What kind of terrain will you ski? Well, that depends. What’s your favourite? We’re sure to have plenty of it.
Experience
Our Terrain
Located in Canada’s snowiest spot, our terrain has something for everyone—whether you love steeps, bowls, mushrooms or halfpipes.
Welcome to the birthplace of heli-skiing. We didn’t invent it ourselves, but we’re honoured to lead heli-skiing tours in the mountain range where it all began.
When you see our terrain for yourself, you’ll understand why heli-skiing started here. The interior ranges of British Columbia—the Selkirk and Purcell Mountains—have it all: phenomenal amounts of light, dry powder snow, great flying conditions, tens of thousands of square kilometers of wilderness, and ideal skiing weather. And Great Canadian Heli-Skiing is fortunate to have an exclusive licence to a vast 50- by 45-kilometer piece of prime heli-skiing terrain across the Selkirks and Purcells. We operate along the northern and eastern borders of Glacier National Park, just west of Banff National Park and the Canadian Rockies. The area is 14 times larger than Whistler-Blackcomb—or, on a European scale, bigger than the whole of Les Trois Vallées’ ski domain. Come explore with us.
- Terrain size: 2,250 square kilometers
- Ski run licence: 700 square kilometers
- Average run length: 1,500 to 2,500 vertical feet (460 to 760 metres)
- Longest run: 6,232 feet (1,900 metres)
- We usually ski at an altitude between 9,000 and 5,500 feet (3,000 and 1,833 metres)
- Our highest peak: 10,100 feet (3,078 metres)
- Average down days: just two per season (to compare, other regions in BC average one per week)
The snowiest place in Canada
Welcome to the world-famous powder belt
Year after year, we see huge quantities of snow—up to 46 feet (14 metres) of super-light, dry, blower powder each winter. It often falls overnight, when temperatures and humidity dip—making our snow some of the driest on the planet. The result? An untracked powder paradise for you to explore, day after day after day.
Steeps
Our Favourites: Bridge Too Far, Blonde Ambition, High Adventure, McTight
For aggressive, expert heli-skiers, these runs are a great challenge. The best time to experience our steeper terrain is December through early February, when it’s snowing heavily and we do lots of skiing in our glades and burnt forests. This terrain is also perfect for those skiers and riders who like to jump off stuff, as there are plenty of covered logs, rocks and small cliffs from which to catch some air.
Open Alpine Bowls
Our Favourites: Gay Divorcee, Back Alley, Goats in Lust
Most of the bowls we ski are in “the alpine,” meaning the area above the treeline. The helicopters will usually land on a ridge at the top of a bowl. Then a nice, steeper pitch leads to a wide open run. We usually ski the bowls on sunny days, especially from February onwards.
Glaciers
Our Favourites: Perfect, Nordic, Cornice
Snow-covered glaciers often offer wide-open runs—so if you’re timid in the trees, this is your kind of terrain. The slope angle is gentler, and the skiing more “cruisy.” Guests can rack up huge vertical when we ski this type of terrain, which is best from late February to early April.
Glades
Our Favourites: Velcro, Smoke Creek, Buffalo Wings
Ahhh glades…one of our best types of terrain. Glades are forested areas where the trees are more openly spaced, making it much easier to ski through them. Conditions are often best in the trees, since the snow is protected from wind and sun. We ski our gorgeous glades from the start of the season until it begins warming up (at which point we move above the tree-line).
Mushrooms & Pillows
Our Favourites: Malicious, Bodacious, Drop Zone, It’s All About Me
Expert skiers love our myriad mushrooms and pillow lines. These tall stacks of snow have accumulated over objects like rocks and tree stumps.
Burnt Trees
Our Favourite: Burn, 40 W, Charcoal Sketch
This landscape is wild and ever-changing. As recently as 2017, we had wildfires run up the mountain sides during hot summers. One of the few upsides of these natural fires? The terrain they leave behind. Tree trunks are left without branches, offering great reference points during low visibility. They also protect the snow from wind. Many epic days have been had in our burnt tree terrain—in fact, for some guests, it’s all they want to do.
Explore it all with us
Why we’re your best bet for a #BestDayEver in BC
Our terrain is world-class—and we want you to experience it all with us. It’s not just that most of our backyard is exclusively ours to explore. It’s also our lodge’s incredible proximity, both to a major international airport and to the powder that brought you here. Not every heli-skiing operation has a heli-pad steps away from our lodge—but ours is. Even better? Our closest heli runs are just a minute’s flight from our lodge, which helps us keep our down days remarkably low—and helps you make the very most of every available hour. With unlimited vertical, you’ll have plenty of skiing available, but why waste a minute? And did we mention our small groups? They make us nimble—so you’ll spend less time waiting and more time doing what you love.
