On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
StringOnAStick
We recently returned from a trip to a backcountry ski lodge in the Monashee Mountains of interior B.C., Canada. There are a lot of these lodges now, where you fly in via helicopter and spend your days with licensed ski guides doing what I explain as “hike up and ski down” skiing, not heliskiing, a significantly more expensive sport plus my husband and I like the hiking up part. There are plenty of heliskiing and snowcat skiing lodges too if you aren’t into the climbing uphill thing and have a lot more cash to spare. After 4 days to a week or however long a holiday you booked, the helicopter comes back and returns you to where you left your car, while a new group of eager skiers rotates into the lodge for their turn.
We used to do one of these trips every winter, but 8 years ago there started a long hiatus due to illnesses and losses in my husband’s family. We were invited to join some folks we had met over 18 years ago on one of these trips, so we agreed. These are popular enough now and with pent up demand from Covid and the favorable (to US citizens at least) exchange rate that you have to book a year in advance now. We enjoyed our trip but we also realized that now that we are retired, we don’t need to (and shouldn’t for many reasons, one of which is the helicopter aspect) spend this kind of time or money, and when we retired we moved to a town in central Oregon that lets us take advantage of excellent backcountry skiing when conditions are good, so there is little need to “vacate” from the life we’ve built here. Still, it was nice to do one last ski lodge trip to B.C.
This trip started with a very heavy snowfall on a very thin, drought conditions snowpack so it was tricky skiing given the hidden rocks and tree tops. The first few days were very snowy or foggy, also tricky conditions due to poor visibility but we did get some sunshine and settled snow by the last few days.
I included this one just for informational purposes. This shows my husband taking his climbing skins off his skis as the last light of day fades away. Climbing skins are like “directional velcro” sheets that have a reusable glue and attachment hardware that you stick to the bottom of your alpine touring skis; they allow you to easily walk uphill on snow. When you reach the top of your chosen downhill run, you take off the skins, stash them in your pack, lock your heels down in your multipurpose specialized ski bindings and now you have the same thing as a typical downhill skiing set up, but the skis are specially designed to be much, much lighter because you do have to drag them uphill for every downhill run. Most alpine touring ski setups include specialized light but strong ski boots that have special fittings that are part of the alpine touring ski binding so you can have as light a ski/boot combo as possible while sacrificing as little performance as possible. The gear has gotten so good that I’d say very little is being left on the table as far as performance goes now.
Some days you left the lodge and climbed upwards to start the day, and other days you first went downhill and then put climbing skins on to get to the top of the next run but on the other side of the valley. The goal is always to find fresh powder snow to ski. Most days involved 3 to 6 miles of travel and usually around 3,000′ of climbing during the day though one big day was closer to 4,000′ on this trip.
We had a day of glorious sunshine after several of valley fog, so we took advantage of that and went to the higher parts of the lodge permit area. This is the line of folks working their way upwards, professional ski guide providing trail breaking and proper slope selection services. These ski guides are amazing athletes; they are carrying food, water and space clothing like we all do, but in addition they have full rescue gear and can spend a night out with a guest if they get injured too late to get a helicopter in for a rescue before darkness falls, so their packs weigh upwards of 35 lbs. They also do all the trail breaking, and when we first landed they were doing this in new snow that was over 2′ and in some places 3′ deep. These are professional, working athletes who are also snow scientists and always incredibly hot skiers. Becoming a certified ski guide in Canada is a lengthy (multi year) and difficult undertaking; people’s lives are going to be in their hands and this is taken very seriously by everyone involved, especially the licensing authority. Training to become a guide is no guarantee that you’ll ever pass the extremely difficult exam process; some never do and move on to another career.
This is more art than skiing; with a moon high in the sky and shadows from the tall, thin, conifers making for an interesting abstract pattern.
Similar view to the last, but now you can make out the fog rising up from the valley in the left side of the photo, and better make sense of the tree shadows from the prior photo. The only trees at this altitude are subalpine fir.
The peak in the distance is skiable on the left flank when the snowpack is much deeper and when avalanche risk is low, but otherwise it is best admired from afar. The trees are subalpine fir at this elevation, the highest elevation tree type in this area. They are perfectly adapted to this high snowfall environment, growing in a very narrow but tall shape plus having branches that exhibit low turgidity in winter so they droop and shed snow easily, but high turgidity in the summer, when they become stiff and slightly higher than horizontal so they can gather as much sunshine as possible. One night on a bathroom run I looked out the window to see a half moon glowing and three trees closest to the lodge gently swaying in the wind across the face of that bright moon; gorgeous!
These are the trees I saw swaying in the moonlight, but as the sun was rising the next day and the day we were set to fly back to our car and start the drive back home. It’s a short hop in a helicopter to a place that is unreachable otherwise in the winter months due to it being so far from any road or access point. In the summer, this lodge can be reached for mountain biking or hiking after a few hours on a 4WD logging road, which is when heavy materials and consumables that can be stored are brought in for the winter months. Helicopters are very expensive so what is brought in and out on every flight is monitored for weight and if it is actually needed or not.
This is the helicopter used to make the guest transfers to the lodge, the pilot is giving the safety briefing that is required before anyone gets on board and he fires it up again. The wire basket behind him is where the skis and poles are carried, the doors behind the people compartment are where the guest bags and backpacks plus fresh food are carried. The capacity is 1 pilot, 5 guests per transfer. Guests are limited to 20lbs in a soft sided duffle for easy stuffing into the odd shaped cargo bay, plus their backpack and you arrive and leave in full ski clothing plus ski boots (bring slippers for inside the lodge) because it is more than a little chilly on the ride in or out. Our group also brought in 2 guitars and 1 ukulele (mine) but we were allowed to carry those on our laps. We had a violinist too so we had some fun jazz performances and some alt folk as well; such a great time.
The helicopter ride is where the biggest danger of these trips lies, because weather is always a factor, and let’s face it, helicopter rides involve some risk. We have flown in during snowstorms but if it is foggy, no one flies because that is how they end up flying into the side of a mountain. Sometimes it requires finding windows and holes in fog to fly through and picking your way based on recognized landmarks, but thankfully we’ve only experienced that once and you could feel the tension rising.
This is why we do this: my husband having a great, deep powder run. It’s a bit dark because it was very cloudy this day and since it was the week before solstice, the sun was very low in the sky even at mid day. It ight be dark but you can see that the fresh snow was very deep that day.
This is what the slopes look like after a group of 6 powder hounds have had a chance at it, and what these trips are all about. The tracks in the foreground are from the various critters in the area, including a pine martin who ran off down the trail in front of us one morning after getting rousted from the sauna building.
Baud
Winter wonderland!
eclare
Fascinating. This is another world to me as I have never skied.
raven
Just wow!
Baud
@eclare:
I’ve skied once, in adulthood. I wish I had learned to do it as a child.
eclare
@Baud: At this point I’d be too afraid that I would fall and get injured if I tried to ski.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Beautiful shots and lovely writing.
JanieM
Wow.
Baud
@eclare:
That’s how I feel whenever I get out of bed.
eclare
@Baud: Hahaha…
Kevin
We just got back from skiing at Copper but this is a whole other sport it seems. We had 3-4” of fresh powder the second day. I can’t imagine being waist deep in it. Looks awesome though!
JPL
The pictures are beautiful, and I’m glad you shared them.
Miki
Amazing! Thank you for sharing this with us – truly amazing!
cope
Spectacular trip, photos and story, thank you. Back in the day I did downhill skiing and cross country skiing but never combined them. Amazing.
Thanks again.
Steve from Mendocino
Very nice photos. Still doesn’t make me want to ski again. My last trip to Sun Valley 40 years ago I’d take the three lifts to the top at about 11;00, grab a bowl of chili and then ski the top runs for the hour that the ski schools had lunch then ski down the mountain and catch a bus back to the lodge. I was in the outdoor pool with my partner and a bottle of wine by 3:00. Too cold and too much work for this wimp despite having started skiing at 8 years old.
Wag
Spectacular. One of my great loves is powder skiing. I hope to one day make it to Canada for a helicopter ski trip!
Torrey
Really wonderful pictures! I particularly liked #3, the abstract shadows on the snow. If the moon were more apparent, that would be worth framing. In fact, even as it stands, it looks like something that would look good framed.
Ken Cox
Watergirl, thank you for this article. I really enjoyed it.
My son and his wife have started into the back country ski lodge business. They are into their second year of operation. It is a huge amount of work (and worry) to own and operate this type of business.
If you ever change your mind about doing another lodge trip give them a look at Dezaiko.com. They would love to see you.
TKH
What a trip down memory lane! My parents met backcountry skiing in the Ötztal valley in Austria. I learned backcountry skiing in the army while serving in the Mountain Division. My buddies and I spent every weekend during the season climbing on skins and downhilling in valleys in Austria and Northern Italy, just a few hours from where we were stationed. Powder happened on occasion, but snow in the alps is more of a crap shoot than champagne powder in the rockies.
Great photos! I am green with envy!
mvr
Thanks for these. That abstract photo is really nice! I imagine the night sky is wonderful there as well.
What elevation is the lodge at? I imagine that the further North you go the less high you have to be to experience snow like this.
Pine martins are cool!
Yutsano
SNOW!!!
The mountains really are majestic when they’re coated in their white beards. Count me as one who can’t ski but loves that kind of weather.
StringOnAStick
@Steve from Mendocino: What you describe is why I haven’t bought a ticket at a ski area in almost 20 years, though we do sometimes climb up our local ski area on their specified route when backcountry snow conditions are poor but we still want the exercise. I’m used to skiing with very few people so ski area crowds stress me out.
I’m turning 65 this year and had both my knees replaced almost 4 years ago, and thanks to those new knees I’m skiing better than I have in probably 10 years. Skiing (and everything else) without mind numbing arthritis pain has given me my life back!
StringOnAStick
@Ken Cox: Actually, I wrote this post; Watergirl handles taking the On The Road submissions and getting them posted. I will look at your son’s lodge though because never say never!
knally
I never have and never will go skiing so this is a wonderful peek into another world for me.
StringOnAStick
@TKH: Love your stories! My husband has done a couple of haute route trips, but I didn’t join him because they were before I had my knees replaced and I knew the typical Alps conditions would mean lots of very painful skiing. I put off the replacements for years by only skiing powder conditions and never skiing in the firm snow of ski areas. I love going to Europe though for any reason!
StringOnAStick
@Wag: Powder is the holy grail!
StringOnAStick
@Torrey: I’m going to see how good this looks slightly blown up because I do want to frame it. I’m glad I upgraded to a better phone because of the better camera!
StringOnAStick
@mvr: The lodge elevation is 1900m, so around 6,000′ plus or minus. You are exactly right that being farther north means it doesn’t need to be as high to get this kind of deep snow. We have been to a lodge that is at the crest of the Canadian Rockies, so about as high as you can get. Once the guide got us up to the actual divide, at around 10,000′ and was very proud of how high we were since that’s higher than any other Canadian backcountry lodge. My husband smiled, looked at him and said “this is where we park in Colorado”; the guide looked a bit stunned and then we all laughed about it. At the time we did live in Colorado and that was the elevation of the parking lot we started at, and once it was spring conditions we would ski on the 12,000′ to 14,000′ peaks. We now live at a lower elevation and ski at the elevation we used to live at; one of our concessions to age was moving to where we could play at lower and less cold elevations.
That pine martin was pretty cool, he was deciding just how far he had to run and kept us in sight long enough to decide when we were far enough from the lodge that he could go back to where he had been hiding out there.
As you noted, the light up there is incredible. The sun was very low in the sky but the air is so clear and the angle of the sun really brought out the texture on the mountains.
Ken Cox
@StringOnAStick
Oops, my apologies for getting that mixed up.
In any case I hope you have a great season filled with powder turns. There’s nothing quite like it.
way2blue
Climbing 3000′ in powder alone is an amazing feat. Skins or not… Reminds me of climbing the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado—chasing after my 5-yr-old son. Two steps up, one step back. Thanks for sharing a glimpse into remote backcountry skiing.
StringOnAStick
@Wag: Try looking into snowcat skiing operations in Canada, it’s cheaper than heliskiing and you can get out and ski no matter the weather. Heli operations can easily get shut down by the valley fog common to the lower valleys where you are staying, meaning you are paying big bucks whether you get to ski or not. Much safer too.
StringOnAStick
@way2blue: With skins on your skis there’s no backsliding so it’s tons less work than climbing sand dunes. I hear you though, in deep days with heavier snow it can be a lot of work.
BigJimSlade
Some really beautiful scenes!