mustang powder - Dr. J and Mr. K

˚ MUSTANG POWDER
The Sophisti c
BY GEORGE KOCH // PHOTOS: RYAN CREARY
T
here’s a phase in any ski trip when a certain mood sets in. You feel
right in it; you’re convinced this is 100 per cent of what life is. The trip’s
commencement two days ago is distant and hazy history. The end lies on
an obscured horizon, existing in mostly theoretical terms. You live in the
moment, for the moment. And when the moment consists of innumerable
instances of immersion into and explosion out of more than a metre of powder,
you really do feel like you’re living in paradise.
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i cat
At Mustang Powder, everything reinforces
this self-constructed reverie. At lift resorts,
reality—crowds, traffic, concrete, roads—
has a nasty way of thrusting itself into your
experience. But at Mustang, deep in the
Monashee Mountains—that “deep in” being
a cliché if it weren’t so true—reality got left
far behind, either on the long snowy logging
road or the steep grind by snowcat up the
mountainside. Up here, the universe consists of
skiing, getting ready for skiing, resting up from
skiing, riding up the mountain in a snowcat
to do some more skiing, drinking beer while
waxing your skis, lounging around, enjoying a
massage or hot tub—and talking about skiing,
or dining after skiing. And finally, going to
sleep looking forward to more skiing.
And what descents. It’s hard to think of a
bad place in B.C.’s burgeoning world of snowcat
skiing. The concept on its face is amazing: take
a large preserve of carefully selected terrain
located in one of the province’s numerous
snowbelts, build a lodge and a network of
trails, and then spend all winter prowling this
terrain with one, two or at most three snowcats
catering to 12 to 40 or so very lucky skiers. You
need a barrelful of superlatives to describe such
an experience.
Still, within this world, for reasons of terrain,
weather and the personalities of the owners,
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›
there are greater and not quite as great places.
And the standard keeps going up. A couple of
years back I wrote that Chatter Creek, in the
Rocky Mountains north of Golden, B.C., was the
new gold standard of snowcat skiing. Following
my visit to Mustang Powder late last February,
where I rendezvoused with photographer Ryan
Creary and Ski Canada editor Iain, I have to say
that Mustang equalled that challenge. Perhaps
it even raised the bar a tread-width.
✦✦✦
Fourteen of us have just hopped out of the
snowcat’s cabin and are engaged in the usual
routine of peering about in the slight dizziness
and bewilderment that comes from taking
numerous twists and turns in a confined space,
then suddenly having to lunge for our skis
and attempting to avoid being the last one
ready. Nick Holmes-Smith pulls me aside and
starts gesturing to the south. The founder and
owner, along with his wife, Ali, of Mustang is
intensely proud of the vast, 125-sq-km domain
he was lucky, canny and persistent enough to
lease from the B.C. government.
From our wooded ridgetop we look across
another rippling forested shoulder to a pair of
peaks rising on the horizon. A broad couloir
shoots between them, and other lines twist
and curl amid massive rocky features. It looks
straight out of the Alps. It’s Anstey Peak, a
mini-massif that forms one corner of Mustang.
Awed, I stumble a few steps in that direction,
as if I can bring it within my grasp. But it’s
something that must be left for later in the
season and better snow stability.
No matter. Nick, a lifelong passionate skier
who regularly tail guides, brings up the back
of the group while the guide, Wade Bashaw,
leads us through a screen of tight trees. It
had been the only night of our visit when it
didn’t snow, and this morning the Monashees
are simply sparkling, as if the mountains and
trees and snow themselves are feeling impish
and want us to know it. With good light and
some settlement of the previous snowfall,
we’re in for a treat.
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Wade proudly presents to us Carnivale,
a huge open slope that descends, ramplike, at an almost impeccably even 36 or so
degrees for, well, for a long way, basically
for a whole run’s worth of turns, since I can
spot the pick-up track far below. Nick shoots
down first, the crafty devil. Our compatriots
are fellows from various fields of business in
Calgary, aged in their 40s through 60s. Dave,
Rob, Warren and the rest push off one-by-one.
They’re solid skiers to a man, experienced and
enthusiastic snowcat regulars. They bop up
and down in the perfect snow, feet together
in classic powder skiing style, cranking their
turns as if each would earn a dollar.
At this point I had to recall my then-recently
published Ski Canada item on short versus long
turns. The article argued that despite what you
might see in today’s ski movies, both new- and
old-school style retains its place. Such as in the
mostly tight trees we’d spent the previous day
navigating with guide Heidi von Schoening.
But here on Carnivale, I thought, a wide-open,
manfully pitched slope with unexcelled snow
and dazzling light, was there ever a better
setting for long turns?
I pushed off, letting my brand-new Atomic
Sugar Daddies accelerate to a whooshing
rush, then casually pushed my feet out to
one side. They ate up the slope in about twodozen exhilarating turns. I merely rode along.
Carnivale was, without question, my finest
snowcat-skiing run. Seeing this shamelessly
self-promotional performance, Wade caught
›
Cat facts
GETTING THERE: Access via meeting point at
the Skyline Esso in Malakwa, on the Trans-Canada
Highway near the site of where CPR officials
hammered the last spike, 28 km east of Sicamous
and 44 km west of Revelstoke. Transfer to lodge
(about two hours) via school bus with big tire chains
and snowcat.
NEAREST AIRPORT: Kelowna, an easy two-hour
drive, has daily non-stop service from Toronto with
WestJet as well as Vancouver and Calgary with
several airlines. Powder Air has scheduled charters
from Calgary to Revelstoke on Saturdays.
SNOW AND TERRAIN: Mustang lies in arguably
Canada’s snowiest zone, and records an amazing
average of 2,000 cm falling in a typical season.
Mustang’s leasehold covers approximately 125 sq km.
LODGING: All guests stay in the luxurious and fully
equipped, three storey timber-frame lodge (there’s
no day-skiing). Single- and double-occupancy rooms
with private baths.
CAPACITY: 24 guests, two operating snowcats.
Mustang has purchased new snowcats for this
season.
PACKAGES: Three-, four- and five-day packages
available, with prices of $450 (low season) to $750
(high season) per day, inclusive except ski rentals,
alcohol and gratuity.
MORE INFORMATION: 888/884-4666 or
250/679-8125; www.mustangpowder.com
nearly a decade ago. This was Monashee
Powder Adventures, also in the Monashees,
but to the south, closer to Vernon. Nick and
Ali, along with their subsequent partners
Tom and Carolyn Morgan, built Monashee
into a popular destination (featured in the
December 2001 Ski Canada).
Already during my visit to Monashee nearly
six years ago, Nick was secretly eyeing some
higher, bigger, steeper and more remote
terrain to the north of the Trans-Canada
Highway between Revelstoke and Sicamous.
Some of his friends had gone ski touring
in this region, which had somehow been
overlooked by heli-skiing operators and,
unlike some areas, was not subject to a native
land claim. Soon after that Nick and Ali began
the arduous regulatory process.
Today, Mustang is the embodiment of their
collective experience and values. And it shows
in innumerable details. Like the well-designed
drying and changing area right by the main
If each turn was worth a
dollar, Wade would have
been hard-pressed to buy
a six-pack of beer.
the drift of things and proceeded to hurtle
down, consuming nearly as much of the slope
as the rest of the group combined. If each
turn was worth a dollar, Wade would have
been hard-pressed to buy a six-pack of beer.
Although it was a singular descent, these
450 vertical metres made up barely onetwelfth of our skiing day. Nick, as I said, loves
to ski, and he knows his guests do as well.
A big day at Mustang brings 6,000 vertical
metres or even a bit more. Although last
winter was only Mustang’s first full season of
operation, Nick and Ali are highly experienced
operators. The couple, who are also
passionate (ex-Olympian) equestrians and
operate a ranch near Chase, east of Kamloops,
founded another snowcat-skiing venture
entrance. And placing the lodge not down
in the valley but high up in a basin at 1,770
metres. The results are a stupendous view
of the Monashees, a short opening snowcat
ride before the first run each day, and the
ability to ski back to the lodge at day’s end
throughout the season. The lodge is remote
enough to create the requisite wilderness
atmosphere, yet still within a reasonable
shuttle time from the highway. The multiwinged, three-storey, timber-frame and
wood-sided lodge offers some of the finest
overnight digs in snowcat-dom.
Nick’s a big believer in providing a full
skiing day, so everyone’s rousted from
beneath their comforters at 7:00 a.m.
Actually Nick pretends he’s on Mountain
Standard instead of Pacific Time, so the day
really kicks off at 6:00. The point is to put in
a full eight hours out on the mountain. Some
of the terrain is quite remote, like Mustang’s
broad glacier set amid two vast alpine
cirques (which also breaks the Chatter Creek
monopoly on glacier terrain).
This is where we were led on our next
to last day—that time when skiing seemed
to fill my universe—by Sylvain, another of
Mustang’s guides. The views, from gigantic
icefalls on the main spine of the Monashees
all the way to distant peaks of the southern
Cariboos far on the western horizon, were
simply stunning. The glacier itself was big,
wide and long. It added still another element
to Mustang’s terrain, resulting in a variety
more reminiscent of a small helicopter-skiing
area than the pure tree-skiing that’s standard
in the snowcat world.
Despite the glacier’s mild pitch, I was
almost quivering with excitement. Skiing this
zone brought us within grasp of Mustang’s
most remote terrain, the fabled North Shore.
It’s the sort of terrain whose mention causes
voices to drop into a reverential whisper,
even among the guides. Those whispers had
yielded little information beyond that the
North Shore was north-facing, steep and
long—some of my favourite adjectives. It was
said to be even better than the Snake-area
runs, terrain I had glimpsed from Carnivale
and that nearly knocked me over. Sadly, time
and avalanche instability kept us from skiing
the North Shore.
It was an avid item of discussion back
in the lodge. Dominic Baker, Mustang’s
young sommelier and barman, was keeping
us well-supplied with cunningly chosen
B.C. wines. Meanwhile, Art and Brian, two
excellent powder skiers from Courtenay on
Vancouver Island, had brought along a huge
bag of freshly caught prawns from their
home waters, which they kindly cooked up
as an after-skiing snack. Pretty much all
the guests had gathered round. The other
snowcat consisted mostly of fellows from
Saskatchewan—proving, if nothing else, that
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˚ POWDER COWBOY
not all Saskatchewan skiers exclusively
do roadies to Whitefish, Montana. As we
discussed our various descents, as well
as the ones that got away, the ones we
saw looming in the distance and the
ones that for us existed as yet only on
the topo map tacked to the wall in the
guides’ room, we all agreed that it was
great to be skiing at a place that held
enough terrain for multiple visits’ worth
of exploration.
I awoke on what I would only later
admit was my last day at Mustang, still
deep in denial, imagining myself a staff
member (dishwasher, chimneysweep, ski
waxer), or perhaps clad in my special
new “Gore-Tex of invisibility” that would
allow me to ski forever. It had snowed
all night, hard, and waves of enormous
flakes continued to smother the lodge.
The air virtually crackled with electricity,
and half the guests could barely down
their breakfast.
I’d been itching to ski something really
steep, and while a massive snowfall is
usually the time to dial things back in the
backcountry, Sylvain was governed by the
same impulse. We started on a run called
Epaule: it was fairly steep, fairly treed and
the snow was fairly deep. For the rest of
the day all that really changed were the
adverbs preceding steep, treed and deep.
The adverbs progressed from enthusiastic
to frenzied to completely out-of-control,
illiterate and largely unprintable.
On several descents I found myself in
that singular combination of gradient
and snow quality that fused one with
gravity, not so much skiing as performing
a sustained controlled fall in a breaking
wave of snow, bringing earthbound man
as close as he can come to a bird in flight.
At times the snow was one to two, yes
two, metres deep. Our universe became
a dimly lit, greyish world of old-growth
forest—only God and Sylvain knew where
we were, or the names of the runs. In
the occasional open break the new snow
would almost instantly sluff and we’d ride
waves that seemed to gather to two to
three metres of depth, accelerating down
the fall line like those anvils dropped into
cartoon canyons, until ducking some huge
cedar. It was utterly ridiculous. And it hurt
to leave. Badly. ❄
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The Funky C
BY LESLIE WOIT // PHOTOS: HENRY GEORGI
T
here’s a feline expression for pretty near everything you might come
across on your cat-skiing journey. Catnip, the nibbly treats they
keep in the snowcat while you’re skiing. Catgut, which occurs when
you eat too much of their delicious food. Kitty litter, the snowballs
tossed up by the blades of the snowcat that make stopping in a
hurry tricky business. And, of course, cat-a-logs—the really nice wideopen runs you only get in clear-cuts.
y Cat
› Cat
facts
SNOW AND TERRAIN: Powder Cowboy’s 2,500
hectares of terrain receives an average snowfall
is almost 900 cm. Each day, guests get 8 to 14
runs, about 3,000-4,000 vertical metres of bowls,
open slopes and tree-skiing, with the longest run
762 vertical metres.
CAPACITY: 12 guests and 2 guides for each of
two snowcats.
ACCOMMODATION: Guests stay at the Bull
River Guest Ranch, consisting of 8 guest cabins,
a hot tubs and sauna cabin, and the Big Horn
Saloon with dining room, bar and massage
rooms.
PACKAGES: $952 for 2 days, low season only;
$1,785-$2,025 for 3 days; $2,380 to $2,700 for
4 days. Prices include all meals, accommodation
and powder ski/board rental.
MORE INFORMATION: 888/422-8754;
www.powdercowboy.com
At Powder Cowboy, about 45 minutes west
of Fernie, I’m riding upfront in Princess, the
name the guides give the cat when either
of the operation’s two cat-girl drivers are
at the wheel. From the warm bucket seat
of the cab, I get a bird’s-eye view of the
goodies to come. “When I was little, I loved
dump trucks,” admits Kelly, enthusiastic
about driving the machine in all weathers
and winds. “When the snow is flying, the
cats are like little fairies floating across the
mountain. And these jobs don’t come up
often—I was lucky.”
Maybe, but as the ones who get to jump
out and ski away, we feel even luckier. With a
skiable terrain of almost 2,500 hectares and
average runs this day of about 350 vertical
metres, the powder between the heavily loaded
snow ghosts is knee-deep and very sweet.
Kelly wields her machine nimbly around
a corner in the snow road, a corner only she
can see, disguised in an all-white blanket of
whiteout as it is. Communicating by radio,
a few moments later she waves to Libby, at
the helm of Princess II, as they rumble past
each other in the field. Big flakes are now
chucking down.
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Powder Cowboy is all that’s great about
B.C. backcountry skiing. Its terrain is wild and
heavily treed. Its dude-ranch lodge is rustic
yet decidedly cool. Its staff is winningly warm
and friendly. And it snows here like stink.
That morning, as all 24 guests—mostly
young, male and several looking as if they
have a little something cooking in Silicon
Valley—met for orientation and transceiver
practice, up marched one of our two guides
for the tour, armed with a smile and a bear of
a handshake. “Hi, guys, I’m Kyle. I’ll be you
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guys’s tail gunner today, eh.”
The Siliconers displayed no evidence of
difficulties decoding the Cranbrook dialect
and the day officially began.
After a short drive to the staging area and a
thorough transceiver practice, Kyle and Darcy,
our lead guide (also a Crannie boy), led us into
the first of many untouched light-as-air powder
glades we would ski that day.
Through the soup of a low-cloud layer, Darcy
pointed out where the Lizard Range—and
Powder Cowboy’s more famous corporate cousin,
Island Lake Lodge—sits about a kilometre or
two to the east. The two cat operations, as well
as Mica Heli Guides, are owned by the same
company. I asked Darcy about the difference, if
any, between the two operations.
“We’re home-style over here,” he declared
proudly. “The Island Lake guys are the fashion
boys.” He made the no-pretensions point
by surreptitiously playing a killer rendition
of “Smoke on the Water” on his Avalung.
The Siliconers didn’t appear to notice the
most famous four-chord riff in rock-and-roll
history that’s reverberating through the fir
trees around them with delight. I followed
the kazoo-tunes through the glades, with the
powder washing up over my thighs.
A few runs later, at the crest of a handthinned forest, we met up with Russ Beddell,
the former owner who started the operation
in the ’80s under the name Snowmuch Fun.
When we asked about the new name, Powder
Cowboy—a lot of people do, it seems—Russ
explained it was a “management decision.”
“They wrote down all the words that they
associated with this”—he waved his pole
across a horizon of snow-laden evergreens and
a valley of fresh powder—“and that’s what
they came up with.”
The cowboy moniker certainly makes
sense down at the lodge. Driving in from the
highway, first you have to hunt behind an
old sawmill (Powder Cowboy has yet to gain
permission for proper signage), then hack
your way 17 km up a pretty hairy logging
road. We arrived, expecting banjos at the
ready, and instead found charming log cabins
heated with pot-belly stoves, a beautiful
lodge with a funky open kitchen, wireless
access, stables with horses, llamas, goats—
and a genuine Powder Cowboy welcome.
As our day continued, we racked up a
satisfying dozen runs. On the last cat-crawl
down to the pickup, over a final catnip of
snacks and drinks, we chatted about the
perfect powder and the comfort of cat riding.
Just about then, despite the ambient warmth
inside the cabin, I noticed my derriere was
feeling cold—and wet. Sitting next to me,
fast asleep with his drink now spilled over my
pants, my darling tree buddy, Karl, had added
a new word to the lexicon. After a long day
of riding like cowboys, we all deserved a good
catnap. ❄
AD
˚ SELKIRK WILDERNESS CAT SKIING
The Original Cat
BY LESLIE WOIT // PHOTOS: DOUG LE PAGE
P
art thing of nature, part manifestation of man’s creativity,
Selkirk Wilderness is the original home of cat skiing. And what
a beautiful home it is.
It was seeing a modified snowcat shuttle
in Aspen Snowmass in 1965 that planted the
seed for Canada’s first-ever cat operation—
and all the dozens that would follow.
“My dad thought, why can’t we do this
with a snowcat?” explains Rachel, the 20year-old daughter of cat-ski pioneers Allan
and Brenda Drury. “And then he went heliskiing with Hans Gmoser and thought, why
can’t we do this with a snowcat instead of a
helicopter?”
Why can’t we indeed? It turns out we
can—and for the last 31 years they have.
Deep in the Selkirk Mountains, 1,800
metres above sea level and with terrain the
size of Whistler and Vail combined, two
groups of 12 clamber into two snowcats
for the 9:00 a.m. powder departure. As we
gaze out the slightly steamy side and rear
windows, a scene of deep-snow wonder is
gradually revealed. The mountain tableau is
sublime—and it’s one that took the eyes of a
geologist, the touch of a physiotherapist and
the hearts of two passionate skiers to create.
Some 30 years on, it’s still the life’s passion
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of Allan and Brenda Drury—and it shows.
“This is my first time here but for me
the big difference is Allan, the owner,”
says David, an investment banker in
Minneapolis. “He’s full of passion and
stories all night and then he’s up in
the morning filling the granola bowl at
breakfast. Inspiring.”
People here are evangelical about the
call of the cat. This week, most of the
guests are attached to one loose group,
the godfather of which has been coming
to Selkirk Wilderness for two decades.
Members have collected
over the years from Chicago
to Boulder to L.A., making
Meadow Creek, B.C., their
powder mecca. The level of
enthusiasm the guests have for the folks
who operate the place have only one other
possible source of competition: the skiing
itself.
“Our terrain is challenging and varied,
with a great range of open bowls, ridges
and trees,” observes Selkirk’s long-time and
beloved guide Heidi. “Because Allan started
this 31 years ago and had an amazing eye
for terrain, he had the pick of all the heli
and cat land that was available. He picked
the best.”
And on this morning, it felt as if we had
the pick of the best of the best. Meadow
Mountain, our destination on a sort of
massif that forms some of the principal
AD
› Cat
terrain of Selkirk Wilderness, has a myriad of
faces and 360 degrees of options—tree skiing,
high alpine with big bowls and ridgelines, and
chutes as steep as 45 degrees. Our first run is
on Rolling Thunder, deep roly-polies blanketed
in knee-high, lighter-than-air powder. On
Lightning Ridge, we ski a new area opened
three years ago. Powder Surge is a blood-rush
of trees, glades and bouncy pillows—600
metres of untracked vertical run after run.
“We’re only working about 20 per cent of
our terrain today,” says Heidi as we wait a
few minutes for everyone to emerge from the
glades and regroup on one of a network of cat
roads that incise the slopes. Looking around,
it seemed as if we could ski days in the
same area without crossing tracks, all in that
effortless and savagely fast dry powder snow
for which the area was hand-picked.
As the day went on, the powder seemed
to get better and better. The rhythm of the
five- or 10-minute cat rides up provided the
perfect downbeat to the highs of the long
runs. Snacks and drinks rotated and a tasty
backcountry lunch was served in the cozy
few square metres of delicious warmth and
convenient conveyance of the cat. Heidi
shared jokes and expertise. From her top
technique tips (“Don’t sh** your turns,
f*** them”) to a laugh that could advance
global warming by a thousand years, she is a
treasure the guests both respect and adore.
Over dinner, one man recalled how a sevenmonth-pregnant Heidi once effortlessly yanked
his helpless carcass from the depths of a tree
well—one-handed.
After skiing, everyone variously decamps
to the outdoor hot tub, the pool table or
the lounge. Santana and Janis Joplin waft
through the lodge as guests mix their own
martinis behind the bar, and beer and wine are
lined up in the fridge on an honour system.
“Having a bartender would change the whole
atmosphere,” explains a guide methodically.
It’s the atmosphere at Selkirk Wilderness
that comprises the alchemy of the
1/2 Ad
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facts
CAPACITY: Maximum 12 skiers per group, 24
skiers per week. Two or three guides per group of
12 and deep-snow skiing instruction.
PACKAGES: Packages include five days of
skiing, Monday through Friday, six nights’
accommodation (double occupancy) and all
meals that begin Sunday evening with dinner
and end Saturday morning with breakfast.
Depending on snow conditions, you’ll ski 3,000 to
5,500 vertical metres per day (seven runs varying
in length from 300 to 1,200 vertical metres).
If requested, transportation is available from
Nelson to Meadow Creek on Sunday afternoon,
returning to Nelson the following Saturday
morning. Prices from $3,190 to $4,140.
MORE INFORMATION: 800/799-3499, www.
selkirkwilderness.com
experiment. Three decades ago they put
diesel in a snowcat, chugged up a mountain
and skied down through the powder. Why?
Maybe just because it beat walking. But
now, a generation and a whole way of
life later, there are so many other good
reasons to do it, too. ❄
T
ISLAND LAKE LODGE ˚
The Fancy Cat
BY LESLIE WOIT // PHOTOS: HENRY GEORGI
O
oh, ahh, look how deep it is….” And we weren’t
anywhere near the powder yet. I was cooing over
the bathroom.
With a few notable exceptions, you have to drive a long way in B.C.’s
backcountry to find a claw-foot tub with a width-deep sandalwood
accessory rack, flanked by California blinds and attractively backlit by
recessed pot lighting.
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Sumptuous mountain chic. It’s evidently
a strategy that the Island Lake chiefs have
embraced as their own. Over a smooth,
slightly peppery bottle of Pinot Noir in the
pleasingly minimalist trendy dining room,
one of the guests explains the attraction.
“It’s nice to be together with a group of
friends and not have to worry about where
you have to be or where to go for dinner,” he
says. “You feel like you’re camping in a very
luxurious way here.”
And, of course, the campsite itself must
not be forgotten—2,025 skiable hectares
(owned, unusually, by the company rather
than leased) of prime Lizard Range terrain in
the Rockies, with 10 metres of snowfall per
year sprinkled all over it. “You don’t have
to worry about getting first tracks—coming
here takes the pressure off.”
Pressure—or its absence—is one of the
biggest differences people cite between catskiing and heli-skiing. In a cat, you may
get where you’re going more slowly than
in a helicopter—but you still get there.
As one long-time heli-skier rather harshly
put it: “Helicopters are noisy, cramped and
expensive. I can see why people want to go
cat-skiing.”
Island Lake is located just minutes from
downtown Fernie, in the southeastern
corner of B.C. Its original investor lineage is
impeccable: Scot Schmidt, the late boarder
Craig Kelly, Glen Plake and Greg Stump.
Started almost 20 years ago, it’s now owned
by the same company as nearby Powder
Cowboy Cat Skiing and Mica Heli Guides near
Revelstoke. The names may have changed,
however, the terrain that first attracted some
of the sport’s most revered athletes and
photographers remains the same.
“We’ve got ridgeback, bowl, ridgeback,
bowl, ridgeback, bowl, on and on,” declares
Steve, our lead guide, with a wave of his
pole across a few kilometres of crenellated
whiteness. Originally from North Vancouver,
strapping Steve has been guiding here
for nearly 10 years and exudes an aura of
authoritative friendliness.
“The old man said I could make a living
out of playing hockey but never from skiing,”
he recalls. So Steve duly quit skiing and
moved to Fernie, spending summers tree
planting and even enjoying a brief stint
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living in the Island Lake parking lot—in the
days those kinds of things were possible.
Finally, enough was enough and he set his
cap to becoming a guide. It was a circuitous
route but, after the stellar day that he was
about to give us, one thing was obvious. The
old man oughta be proud.
Steve sits upfront beside the driver in the
comfy cat. In the back of the cab our rear
guide, Jaimie, chats easily with the group
of 12. We’re an assortment of skiers and
boarders, Americans and Canadians, including
a lovely young couple from Toronto who were
just engaged the night before. “They are so
great up here, they organized the champagne
and a private dinner in our room,” Graham
enthuses. “I had booked it before I’d decided
to propose so it wasn’t part of the original
plan.”
The primary plan of everyone here was,
of course, the powder. In addition to being
newly engaged, Alexis and Graham were also
first-time cat-skiers. For both first-timers and
old-timers, the Powder Plan was developing
beautifully—despite being severely tested
by nature.
Thanks to recent heavy dumps—a metre in
a matter of hours, not days—the snowpack
was unstable, so the guides were having
to be extra-cautious and a little creative.
˚ GREAT NORTHERN SNOW-C
The Feral C
BY LESLIE WOIT // PHOTOS: RYAN CREARY
› Cat
“We’re not going to shut down the program,”
announced Steve. “We’re gonna bomb the
shit out of it.”
During the course of the day, under
glorious sunshine and moderate temps, the
occasional boom of explosives can be heard
in the distance. We head up a snow road to
Elevator, a beaut of a long run that will dump
us out at the road up to Mount Fernie. All the
roads travelled by cat here are man-made in
snow, coming and going from the choicest
pitches the range has to offer.
Two cats were working different areas
of the terrain, delivering us in 10- to 20minute rides to some of the most perfectly
spaced glades I’ve skied. White Wolf, Hackles,
Howling Coyote… After the invention of
various lifts—including, of course, the
snowcat itself—man-gladed skiing must be
one of the best examples of how machinery
can improve the experience. Island Lake’s
efforts (thanks in no small part to Steve, his
mates and a few chain saws) to create the
necessary width for easy powder turns, while
retaining trees for protection and stability,
makes it a dedicated hero-zone. Combine
that with an evening of Hungarian Moor Mud
Wrapping available in Island Lake’s spa and,
well, if you can’t look good here, you just
might need a new hobby. ❄
facts
GETTING THERE: Island Lake is nestled in the
Rockies near Fernie, B.C. Calgary is 3-4 hours away.
Closest airport is Cranbrook, an hour from Island
Lake. Transfers can be arranged from airports. Cat
pickup is 3 km north of Hwy 3 near Fernie.
SNOW AND TERRAIN: More than 2,000
hectares of skiable terrain and 10 metres of
snow annually. Each day consists of 8-12 runs,
approximately 3,500-4,500 vertical metres.
CAPACITY: Maximum 36; 3 cats of 12 skiers and
2 guides each.
Rates: $1,668-$2,550 for 3 days; $2,780 to
$3,100 for 4 days. Prices include all meals,
accommodation and ski/board rental.
MORE INFORMATION: 888/422-8754;
www.islandlakelodge.com
W-CAT SKIING
l Cat
N
o signs or billboards will
mar the scenery on your
rugged journey through
the Selkirks toward Great
Northern Cat Skiing, B.C.’s secondoldest cat operation.
No signs or billboards will lead the way either.
It’s that kind of place. You have to want to
get there. Or you have to have been there once
before, like most of Great Northern’s guests.
After taking the ferry across Galena Bay and
driving around ineffectually for more than an
hour, we end up in Nakusp, at a pay phone,
whose operator could find no listing for either
Great or Northern. In the end, we slink into the
CMH heli-ski office and ask for directions.
After backtracking down a side road,
cleaving through an airborne wall of fat
snowflakes in the twilight, we finally alight
on Trout Lake, where a crusty gas station
attendant tells us to turn around and go back
where we came from—“to where the road turns
from paved to dirt.” That the road is covered in
a half a metre of new snow, and gaining by the
minute, is academic to her. We clock two km on
the odometer, et voila, the snow-laden ShangriWINTER 2006
» ski canada
77
La of ’70s cat skiing: Great Northern.
We are greeted warmly by Charlotte, the new
hostess, and shown to our rooms and given a
short tour around the many-roomed lodge.
“Is there just the one cat here?” I ask.
“Yes. One cat, no dogs,” she replies
deadpan. How amusing. There must be many
more cat jokes to come.
“You’re not allergic, are you?” she asks.
Pause. More jokes is right. Except now she’s
looking concerned.
“Where is the cat?” I ask, trying to keep up.
“She sleeps in the shed.”
✦✦✦
Great Northern was opened in 1979 by
Brent McCorquodale, not long after his friend
and fellow cat-ski pioneer Allan Drury started
Selkirk Wilderness Cat Skiing down the road.
“When I asked Brent about its beginnings,”
one of our group tells me with a chuckle,
“he said he was looking for a way to make
some money.” Presumably, with nearly three
decades under his belt, it’s having the desired
effect. The lodge is full, the heavens are
dumping and tomorrow is filled with promise.
The next morning, we awake excited to
see yet more snow—another 18 cm of fresh
powder had fallen overnight. Our group of 16,
78
ski canada »
WINTER 2006
plus guide Brent and rear guide Todd, all pile
into the Pisten Bully, the interior of which
is velour padded with contrasting padded
buttons like a red and silver love van. I found
myself looking for the bumper sticker on the
back of the cab. You know the one: “If this
cat’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.”
The cat does rock, to be sure. Ours fairly
grooves to the soundtrack of one of our fellow
skier’s home ski videos, which he plays for us
on a portable DVD machine. Being a repeat
Great Northerner, he knew the first ride up to
the booty was at least an hour and half long so
diversions, or a long nap, are welcome. Some
play cribbage, while an orthopaedic surgeon
reads “Robin Hood” in a large-print hardback.
When we finally arrive at the top, we are
adrift in a sea of white. Deep powder white as
far as the eye can focus.
“If there’s anything you need to know,
I’ll tell you,” says Brent, clicking into his
remarkably long, thin, old skis. Pause.
“There’s not much to know.”
And off we go into Morning Glory, a
meadow of soft, slightly weighty snow that’s
over the knees. He’s right, of course, there’s
not much to know. But there’s quite enough to
ski. Average runs here are in the 500-verticalmetre range, according to Todd. Our first
warm-up runs are about 300 metres on several
choices among the bench terrain off the top.
“We’ve got lots of rolling, lots of naturally
gladed runs,” he explains in the cat on the
way back up. “A few nice tree lines but not a
lot of steeps.”
It suits most in the group, all competent
skiers and a few powder novices. We ski
Blender, PB Corner and then S-Turns through
lovely well-spaced trees with deep snow and
wide-open lines. There’s 75 sq km of terrain to
ski here and Brent has put his stamp on this
bit of Selkirk backcountry, much in the way
one feels it’s put its stamp on him.
At a break in the action I ask him how
long he’s skied on his pointy old Völkl 205s. A
glacially long pause ensues.
“Quite a while.”
“Ever tried the new fat ones?” Snow begins
to pile up on our heads.
“I got these figured out. I don’t need to
change.”
“Laconic would be the way to describe
Brent,” offers one Kiwi guest. “The food at
cat ops isn’t gourmet but that’s okay, I’d
rather the skiing be the gourmet part of the
experience.”
Evidently, Brent runs Great Northern the
way he wants—and it’s a style that coincides
happily with the way his many repeat guests
want it, too. Some of the guests here for the
week have been finding their way two km
short of Trout Lake for 15 years, driving all
day and night from Minnesota and beyond for
their annual Great Northern fix.
“I feel safe with Brent because he’s been
here so long,” remarks one.
Which might be almost as long as his
skis. ❄
› Cat
facts
LOCATED: One-and-a-half hours south of
Revelstoke near the town of Trout Lake, B.C.
SNOW AND TERRAIN: Annual average
snowfall is 1,500 cm. Guests have access to 75
sq km of expansive and varied terrain.
CAPACITY: Two guides accompany a group of
16 skiers.
Packages: All packages include meals,
accommodation and skiing. Three days, $2,235$2,930; six days, $4,265-$4,970.
MORE INFORMATION: 403/239-4133 or 800889-0765; www.greatnorthernsnowcat.com