The Heli-Ski Blog

CMH Heliskiing Guide, John Furneaux, Summits Mt Everest

When I worked at CMH's Adamant Lodge in tthe winter of 2006 I met John Furneaux, one of CMH's incredible heliskiing guides.  John recently completed his second summit of Mount Everest and I had a chance to chat to him about his connection to the Adamants and his trip back to the top of the world.
 
JF: I love the Adamants!  It seems all my guiding has started in the Adamant mountains. My first trip there was to Fairy Meadows in 1997.  I was a client of CMH guide Tim Pochey and I told him I wanted to be a mountain guide and to teach me everything and now I am a mountain guide and work at the same company as Tim!  I also did my ACMG assistant ski guides exam in CMH Adamants area and then the next winter got hired there. I have wanted to be a guide since I was 12 years old living in Newfoundland. I saw a picture in a magazine of a guide guiding some clients in the Tantalus range above Squamish B.C. and was set.  I moved there at 15 and made it happen. It was a very fun journey and now I see myself in the exact spot in the picture working as a mountain guide. It's always a great feeling.
 
BC: This was your 2nd summit of Mount Everest, how do the two experiences compare? Did you find it easier the 2nd time around?
 
JF: The two trips were very similar but also worlds apart. Climbing mountains is like heliskiing, one minute conditions are great and the next things have turned bad due to the ever-changing mountain weather and conditions. The first trip up Everest we had great summit day conditions. Light winds, warmish temperatures and great snow conditions for travel. Overall it was "easy" as far as Everest goes. Our summit day this spring was a little different.  We had very high winds, deep snow and cold temps. We spent 2 nights at our high camp waiting for a weather break and at our last possible chance things cleared and we made it.
 
BC: On both of your trips you were with a pretty amazing group of guys. Can you tell me a bit about them?
 
JF: In 2008 I had a team of four with only one person making the summit.  Of that team one member has Type 1 Diabetes, one has Crohn’s disease and the other has no fingers from a pervious frostbite accident. The man with diabetes made the summit and the others had to turn back due to a variety of reasons.  This year I went back with two of the guys who did not summit. It was their last summit of the seven summits. In the end they both made it, and Rob Hill became the first person living with Crohn’s disease and an ostomy to achieve this amazing feat! It was truly amazing to watch these guys reach their high points in life and on the mountain.
 
BC: What are the major challenges with scaling the tallest mountain in the world?
 
JF: The biggest challenge hands down is staying healthy. You need to go to Everest with a clear mind, fit body and with lots of extra muscle on you. Most people will lose about 20 pounds on a Everest trip so you need to be able to withstand that and still be at a healthy weight towards the end of the trip for your summit push. Having a good cook is key. They will keep you well fed and keep your food and water clean which equals staying healthy. The next two are the weather, which is out of our hands, and how your body acclimatizes to the elevation. The key is always go SLOW and go down when you're not feeling right. That's why we spend two months there to allow for down time and to recover.
 
BC: Do you think you'll ever go back again?
 
JF: You never know! Life is always changing and it's hard to gauge where things will go.
 
BC: I hear you're reaching your own high point in life - Marriage!  What's more intimidating - Everest or marriage?
 
JF: That one is easy, marriage of course!  Everest is over in two months, marriage is for life!  The good and bad will happen as with mountains but I still will look forward to what everyday will bring.
 
If you'd like to hear more about John's trip up Everest come on up to the Adamants lodge this winter for a Signature Heliskiing trip, Ski Fusion, Ski Touring or one of our Small Group Heliskiing adventures.  Call our Heli-Skiing Experts to learn more at 1.880.661.0252 or email us at info@cmhinc.com.

Prepping for Heli-Assisted Ski Touring

If you've been following along, you'll know that our What Inspires You to Ski Tour contest winner is Tim Oliphant.  I caught up with Tim when he was back home in Missouri getting ready for his trip to CMH's Adamant Lodge to see what he was doing to prepare fort his upcoming ski tour.

JC: Hey Tim. When I talked to you to let you know you’d won the trip, you sounded like you were jumping up and down in your office.  Tell me honestly, how excited are you about this opportunity and what went through your mind when you found out you’d won?

TO:  I WAS jumping up and down in my office, I just couldn’t believe it!   I mean, I had just won the opportunity to do a Heli assisted ski tour for 7 days along side Greg Hill with new gear from ARC’TERYX!  I couldn't hold still.  As a matter of fact, I was so excited that after I got off the phone with you I ventured outside and took in a 4 mile run just to calm myself down and put things in perspective.  It was very humbling to think that I been chosen as the winner of such an incredible opportunity.  So, with that in mind, I decided that I would approach this trip with the respect it deserves. It is my desire to gain every possible thing I can from this “chance of a lifetime” experience.  The more I think about this trip the more excited I get because every aspect of what I will be doing resonates deeply to the core of who I am. If there were a perfect adventure for me, this would be it!   

JC: So, you’ve never ski toured before, but are a keen skier and strong athlete.  What are you doing specifically to prepare for this trip both mentally and physically?

TO:  The Fit to Heli-Ski tips on this blog are a great read and I have used them as inspiration for my daily workouts. As for the other facets of my training, I was fortunate to graduate from college with a degree in Exercise Physiology. Although I did not pursue a career in this field after college, I do apply this knowledge everyday as I train. When I won this trip I changed my workout to focus on strengthening the parts of my body that I will specifically be using when ski touring.   In addition to my regular running routine I've been incorporating plyometrics, core workouts, stair sprints and such.

Needless to say, I believe that endurance, strong legs and core, as well as, developing my bodies ability to recover quickly from quick bouts of exertion will be key to the enjoyment of this adventure. Make no mistake, I’m expecting this ski tour to be extremely physically demanding, especially for a newbie like myself, and that is why I am doing all I can to get ready.

The mental aspect of my training requires lots of reading…since I am new to ski touring I feel the more I learn about it the more prepared I will be for all of it’s challenges. Finally, I’ve also been taking in lots of ski videos for some inspiration via YouTube, Greg Hill's website and, of course, Warren Miller films.  

JC: Since announcing yours as the winning entry, we’ve learned that you have entered a number of video contests as you are pretty handy with a video camera.  What made this contest different from the others?
TO:  No doubt I’ve had a life long love for video and I take my video camera everywhere I go. Telling stories by making movies is as much apart of my life as adventuring and athletics. In fact, if I were to sum myself up into 3 characteristics this is what they would be…Adventurer, Athlete, Entertainer.  Everything I do typically evolves around at least one of these attributes. So, when I discovered that there were all kinds of video contests online they became a natural outlet for the entertainer side of me.  I saw the  “What Inspires you to Ski Tour” video contest and I had to do a double take… Wow, this one was really different.  Different because it wasn’t asking me to brand, package or sell anything it was simply asking me share my personal reason for wanting to ski tour.  It was also different because the prize offered appealed to not just 1 or 2 of my core characteristics, it appealed to all 3!  Nature, Skiing, climbing, shooting video, blogging, helicopters, snow, mountains, adventure, athletics…it’s all there, I knew had to enter it.  In my eyes, what CMH was asking and what they were awarding was better than any other contest I had ever entered. Therefore, I poured myself and all my resources into the project.  The video I entered is me using all 3 of my core characteristics to share that those same 3 characteristics are what inspire me to ski tour.  The CMH “What Inspires you to Ski Tour” contest was different because it was personal to me and no other contest even gets close to that level.  

JC: Thanks Tim. Obviously we loved your video and were inspired by your passion to get out and try something new.  We're pretty sure that after this trip you, too, will become addicted to ski touring!

We'll be posting a couple of updates from Tim during his trip to the Admants next week so...stay tuned! 

Have you booked your 2011 Heli-Assisted Ski Tour with CMH yet?  New dates just announced and early booking credits and tax rebates apply for all those who pay in full by April 30, 2010. 

Make me ill - point of view heliski footage

Running helmet cams while heliskiiing is all the rage.  Be your own hero.  But the results too often will make your friends want to puke.  When a few seconds of helmet cam view is cut into traditional footage, it gives an awesome perspective, but watching endless raw helmet cam footage makes me feel like I’m sitting below deck on a tossing sailboat, reading a newspaper while the other passengers eat roast beef sandwiches and smoke cigarettes.   

Check this steep skiing footage for a stomach churning example of what I’m talking about:


Jeff Bellis, a ski guide for CMH Revelstoke, uses a chest cam in this clip for smoother motion, and cuts it into other footage for a much more palatable effect:

November in Revelstoke from Jeff Bellis on Vimeo.

So, as a still photorapher I became inspired to put a different twist on point of view imagery, and hoping to avoid the nauseating helment cam effect,  I decided to give it a try.   I put a trigger release down my sleeve and mounted my industrial strength Nikon D3s on my chest with a 15mm fisheye lens.  Here’s one from a bluebird day last week at CMH Cariboos:

And one from a deep powder day last year at CMH Adamants:

What do you think about helmet cam footage and point of view imagery?  Have a favorite point of view clip?  Comment here!

 

Telemark heli-skiing - What's it take?

Last spring, while heli-skiing at CMH Adamants, Scott Steinbrecher dropped his knee into a telemark turn for 8000-meter-day after 8000-meter-day.  We giggled and ripped down everything from effortless corn to burly powder and he nearly sunburned his teeth from grinning.  I began to wonder if the free-heel heli-tele experience was much different than the heavy metal alpine heli-skiing experience, so I asked Scott a few questions:

TD: How good do you need to be on telemark skis to keep up with the heli-ski program?
    
SS: That depends on who you want to ski with. If you plan to heli-ski with a group of friends or family, you only need to be as good as they are.  For example, I skied in the same group as my wife and my parents.  I ski with them all the time in varying conditions and know that I can keep up with them.  Obviously, telemarking in deep powder wore me out more than skiing at the resort, but it wore out my wife and parents just as much! 

If you don’t already know whom you’ll ski with, then you should think about whether you would be comfortable pushing yourself to keep up with alpine skiers in changing and often challenging conditions.  You might ask yourself whether would you accept an invitation to telemark with a group of strangers on alpine skis at a resort. 

• If you would accept the invitation without hesitation, then you can probably telemark with CMH. 
  
• If you would hesitate to accept the invitation, then you should think twice about whether you’re prepared to telemark with CMH.

TD: Are there any issues with tele equipment for heli-skiing?

SS:

• Leashes:  Ask the head guide at your lodge whether you should use leashes.  Sometimes it might be best to use them to avoid losing a ski in the middle of nowhere.  Remember that neither the helicopter nor the shop will have a replacement for you.  Other times the guides will prefer that you don’t have your skis tied to your feet if you are caught in an avalanche.  Always defer to the resident-expert.
• Bindings:  Because the lodge won’t have spare parts for your bindings, consider bringing them.  Most binding manufacturers now produce backcountry repair kits.  Take at least one kit with you to the lodge.  If you’re a die-hard and can’t imagine sitting out an afternoon with a broken binding, take a repair kit and tools with you skiing each day.
• Knee pads:  You’ll praise them when your skis are banging against your knees in the deep powder and when you’re kneeling waiting for the chopper.
  

TD: You used both downhill and telemark equipment in the Adamants, right?  When did you choose one over the other?
    
SS: Yeah, I used alpine skis and telemark skis.  Obviously, I brought two pairs of boots—alpine and telemark.  I brought both for two reasons. 

• First, I brought alpine boots in case I lost a telemark ski or broke a binding beyond repair.  I didn’t want to be stuck in the lodge for a week without being able to ski. 
  
• Second, I wasn’t sure if I could telemark in four feet of powder for seven days straight.  I was right.

As a group, my family and I ski a lot and keep a pretty good pace.  We ended up the fast group and skied every day from the first lift until they made us go home.  During the first three days we skied about 65,000 vertical feet.  My legs were exhausted.  I skied on alpine skis on day four, telemark skis on days five and six and alpine skis again on seven.  It was the perfect balance for me.  A couple days of alpine skiing gave my legs the rest they needed.

TD: What is your telemark/downhill experience?

SS:  I grew up in Colorado and started skiing around four years old, and was racing by eight.  I raced in USSA and FIS sanctioned races through high school and raced in college.  I coached alpine ski racing for a year.  I skied at least four days a week from opening day to closing day for about a decade.  I had been to CMH twice before and skied alpine both times.

TD: That's years on skis with your heel locked down, but how much did you telemark before taking the heli-lift?

SS: I started telemarking after I moved to the city and became a desk-jockey.  I telemarked full-time for about a season and a half before I decided to telemark at CMH. 

TD: Any other suggestions for telemark skiers interested in their first time heli-skiing?

SS: Go for it!  At least one day at CMH will be the best skiing you’ll ever have!  

Photo by Topher Donahue/www.alpinecreative.com

Olympians at CMH: A look back

If you have been watching any of the ski racing from the 2010 games you have seen Aksel Svindal from Norway win a couple of medals.  Aksel skied at CMH Adamants two years ago and can be seen in the movie "Eyes Wide Open"...no surprise...he can flat out ski. Men and women who have raced at the highest levels can turn a ski in any condition. It is always humbling to ski with them.

Aksel continues a long history of Olympians skiing at CMH. Benni Raich, Marlies Schild, Ingemar Stenmark, Phil and Steve Mahre, Franz Klammer and Steve Podborski just to name a very small few.  As we were digging through some of the great historical ski footage we have here at CMH for the Warren Miller film segment, we came across this gem: Billy Kidd and Karl Schranz skiing with Leo in the Bugaboos.  This was from the American TV show American Sportsman hosted by Curt Gowdy.  This is pure gold!

Small Group Heli-Skiing? At CMH?

Ok.  It's time to come clean.  We've been hiding behind fancy names like Powder Max and Revelstoke Private for far too long.  We've even gone so far as to use the term "Small Ship Heli-Skiing". It's time to stop, good people of the heli-ski world, and confess.  It's true.  We've been offering small group heli-skiing for a long time.  And we're not sorry.

In the late-90s we recognized that there were some secret stashes of powder within our enormous terrain that were not well-suited to our existing model of 4 groups of 11 skiers with a Bell 212 helicopter.  However, with a smaller machine and a smaller group of skiers, we could spend all week in completely different areas of our ski terrain. And thus, the idea of Revelstoke Private Groups was born.

Knowing a good thing when we skied it, when constructing the Monashee Lodge in 2001/2002 we seized on the opportunity to create enough space in the lodge to house 44 guests who would ski with the 212 PLUS a group of 4 guests with 2 guides and a 2nd pilot and engineer for 'the small ship'.  Et voila.  The first Monashees Private group skied Soard's Creek in the winter of 2002/2003.

Feedback from long time CMH guests reinforced the benefits of the new Small Group program:

• We love the freedom to ski at our own pace.  Go hard or take it easy.  Even sit out a run in the heli, if you want.
• The small group format allows us to ski lines that you just can't get to with a larger group.
• Guest to guide ratio of 2:4 is nice because when you're not skiing close to the other groups for back-up, you need to be self-sufficient.
• Unlimited vertical!
• The Bell 407 is like the sports car of helicopters - nimble and fast.

And so, Kootenay Powder Light was born.  We quickly learned that we'd incorrectly named this one and re-tooled this to become Kootenay Powder Max.  (We'd gone with light to imply the small helicopter, then went with Max to convey the 'Powder to the MAX' idea.) At Kootenay we use the 407 to access the tight terrain, but we have 3 or 4 groups of skiers sharing the helicopter.  It's our bread-and-butter model...but it's more like bilini-and-caviar.  This makes for quick lifts and opportunities to ski challenging lines.

Fast-forward to 2010.  Last month we took our Powder Max model to the Bobbie Burns and the Monashees.  Small group heliskiing in the Bobbie Burns?  The skiing in the Burns is already fast and fun because there are only 3 groups of 11 sharing the 212...can you imagine 3 groups of 5 skiers!  It just keeps getting better!  The guests loved it, clearly the demand exists for more. 

What does 2011 hold for heliskiers looking for small group heliskiing with CMH?  Picture this: 6 groups of 5 skiers with two 407 helicopters in the Adamants. Powder Max Squared?  How about Small Group Heli-Skiing with CMH.

One other thing we need to clarify.  Nomads.  Yes, heli-skiers, truth be told, this is also small group heli-skiing except we meander our way through the Monashees, Adamants, Gothics, Revelstoke, Kootenay and Galenaterrain.  We happily pick the best lines where we won't impose upon our other skiers and share the lodge with our friends in the Gothics or cruise down to Halcyon Hot Springs Resort.

Does all this come with a price? In some cases, but not all.  You might be surprised.  Call or e-mail one of our Heli-Ski Experts and they'll walk you through the Small Group Menu.  From private trips to not-so-private, unlimited to guaranteed vertical - we've got it covered.  And we're ready to ski it with you.

A Case of Heli-Hiking Boosting Academics

On Christmas morning of his freshman year of high school, Nathan Bailey’s grandpa gave Nathan a special gift: a heli-hiking adventure  deep in the wilderness of Western Canada.  But it came with strings attached: He had to improve his marks in school.

For the second semester, Nathan worked harder, but at the end of the year no report card arrived in his mailbox.  Likely excuse?  Not according to Nathan.  Some books were lost, so the report card was withheld.  He was willing to raise the stakes to prove his commitment to the deal.
“I’ll pay you back if my grades don’t show up.” Nathan proposed to his Grandpa, Fred Noble, a 35-year veteran of heli-skiing with CMH.
“Ok” Grandpa Noble said. “If your grades don’t show up, then you have to pay off every penny of the cost of the trip - working for me.” That summer Nathan went heli-hiking in the Adamants.
I spoke with Nathan eight years later.

TD: How did you raise your grades?

NB: I just gave it more effort.  

TD: So you went to Canada and had a great trip, but why did you keep up the effort in school afterwards?

NB: Going up there made me realize what you can do by working hard.  I did things I never thought I would do.  I climbed a mountain!  After that, I had more motivation and gave everything more effort.  I had a 2.2 GPA my freshman year, and I graduated with a 3.6 GPA.

TD: How did the trip change your motivation in the rest of your life?

NB:  It changed everything.  In the beginning of the trip, I didn’t even want to do it.  Before I went, I was afraid of heights.  I hadn’t even been on a Ferris Wheel!  Then I did all these things I never thought I would do.  When I got home I realized all these things I could do by trying hard.

TD: What do you do for fun now?

NB: Sports.  I love sports.  Basketball, football, baseball, golf.

TD: Did the heli-hiking trip change how you look at sports?


NB: Yes.  I went rock climbing!  It showed me these different forms of athletics.  It pushes you harder than average sports.  Makes you try really hard.

TD: Would you go back?

NB: If I could afford it, I’d go up there every year.  I went there four times and never saw the same place twice.

TD: Anything else?
NB: “My Grandpa showed me the way.  This might sound, well, overused, but that trip changed a lot of things in my life.”

Nathan went heli-hiking with his Grandpa every summer for the next four years, visting the Bobbie Burns, Bugaboos and the Adamants.  By 23 years old, his focus on effort - discovered in the mountains of Western Canada - had landed him a management position with Famous Footwear in McMinnville, Oregon.