terrain that is often windblown and changeable.”
Dave Christmas Heli-Skiing
Heli-skiing really spread its propellers in the early nineties when fat skis first changed how we skied deep powder and built our confidence. “It began to bring a broader market,” Porter says, “and took some of the macho out of the image. Heli-skiing took on more of a holiday feeling, as opposed to an extreme challenge.” Women are heli-skiing in greater numbers than ever before. Porter says 22 percent of his clients are women. GCH is offering a special “Wanted Women Week” next March. Porter’s company is the only boutique working the Selkirks and Purcells, largely because Wayne Bingham, Great Canadian’s original owner, joined the industry relatively soon after the pioneering heli-ski cadre that included Hans Gmoser, and later Wiegele. Porter bought the company five years ago. The Selkirks and Purcells were the original heli-skiing mountains, long favored because of their interior location with drier snow (as compared to the coastal ranges) and their prodigious amounts of snow (as compared to Alberta). The heli-skiing mountains are partitioned into territories, with the allocations of runs based on licenses of occupation that do not overlap. Great Canadian flies A-Star Eurocopters. These are small, powerful, comfortable helicopters designed for mountain flying with high hour mountain-trained pilots supplied by Canadian Helicopters, the largest helicopter charter/company in Canada. The helicopters hold six: four guests, a guide, and the pilot. As many as 8 to 12 runs are possible for the three GCH groups daily as the copters work in a leapfrog manner. Guests stay at the Heather Mountain Lodge in Golden, BC, 3.5 hours from Calgary. The craftsmanship and design are reminiscent of an earlier era. Massive fir and larch beams are pinned together with oak and mahogany dowels and the exposed age old joinery techniques are a tribute to the timberframe craft. Two immense riverstone fireplaces warm up the ambiance. The dining room offers panoramic vistas of the Selkirks, whetting appetites for further adventures. The gourmet meals are described by the chef as French-Mediterranean. The lodge is rustic, and the guest rooms are designer decorated, each with a private bath, queen beds, and postcard window views. The lodge has its own heli-pad so no ski time is wasted on extra travel. Heli-skiing is big business in Western Canada, whether the companies are large or small. Approximately 28,000 skiers account for around 100,000 skier days with gross revenues topping $100 million annually, according to BCHSSOA. The local market is tiny, with only four percent of heli-skiers coming from British Columbia, so the destination business is brisk. A study by BCHSSOA shows that 53 percent come from the U.S., 35 percent from Europe, and 12 percent from all of Canada. GCH has zoned in on several U.S. markets where it receives significant repeat business. Skiers from Colorado, for example, make up 33 percent of Porter’s business, many from Aspen who have been long-time guests. “We’ve built up steady customers over the years and we have pockets of guests who come every year from the Lake Tahoe, Calif. area, New Mexico, Minnesota, and New York,” says Porter. The economic benefits in each of the BC heli-skiing regions benefit directly, with the value-added impact of almost $103 million. Individual spending is also a telling figure. The gross revenue per day of alpine resort skiers is about $52, while the heli-skier was spending $1,012. Of course, heli-skiers amount to only about two percent of the alpine skier days. Heli-skiing’s impact, however, is significant since it is one of few industries able to operate in these remote mountain regions, joining transportation, logging, and mining. In contrast, heli-skiing operations have a minimal environmental impact. The future is already here, Porter acknowledges. “Boutiques are probably the only operations that will continue to come on line and shorter getaway packages, like three days, will become more important, particularly from closer markets.” One way or the other - with 120 of your closest friends, or a more intimate gathering of four - heli-skiing remains a viable option for those feeling macho or those merely seeking a happy holiday in the snow.
- by Craig Altschul
Anthony A. Davis, Access Magazine: This is heli-skiing's Mecca
For the HeliSki of It
The Purcells and Selkirks, with peaks averaging between 2000 and 2400-metres are possibly the most famous ski areas in the world. This is heli-skiing’s Mecca, with B.C. boasting more heliski operations than anywhere else in the world.
By Anthony A. Davis
Photographs by Anthony A. Davis
Access Magazine September 2004
Canadian Helicopter Golden
“We’re gonna land there???” Four of us stuffed into the back of a helicopter for this day of heli-skiing in the B.C. backcountry looked at each other with an adrenaline-fed combination of schoolboy glee swaddled in adult apprehension.
The chopper was thwacking in on a mountain-top knife point that seemed to us a dicey, if not impossible landing spot. To our pilot Al Miller though-who flew hairy UN missions through the bullet-sliced air over Cambodian jungles in the ‘80s-the butter-knife edge that fell off in steep precipice on one side, but a ski-able pitch on the other, might as well have been a Wal-Mart parking lot.
Miller - who jokingly referred to himself as merely a “lift operator”-came in surgically to the 2,200-metre high ridge. He didn’t so much land as perform a gymnastic balancing act, the front of the chopper’s skids overhanging the cliff-side while we scrambled out extra-carefully under the rotor’s formidable blizzard.
Upon landing, our venerable guide, Terry Makos - the kind of guy who will chase after your five-dollar toque when the rotor-wash blows it off your head - exited first and placed his backpack near the chopper’s skid. As we’d been previously instructed to do during a safety session that included how to use the avalanche beacons under our jackets, we crowded around the backpack at each drop off like kittens at a bowl of milk: The closer to the helicopter you are, the safer it is.
Relieved of our gear, Miller lifted the chopper a few metres up and forward, then plunged like an Acapulco cliff-diver into the valley below, veering behind a mountain flank. It was a beautiful thing to watch.
This was just the third run of a sparkling winter morning with Great Canadian Heli-Skiing based out of Heather Mountain Lodge, 55 kilometres west of Golden, B.C. (www.canadianheli-skiing.com). But, with the A-Star chopper hop-scotching us so quickly to yet another new run after each powder-in-your-pants descent, we’d already lost track of where we were. All we four virgin heli-skiers knew was it was yet another grandiose peak in the gloriously beautiful Selkirk Mountains, and there wasn’t a “caution”, “merge”, “slow down!” or “watch for other skiers” sign in sight. And, of course, there are no map boards at the top of these runs. We’d been told Bigfoot was our first warm up run. But was this Little Matterhorn, Eat Your Wheaties, or Goats in Lust?
It mattered naught-the powder beckoned. In the stillness with the chopper gone, Makos, one of 14 guiding veterans working with GCH, gave us the run preamble - including loudly repeating the heli-ski mantra: Never, ever, ski past your guide, because just over the next ridge there just might be an unstable avalanche zone or nothing but air until you smack into the bottom of a ravine.
Fresh Heli-Skiing Tracks
We listened, gawked at the view glassy-eyed, clicked into our bindings, then refocused on the bowl below. The past winter had been especially generous to the Columbia Range, where the rugged, glaciated Selkirks and more gladed and hunched Purcell sub-ranges are separated by the thin thread of the TransCanada Highway. The mountains, each of the hundreds of peaks its own unique character, were slathered in the deepest coat of creamy powder seen in years. Below us, that sight every skier and snowboarder craves: miles of gleaming, billowy, trackless white stuff. In the glades, firs and pines were draped in such thick stoles of snow that wiping out in a tree-well could, if you don’t assume the correct face-down-fetal position, literally smother you in an instant dump from the branches.
Great Canadian has an exclusive license to 2,000-square-kilometers of widely varied terrain here near the base of Rogers Pass and Glacier National Park - no other operation can fly its customers here (besides, there’s plenty of rock for the dozens of heli operations in B.C.)
“Ski to the left of my tracks,” instructed Makos, and so, strung out a few turns each behind him, we yippeed on down the mountain. With us were two telemarking cousins from Montreal who’d seen a Warren Miller extreme-ski movie and followed his advice at the film’s end to not wait until next year to “ski your dream, book it now.” They found GCH on the net, booked in a minute, and after one run it was clear there would be no regrets.
Undulating down runs like Old Farts and Tush Time, our shins cleaved bow waves in the snow like a speed boat’s prow. The Atomic Heli-Star skis, almost as wide as a water-ski, which are included in the GCH package, keep skiers higher in the snow, making the skiing easier and increasing endurance so even a good intermediate skier should be able to tackle moderately steep runs. But falling in this kind of fluff is like falling into a well. Wipe out and it’s exhausting clambering onto your feet with your body sunk in powdery pit. Despite skiing on fatties, it pays to be fit enough to ward off the fried legs I got after just three or four of those long, sinewy runs.
Although Makos and the last skier in each group carry a backpack crammed with safety equipment in the event of an emergency such as an avalanche or bad crash, the one thing they didn’t pack was a fire-extinguisher. By lunch break of the first day, I was wishing for one to put out the fire that was burning in my legs. This is more a reflection on my lack of pre-conditioning than the degree of physical difficulty on heli-skiing on fat skis, although it must be said that you should be, at worst, an average skier conditioned to putting in at least four hours of pretty rigorous down-hilling in a day.
Still, the self-inflicted torture resulting from my lax pre-conditioning was worth it. For even to the semi-serious skier, no line by Picasso, no curve drawn by Rembrandt or Renoir, can match the priceless symmetrical squiggles of fresh ski tracks in deep maiden snow. Yet Calgarians (and Albertans) generally leave this neighbouring white canvas for others, like visiting Americans, to paint with their Rossignols, Salomons and Volkls. Coloradoans make up 40 per cent of the clientele at GCH, with Californian residents close behind, something owner Greg Porter, 31, a Mississauga transplant, finds a little perplexing. “It’s the old case of people not realizing or enjoying what they have in their own back yard,” he says.
That’s something he and his wife Maaike, who owns the other half of the joint operation-the graceful, timber-framed Heather Mountain Lodge, aim to change. To do that, the couple have both reinvented the heli-skiing concept and added a shorter three-day package to their scheme to lure Albertans to their alpine play land.
“This is what you call a boutique operation,” explains Maaike, just 25, when she and husband, Greg took over the lodge and heliski operation in 2000.
“The classic heli-skiing operation is 11 skiers to one guide, traditionally all loaded up into a big Bell 212 helicopter,” she says. Great Canadian Heli-Skiing pioneered the use of a smaller whirly-bird, Eurocopter’s A-Star, to take smaller groups - maximum four skiers to a guide - to the Columbia Range’s hidden slopes. The six-seater A-Star is like a BMW to the Bell’s 14-seater bus. Faster, more agile, the A-Star can take skiers to places the lumbering Bells can’t.
A speedy chopper is not the sole appeal of a boutique operation. As a board member of goggle-maker Smith Sport Optics, Chicagoan Gary Edidan has skied many mountains, and done the heli-thing more than most. He finds the smaller ski groups, like those that fly out of Heather Mountain Lodge with GCH, superior, he said, sipping a post-ski iced-chai and still steaming from the 7,000 vertical feet he cruised that day. “The pacing is better, there’s more intimacy. When you go with the traditional operations, with 11 skiers to one guide, you always have the sense of being rushed.” And the sense of having a mountain to your self is diminished, he added. “For an advanced skier, this is the epitome of skiing; it doesn’t get any better than this.”
The boutique set up also allows GCH to better group skiers according to ability, so there’s less likelihood skiers will be pressured to over-ski their abilities trying to keep up with others.
At the Porters’ operation, the maximum number of guests is limited to 24, and, when there is a full house, two choppers continuously ferry a maximum of three groups each to their own mountain sides with a synchronicity that ensures very little waiting time, if any time for the next ride at the landing sites.
The Purcells and Selkirks, with peaks averaging between 2000 and 2400-metres (9,000 to 11,000 ft) are possibly the most famous ski areas in the world. This is heli-skiing’s Mecca, with B.C. boasting more heliski operations than anywhere else in the world. The Americans may have their higher 4,000-metre peaks, but they come to Canada’s western ranges because choppers simply can’t service those higher altitudes.
SIDEBAR
To lure Albertans, the Porters decided to add a three-day heli-ski package to the operation. “There is a trend to shorter holidays, especially with younger people, like guys in their mid-30s,” says Maaike. The three-day heli-ski packages include accommodations in the simple, clean motel-like rooms (where you’ll likely be spend little time next to the lodge); hearty buffet breakfasts, bag lunches on the mountain, gourmet dinners such as melt-in-the-mouth prime rib in rosemary-au-jus, halibut with tequila salsa, or medallions of buffalo; use of deep powder skis; 13,110 vertical metres of skiing over three days, and as many soaks as you need in the hot tub. The three-dayers, retailing from $3,520 to a high-season $4,500 plus taxes, is more suited to those Albertans looking for a short holiday or long-weekend getaway to experience the kind of skiing most people only dream about.
Scott Willoughby, Denver Post: Heli-skiing downsizing for more intimate, safer experience
The Great Canadian Heli-Skiing company uses six-seat A-Star helicopters, above, for their operation, taking up four riders per guide to terrain near the border of Canada’s Glacier National Park. The Selkirk and Purcell mountains of British Columbia are renowned for dry powder snow, below, that falls well into the spring.
Powder play
Heli-skiing downsizing for more intimate, safer experience
By sports@denverpost.com
Scott Willoughby
Special to The Denver Post
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
GOLDEN, British Columbia - Awaking to a bluebird dawn at the base of Rogers Pass, the sun glints off the surrounding crown of Selkirk Mountain peaks and reveals a blanket of freshly fallen snow. My second day at Great Canadian Heli-Skiing proves a far cry from the first.
The day before had been divvied up in near equal parts skiing, studying and salivating as we were intermittently grounded by a storm. Skiers and snowboarders were systematically grouped by ability level and body weight before we were meticulously instructed in the finer points of avalanche safety and the ground rules designed to ensure the whirring rotor blades didn’t thwack off any wayward skis or stray appendages as we piled in and out of the spry A-Star helicopters.
We managed some quality skiing during that stormy orientation, but this was another day altogether, a day holding the promise of powder and big-league Canadian vertical. Breakfast is consumed through manic, adrenaline-fueled grins, equipment loaded and, only moments later, we are buzzing up Rogers Pass between the Purcell and Selkirk mountain ranges and into the vast, icy wilderness along the border of Canada’s Glacier National Park. Our pilot eases down atop an open powder bowl and we slip out the door, ducking into a huddle as the helicopter leaves us to behold this alpine paradise.
From the farthest reaches of the 800-square mile Great Canadian Heli- Skiing permit - a lengthy slope known as “Eggs Benedict,” 12 miles from the base lodge - we take in the expansive Selkirk Range towering higher than 11,500 feet, as well as Columbia Peak, the “Apex of the Continent.” One-upping our own Great Divide, runoff from the Columbia Ice Field flows to the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.
It seems almost unfair that there are only four of us admiring the infinite majesty atop Eggs Benedict, but that’s the way things work at Great Canadian, a somewhat undiscovered Golden-based outfitter pioneering a new business model it refers to as “boutique” heli-skiing. Making use of the smaller six-seat A-Star helicopters and limiting skiers and snowboarders to four per guide (24 per day), the boutique model results in a more intimate skiing experience that maximizes vertical and safety by minimizing downtime and exposure to hazards. The 100,000 vertical-feet mark is easily achieved in less than four days.
“I would never say our product or our mountains are better than anything else, but the small groups we ski in are what differentiate us,” Great Canadian owner Greg Porter said. “It’s the intimacy. Why do people go to the mountains? To escape the crowds. We just take it to the next level.”
The Selkirks and Purcells of interior British Columbia are among the most famous skiing mountains in the world, particularly among that hard-core element of powder skiing enthusiasts who travel the globe in search of perfect snow. With copious amounts of light, dry powder snow falling well into the spring, spectacular scenery and immensely diverse terrain, the ranges draw skiers the world over.
The region has proven especially popular among Colorado skiers, with Great Canadian attracting 40 percent of its business from Coloradans taking advantage of a two-hour flight from Denver to Calgary. Among them is former University of Colorado ski racer Dave Hoff of Woody Creek. Hoff, who claims more than 10 million vertical feet of skiing in British Columbia since 1967, is a regular to the Rogers Pass area and has sworn off helicopter skiing out of anything other than an A-Star.
“It’s a totally different experience than skiing with the bigger helicopters,” said Hoff, 65. “The quality is dramatically better and it’s intrinsically safer because you have a lower ratio of skiers to guides and you are not stringing skiers all over the mountain.”
Skiing these mountains is not the adventure in first-descent peak bagging or “slough management” you find in places like the precipitous Alaskan Chugach, but big avalanches do occur on Canada’s continental snowpack, such as the shocking slide in January that took the life of snowboarding legend Craig Kelly and six others in the Selkirks. All told, 13 of 19 clients on a ski tour led by veteran mountain guide Ruedi Beglinger of Selkirk Mountain Experience were buried in the incident, suggesting there were perhaps too many people exposed to the danger of a potential slide at once. Although Canadian outfitters are quick to point out the differences between ski touring and helicopter skiing, the overlapping potential for catastrophe is obvious, particularly within the standard business model of renowned heli-skiing operators such as Mike Wiegele’s and Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) that make use of larger-capacity Bell 212 helicopters.
“Backcountry heli-skiing comes down to guides managing groups of any size, but having smaller groups is just a better scenario for a variety of reasons,” Porter said. “Fewer people are exposed to potential avalanche hazards, groups are easier to manage and lines of communication are improved.”
The logistical realities of guiding a large group in the backcountry can pose a clear and present danger. With as many as 120 people sharing terrain on a given day in a traditional heli-skiing scenario, it’s common to have a dozen or more skiers at the bottom of a run when the next group begins its descent. Spreading clients out takes time and disrupts the flow of the ski day. But in the wake of the deadliest avalanche season in modern Canadian history, commercial operators and clients are reexamining the archetype, with many new outfitters choosing to shuttle smaller groups in A-Stars like Great Canadian.
“It’s more personal and a much safer scenario to be in a small machine,” said Peter “Swede” Mattson, owner of Bella Coola Heli Sports, now in its second season. “We’re not exposing people to hazards and have more control over groups. If there’s a weak link in a group, it’s much easier to change things around.”
Bella Coola is among a handful of similar boutique operations to open following the Great Canadian model within the past two years, and industry insiders expect the trend to continue.
“The large tour groups have done well for 30 years, but by increasing the amount of personal attention that a guide has per guest, I think we are improving the product,” Porter said. “It’s a new philosophy and no doubt a positive thing.”
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