There’s a major difference this year which is that my friend Karsten Schroeder whom I went with last year had an Achillies Tendon problem before we left and couldn’t come so it’s just little old me on my tod here.  A bit lonely sometimes but the skiing is fantastic.

I flew into San Francisco on Thursday night to see a client on Friday morning in Sacramento and then flew up to Vancouver from SF.  Then a little plane up to Smithers in BC.and then a long truck drive got me to Bear Claw Lodge late on Friday night.  Quite a trip.

Bear Claw lodge is just about as remote as you can possibly get and still be on Planet  Earth.  Try zooming out on the map here to see just how far it is away from just about everything.   .  There’s something a little strange about being this far away from anything.  It is, however, amazingly beautiful.  The food is outstanding, the staff almost unbelievably helpful and nice.

The skiing out of Bear Claw is done by Skeena Heliskiing. I recommend clicking on that link, there are some great pictures and videos.  A hell of a lot better than the ones I’ve attached below.  Once again our guides were the fantastic Jake and Urs.

Saturday was a down day due to bad fog which was a shame.  Sunday was our first day on the slopes and we mostly did stuff below the tree line just because the fog was still around.  Skiing in powder through trees is quite a challenge – or at least it is to me.  It requires a certain lack of awareness of the consequences of one’s actions as you hurtle through trees on a 45 degree slope in deep powder. 

Monday dawned bright and clear.  I got to watch the whole dawn since I haven’t managed to sleep beyond 3am yet.  Skiing in Canada from Europe has a couple of tiny downsides.

It is hard to describe just how amazing the whole experience is.  So I’ll just stick a whole bunch of photographs and a movie here and that’ll probably say a lot more than I can describe in words.

Here’s the video

and here’s the photo album

Bear Claw 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Oh and while I remember, people have been skiing on these super expensive Zai skis. They are beautiful and very expensive.  They also look a bit funny.  And here is what a pair of $5000 skis (I kid you not!) look like after you’ve skied into a tree.

And, since I’m putting up funny pictures, I thought this poster in the ski repair room was just so funny.  I mean, it is a bit of a stretch getting a topless chick to wax a snow board to attempt to sell your thermal underwear (probably the least sexy garments on the planet).  And what’s with all that hot wax! Ski technicians are the same the world over!

So, that’s kind of it.  I probably won’t do more blogging this trip.  Having done it last year, there isn’t much else to say and even my best friends and family are going to get bored with endless pictures of virgin powder snow… And although I have my Go Pro Hero with me, I’m not sure 7 hours of video of me skiing bores me, never mind anybody else!

I hope the weather holds for three more days.  I think my body can hold out but I am gradually accumulating various body issues like a sprained wrist, a sore knee, and a sore throat.  This is physically very tough and I just need to keep going for another few days…

Although we’d been told that the weather today was going to be a bad day but the gods smiled on us and there was a small break in the weather around the lodge so we got in the helicopter and flew up to the mountains.

The weather in the mountains wasn’t good and the pilot had real difficulty putting the helicopter down at the top of mountains in a 25 to 30 knot wind.  We had been a bit spoiled by the nice easy windless days before.

However scary it was in the helicopter, the payoff was amazing. There had been 40 to 50cm of snow overnight and that meant that in places in the trees it was more than 100cm deep.  This was what everybody tells you about powder skiing in Canada.  Light fluffy powder blowing up over your chest as you ski through the trees.  There’s a phrase here which is “b*lls deep in powder” and that was literally what it was like.  At times in the wide open bits it feels like flying.  You jump off rollers or tree stumps and the landing is like jumping into feathers.  It’s hard work too especially if you end up on your arse (which happened to me a couple of times…). 

On the top of the mountain it was often a blizzard with strong winds and cold blowing snow which added to the feeling of really being as far from civilisation as you can imagine.  We got a little bit of a wake up call when we avoided an avalanche by a few metres.  It looked pretty small but Urs pointed out that there was probably 20 or 30 tonnes of snow in it and if anybody had got caught then we would have been digging…

I took some film from the helmet camera but unfortunately it was pointing too far down so all you can see mostly is my ski tips but here’s a very short video clip which gives you a good idea of what it is like.  Karsten also took some video from the end of his pole (don’t ask…) which gives you another perspective on what it’s like.  It’s actually pretty good.

And so, finally at 3pm, it was all over.  The weather was just too dangerous, the winds picking up and so we flew home. 

Strangely, now that there’s no more skiing to do, I am utterly spent.  Totally knackered.  In a good way but still completely done in.  I feel like I need 48 hours of solid sleep. 

So a couple of down days out of the 6 days here but this has been a truly amazing experience.  As I said in the first entry, literally indescribable in places.  In many ways skiing will always be a different sport for me now.

The Bearclaw Lodge is beautiful and the staff in the lodge are incredibly helpful and friendly.  The three guides that we skied with (Jake, Urs and Shane) were great skiers and safety oriented guides who were fun to be with.  I would come back any time I could.  Maybe March 2012… We shall see.

I thought the two days in Whistler were great (and they were great) but heli skiing here with Skeena at Bearclaw Lodge has been….words fail me.

Finally, of course, I have to thank Karsten Schroeder who said to me 9 months ago “hey, fancy going heli skiing with me?” and I said “yeah, sure”.  Karsten researched everything, booked everything and I just turned up for the skiing holiday of a lifetime.  I can’t thank you enough mate.  Let’s do it again next year.

So the rest of the afternoon was doing more email, reading books and drinking a rather nice red wine.  Could be a lot worse.

However, all is not lost.  I was given a marvelous pair of ski goggles by my family which have a built in GPS unit.  And a little head up display too.  I managed to work out how to upload the track and stats to the ReconHQ website.  So here are the stats for the days that I managed to remember to switch the goggles on.

Place	Track Link
Whistler Blackcomb	First Day at Whistler Blackcomb
Whistler Blackcomb	Second Day at Whistler Blackcomb
First Day at Bearclaw	First Day Heli Skiing from Bearclaw Lodge
Third Day at Bearclaw	Third Day Heli Skiing from Bearclaw Lodge

Ok, this is a bit geeky but the novel I’m reading is truly execrable so really had nothing else to do.

Gee, I hope the weather clears.

The day dawned very clear and sunny but after maybe 10 lifts this morning the fog came in and there will be a storm tonight.  We stopped at lunchtime after another brilliant morning.    Only 6000m of vertical descent and 40km of skiing.  Jake who is the lead ski guide says that at Bearclaw they on average have only six days down time where there’s no skiing in an entire season.  Another reason to come here often.

There’s little point me banging on again about how amazing the whole thing is here.  So, since we had a forced downtime I spent some time editing together the hours and hours of helmet camera video into about four minutes which is what one typical lift is like.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did skiing it.  Be thankful I didn’t upload hours and hours of video.  I was tempted…

Oh and to make up for the fact we were a little disappointed not skiing in the afternoon, Craig did another one of his river level “attack runs” on the lodge.  This is worthwhile watching just to get an idea of how good a pilot Craig is.  Boy did it feel cool.  Once again Craig chose the music from Top Gun to accompany the flyby.  I wonder if he’s got a thing about Top Gun…

Just finished another serious session with the masseuse.  I’m sure it does you good but at the time, it’s painful.  Dinner and then a sleep and then another day of fun.  Enjoy the videos.  More tomorrow.

Weather great, skied four or five mountains today.  Every one different, every one covered with virgin powder snow.  Incredibly tired since there’s just no rest.  You ski down 1000, 1500m in deep powder snow, get to the bottom and then it’s a 3 minute lift back to the top again by helicopter.  Every muscle in my body below my neck is sore.

Will write something better tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll have edited the video down to something watchable by then too.

Rather strangely and surreally, the entire place is full of German speakers or rather Swiss German speakers. I’m the only native English speaker in the place.  There are two guides Jake and Urs who take groups of four people up on the hill piloted by Craig who is the stunningly good helicopter guy (of which more later).  Urs looks and sounds exactly like Felix Gasser (for those of you who know who Felix Gasser is).

Everybody was knackered so it was a relatively early night.

We woke at dawn and had a very lardy breakfast while Jake explained the kit.  We all wear ABS rucksacks which have a ripcord which blows out airbags if you’re in an avalanche.  (see picture left of one of the other guests and Jake demonstrating).  We also got some instruction on tranceivers from Urs and also how to get in and out of the helicopter without getting our heads chopped off.

And so, at 10am, we took off for the first ride.  We were dropped at the top of a mountain and off we went. 

It is quite literally indescribable.  Even if you’ve heli-skied in Europe it isn’t the same.  90% of the world’s heli-skiing happens in British Columbia and it’s easy to see why.  You don’t just have a mountain to yourself, you have an entire mountain range.  There are literally no other tracks.  Just mountains and mountains and mountains of virgin snow.  If you’ve skied before then it’s like that one time where you found a bit of powder which wasn’t tracked and skied down it for 100m…but you ski for literally kilometres in snow just like that.  If you haven’t skied ever then it actually is indescribable.

And after you’ve skied for 1000m of descent and maybe 5 or 6km of distance, you arrive at a valley bottom and there is Craig in the helicopter waiting to just take you back to the top again.  And each lift takes you up 1000m and takes about 3 minutes.  We must have done 10 lifts today.  Total descent 9,800m which is approximately the height of Mount Everest.  More than 80km of skiing.  Not a single track to be seen, different bowls and mountains every time.  The sun shone, the snow was simply beautiful.  Acres of virgin snow sparkling in the sunlight.

Half way through the day we stopped in the snow, dug some tables and chairs out of the snow and ate soup and sandwiches in the sun and everyone just beamed at each other with the sheer joy of it all.

Some high points of the day:

1) the first run when I realised I could do 5km of deep untracked snow and wasn’t going to make a tit of myself

2) Skiing over a totally untracked field of snow and the sun striking the snow and making it sparkle like diamonds or stars

3) Turning fast in deep snow sets off a little avalanche (called slough – pronounced “sluff”) which you then ski through when you turn back into it again and it all gets out of control and weird in a good way.

4) Realising that when we got back to the helicopter we just did it all again over and over and over again

The only problem is that this just makes all other skiing look like a waste of time.  It is truly truly amazing.  I have never had a better day of skiing in my life.  Here’s a little photo album with some more better quality photographs.  Too tired to really prune them properly.

First Day Heli-skiing VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Craig is a stunningly good helicopter pilot and literally puts the helicopter down within a foot of where he wants it every time.  He does have a rule though:  he’s allowed to play whatever music he likes at super high volume during each lift.  So here are two videos but please note that the music is nothing to do with me! 

The first is a typical lift.  2 mins 30 and gives a really good idea of the scenery.  The end is quite cool but if you’re only going to watch one movie, the second one is the one to watch.

The second is Craig ripping it up a bit as we come back to the lodge.  Unsurprisingly the music is from top gun and Craig is zooming up a river valley about 5m above the iced up river and we all felt pretty bloody cool when we got home.

So, that was my first day heli skiing.  An unforgettable and amazing experience.  Hard to express just how happy I am. 

No helmet cam movies today because I thought I couldn’t be arsed to fanny around with it while I was worried about doing all this off piste stuff.  There will be helmet movies tomorrow (so to speak).

The following morning, I was up at 4am and went out in search of coffee.  No luck but got some email done and at 6am we ready to go.  Showered, checked out and waiting in line for “Fresh Tracks”.  This is  a special lift pass that you can buy which allows you to get a lift at 7am up to the top of the mountain with a few other hardy dudes.  Up there you eat a gigantic breakfast (see picture) and then ski before everybody else.  The breakfast was an unlimited cholesterol and sugar extravaganza with gallons of coffee.

We duly ploughed our way through the mountains of breakfast and headed out on the slopes.  It was outstanding. Truly beautiful.  The sun rising over the hills, completely empty slopes which had been beautifully groomed during the night.  The low angle of incidence of the light meant that the ice crystals coming off the back of skis created little tiny rainbows.  It was honestly just magical.  Unfortunately there hadn’t been any fresh powder snow but even without it, it was stunning.

Suitably warmed up and happy, we headed back up to the top of the last “double black diamond” left in the resort that we hadn’t done.  We had looked at it yesterday but chickened out…no wait…”had made a sensible and mature decision to avoid doing a risky thing late in the day.  Unsurprisingly, after a blissful few early morning runs in the sun both Karsten and I were feeling full of beans and so it just had to be done.

If nothing else, this run made me realise that there is nothing left to be scared of in terms of ski runs.  Nothing steeper, nothing harder, nothing more scary.  One throws oneself over a lip to land on a slope which has a sustained steepness of between 45 and 50 degrees for about 200m.  The snow was difficult, there are rocks on either side and beneath you.  Much steeper than this and snow just doesn’t stick to the rocks.  The fear factor is multiply enhanced by watching other people catch a little edge (like Karsten did yesterday) and tumble down the slope absolutely completely out of control, and by chance miss the rocks and roll out somewhere near the bottom.  But…two testosterone fired blokes, at the top of a run like that, what do you think is going to happen?  So we did it.  No slips, no mistakes and I can finally say that there’s nothing harder to do on a ski run. 

After that we did a lot of “glade skiing”.  Now this is where you ski through the trees.  Karsten is nuts this whereas I’m a bit more “ho hum”.  It is nice but it’s like skiing through a very difficult steep mogul field where every mogul has a big effing tree on top of it.

Then as a final treat we went right up to the top of Blackcomb glacier (and in the process rode up on a “double black diamond” SKI LIFT!!) and skied down a really pleasant 6.5km run.  Brilliant stuff. 

Now some tech stuff and equipment stuff.  I hired some really nice twin tip freestyle skis called Salomon Lords.  They’re pretty fat but good all round skis.  Karsten has these totally bonkers skis which are 160mm wide.  He loves them (see picture) and they’re supposed to be great in powder but they really are shit everywhere else.  There’s a fair amount of ribbing going on about this.

Oh and we crossed from Whistler to Blackcomb on the Peak2Peak lift which is the longest and highest of it’s type in the world.  It’s like the one in Kitzbuhel but longer and higher.  In the middle, the lift is 1427 ft above the ground!  And a few of the cable cars have glass floors.  Oh what fun.

I was given a great present for my birthday.  A pair of goggles with GPS built in.  How amazingly cool is that.   It tracks progress, distance, height, altitude, temperature, speed and shows you it all in a little display mounted inside the goggles.

So, the stats from yesterday were 72km of skiing in total and 10,500 meters of descent in a single day.  Not bad for two jet lagged guys…  The stats for today will be available when I can download the data from the goggles.  No video today because neither of us could be arsed to bother with it.

So we finished at 1pm, quick change, jumped in car and drove back down Highway 99 to Vancouver.  It really is a beautiful road.  Vancouver looks a bit worse during the day than in the evening and since I’m going to be spending a weekend there next weekend, I’m hoping it isn’t too boring.  Guide book says it’s fun. 

I’m typing this on the quite long flight from Vancouver up to Smithers which is the nearest airport to where Karsten and I are staying for the heli skiing.  It’s quite a long transfer from Smithers to the lodge we are staying in but once we get there I’ll post this.

I’m extremely excited and a little apprehensive about tomorrow.  First day heli skiing.   Eekk

So the first step was to get to Vancouver.  Karsten and I flew on a really hopeless BA flight out of London that was supposed to leave at 5pm and ended up leaving at 7pm which meant we arrived in Vancouver at 9pm jetlagged, slightly drunk (in my case) and with almost zero sleep.  For us it felt like 4am in the morning.  The heli skiing bit isn’t going to start until Saturday so we had about 36 hours spare so Karsten and I had decided to drive up to Whistler and spend a couple of days warming up. 

We hired a car after a huge amount of hassle and headed through Vancouver which looks like a pretty nice place even in the dark.  We then got on route 99 which drives up the coast of British Columbia.  This too is likely to be a pretty nice road although it was dark and we were tired and trying to keep each other awake.  We had a stop for McDonalds  in the most inefficient drive through McDonalds in the world although it was fun driving our four wheel drive car over their pavements and flowerbeds I guess.

Finally at about midnight we got to the Westin Inn in Whistler and sort of finally passed out at 1am.  We had to be up early to get skis and lift passes so luckily jet lag woke us up at 4am.  Also luckily Karsten is about as addicted to IT as I am so we spent a happy couple of hours writing emails and checking on work and generally being a bit obsessive about our jobs.  We also went out for a great breakfast at the only place in Whistler that’s open at 6am (called Gone – recommended).

Finally, we hit the slopes on the first lift at 8am and headed to the top of the mountain and picked the first “double black diamond” we saw in the “"Whistler Bowl” called “Lifties Leap”.  Sadly, Karsten’s very first turn in North America turned out to be a bit of a problem and our very first run was marred by Karsten tumbling 80m out of control down a massively steep gulley.  A bit of a confidence knocker that one…

However, by our lunchtime at 1.30pm we had done every double black diamond (the very hardest grade of unpisted run) in Whistler and many of the single black diamonds.  We were collecting diamonds as we went.  Some of these runs are the hardest I’ve ever done.  45 degree slopes, difficult snow conditions, steep and dangerous runouts.  However, it was truly a brilliant day.  Amazing skiing through the trees lower down which is a little like skiing the hardest mogul field you’ve ever skied but imagine a tree on the top of every mogul.

The weather was lovely, the very few pistes that we did were beautifully groomed, very quiet, the lifts efficient and well located.  Whistler calls itself the number one ski resort in the world and they actually might be right.  I’ve never skied anywhere better.

There were a few less good moments.  Karsten falling and my slight lack of ski fitness weren’t that good.  Also Karsten had an “accident” with one of his gloves which you’ll have to ask him about personally. 

I skied on fatboys for the first time which was a revelation.  Karsten has a truly bonkers pair of K2 skis which are 160mm wide.  Nearly twice as wide as normal fat skis.  They look stupid, they don’t ski well on piste or even in not very deep snow but I’m sure they’re going to be absolutely fantastic in the deep powder when we’re heli skiing.

We had a lovely lunch which was very cheap and then headed across to the other mountain in the resort called Blackcomb.  We wanted to do the double black diamond over there but at the end of the day with us both tired (well I was absolutely shagged out) and the weather not looking that good, we chickened out.  Discretion, valour etc.  The run looked terrifying… Maybe tomorrow.

Back down to whistler and we spent a happy hour in what is regarded as one of the top 10 apres ski bars in the world and then a bit of shopping.  Out to eat later even though it is 2am in the morning.

Took a few photographs and also tried out my new technology for the trip.  The first is my “Helmet Cam”.  This is a tiny camera which both Karsten and I have which attaches to one’s ski helmet.  We’re hoping to take a lot of footage when we’re heli skiing so this is just a little test…expect better and longer videos in future…