The gods are not happy. At least that's who I'm blaming for our current situation. Skiing down a glacier at the end of a day-long tour, as far into nowhere as you can get in B.C., our group battles winds that howl so hard they blow us back uphill. Dirt from glacial moraines scours us like a super-sized sandblaster, and warm temperatures have melted anything remotely resembling powder, turning great skiing conditions to marginal at best.
For Eric Ringdahl, today is a welcome party gone south. The 38-year-old American businessman has been working in the cat-ski business for more than a decade, ferrying skiers into virgin territory on tank-like vehicles known as Snow Cats.
Now, after years of navigating red tape, he has landed the rights to run a heliski service in the heart of the Coast Range -- 1,800 square kilometres of glaciers, snowfields and remote valleys. Named after the Pantheon Range, a collection of peaks in the area, Pantheon Helisports takes clients deep into one of North America's most dramatic landscapes, filled with skiing opportunities that rival any location on the planet.
Ringdahl's vision marks a new trend in the B.C. heliski industry. Well-established operations such as Canadian Mountain Holidays have cornered the market for large-scale commercial heliskiing, where groups of up to 40 skiers share the use of a single helicopter, skiing mainly on well-established runs. But newer operations such as Pantheon, Mica Heli Guides, Bella Coola Heli Sports and Snowwater Heliskiing are emphasizing smaller helicopters, with a maximum load of four skiers and one guide.
Mica Heli Guides, for instance, hosts no more than 12 clients a week in a remote lodge in the Rockies, 130 kilometres north of Revelstoke. It focuses on skiing, not five-star digs or gourmet food. "We don't farm snow -- we ride it," says Darryn Shewchuk of Mica, whose 80,000-hectare operation enters its fourth season this year. "We're going for the more hard-core skier who likes the steeps and the trees and wants to ski as much of that terrain as possible."
Under the shadow of B.C.'s highest peak, 4,019-metre Mount Waddington, Pantheon Helisports carries skiers to runs that average a staggering vertical drop of 1,500 metres. The snow pack is deep and light; glaciers cling to massive mountainsides at every turn, and towering peaks crowd the sky itself.
To get started, Ringdahl has invited a pro skier, a photographer, a cook, two world-class guides and yours truly for a week of exploration and adventure. The goal is to create a genesis story of sorts, establishing runs and strategies before Ringdahl opens his business to paying clients.
Starting on the 1,550-metre north face of Mount Pagoda, with a gale driving plumes of snow off its summit, I can't help thinking that the resident mountain gods -- Mount Zeus is close by -- are up to something. But Ringdahl won't have any of it. When I ask what he's feeling as we push ourselves off the glacier and into the shelter of a band of trees, he says, with a smile, "This is one of the greatest days of my life."
Just the day before, we had loaded our provisions and gear into a Bell Long Ranger helicopter for the 20-minute flight from Whitesaddle Ranch on Bluff Lake, a three-family settlement three hours west of Williams Lake that will serve as Ringdahl's base of operations. There, guests will stay in cabins and eat and socialize in a beautiful log home owned by Dave King, who, with his brother, Mike, owns Whitesaddle Air -- for more than two decades the only link to the area for climbers, skiers and film crews (K2, Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun were all filmed here).
Mike King, who has a deep knowledge of the Waddington region, is considered one of the best helicopter pilots in the province. (He learned the landscape and how to fly from his father.) From a remote campsite, we tour an area known as Five Finger Creek, familiarizing ourselves with the region's snow pack and weather patterns before calling in another chopper with famous Whistler-based mountain guide Scott Flavelle.
It seems our circumnavigation below Mount Pagoda on Day 1, with all the wind and struggle it presented, was a test. Out of nowhere, a storm blows in from the Pacific, depositing 20 centimetres of snow as temperatures cool to a perfect minus 15. We awake to a landscape that has returned to winter. Our guide, John Buffrey, pulls out his satellite phone and makes the call. The helicopters are on their way.
The next three days are spent in a virtual dreamland. While Ringdahl and Flavelle fly over the area to map potential runs, the rest of us roam where our hearts desire.
Each night, we fly back to Whitesaddle Ranch, where the Kings share their hospitality and their family's legacy of backcountry adventure. We are the first skiers on many of these mountains, and the novelty is something everyone is excited about -- especially Ringdahl, who gushes to the group about the conditions we've been blessed with, and how they went from terrible to perfect overnight.
The mountain gods must like us, we agree -- they just needed to get something off their chests.
Pack your skis
GETTING THERE
Pantheon Helisports and Bella Coola Heli Sports both include return flights from Vancouver in pricing. The closest airport to Mica Heli Guides is in Kamloops (kamloopsairport.com), a two-hour drive from Revelstoke. Guests travelling to Snowwater Heliskiing can fly to Castlegar (castlegar.com/airport) from Calgary or Vancouver on Air Canada Jazz. Pickup for transportation to their lodge is in Nelson, a half-hour drive from Castlegar.
TOUR OPERATORS
Pantheon Helisports: 1-866-404-4354; pantheonheli.com. Business Class packages (eight people sharing one helicopter) start at $10,500 a person per week. As with all operators listed below, shorter trips are available. A HeliAssist trip, which includes two lifts a day, starts at $4,995 a person per week.
Mica Heli Guides: 1-877-837-6191; http://www.micaheli.com. Week-long packages ($9,550 a person) include heli-skiing, food, lodging, and transportation from Revelstoke.
Bella Coola Heli Sports: 604-932-3000; http://www.bellacoolahelisports.com. The "Big Mountain" program ($6,680 a person per week) includes transportation from Vancouver, heli-skiing, food and lodging.
Snowwater Heliskiing: 1-866-722-7669; snowwaterheliskiing.com. Five-day trips ($5,000 a person) include heli- and cat-skiing, food and lodging.
