Last weekend, CMH Heli-Skiing wrapped up the Heli-Ski season in style. On Saturday, Dave Cochrane, the Bugaboos Area Manager, sent our Banff Office this letter that nicely sums up not only Dave’s perspective on the world’s greatest skiing, but also the entire company’s focus on safety and attention to our guests:
Good morning everyone,
Our last guests just got on the bus about 20 minutes ago.
We have had a truly outstanding last week of skiing with good weather, and every kind of good condition you can imagine, from deep silky powder to the best corn you could possibly have or dream about and also a little sticky gluey snow here and there, with very little or no transition from powder to corn.
We had a really fantastic season, with a lot of deep powder through the first half and then smaller storms after that. I can’t recall any bad skiing at all, although I am more than heavily biased for all the good memories. We had a couple of rainy days and didn’t ski, but it literally was seen by all of us simply as a huge opportunity for new snow and we remained positive. As it turned out the rain healed everything with lots of new snow at the ends of the rainy periods as the weather cooled down.
Our staff were really incredible and were instrumental in keeping everything safe and fun for everyone. I am privileged to be able to work with the remarkable people here at the lodge.
I would like to thank you all again for the tremendous hard work to keep us well supplied, safe and running smoothly. Your collective dedication to high quality professional management of all aspects of the support you provide us is really the best and makes running the show up here very easy indeed!
For so many of us it’s a job, but we are fortunate to work with incredible people and like I said before you should all be proud for a job very well done!
Thanks and to many more safe and happy mountain adventures!
-Dave Cochrane
Every skier and snowboarder who joined CMH for a trip, from some of the sport’s visionary superstars to first timers who are intermediate skiers, gave us rave reviews. The common story across the range of skill levels and experiences is how the combination of the staff hospitality, comfortable lodging, careful and personable guides - and of course the epic snow riding -make for one of the finest experiences this world has to offer.
Thanks Dave! Here’s to a fine conclusion to the 48th winter of CMH Heli-Skiing!
When we spend a day with a CMH Heli-Skiing Guide, it is impossible not to be in awe of their profession. It appears that every waking hour they are committed to the safety and quality experience of their skiing and snowboarding guests.
But every single one of them has a life outside of guiding.
A couple of years ago I went Heli-Skiing with Liliane Lambert in the epic tree runs and scenic alpine terrain of CMH Revelstoke. At that time she had a toddling daughter at home and a son on the horizon.
Liliane’s blossoming home life and commitment to her profession begs the simple question: How does she do it?
So I tracked her down between guiding ecstatic guests through the epic storm cycles of the 2012-2013 winter to find out.
TD: How old are your kids now?
LL: Thomas is almost two and Emilie is four.
TD: How did you meet your partner?
LL: I have a great husband (Dominic). I met Dominic in the Bugaboos during the spring of 2002! He was the chef. Three months later we moved to Revelstoke and bought a house.
TD: What do your little ones do while you are working?
LL: They are with Dominic. Dominic takes them skiing (alpine and x-country), swimming, skating, Strong Start (a drop in no-charge preschool for kids in British Columbia), Mother Goose (a story telling program), the train museum, long hikes with the dog (Texas), and riding bikes (when the snow is not too deep). They go to day care twice a week so they get their social time and Dominic can go ski touring. During the four month winter season Dominic does not work to be with the kids, and during the 8 month summer season Dominic goes to work and I stay home with the kids. Dominic is the owner of Indigo Landscaping in Revelstoke.
TD: Have you taken Emilie Heli-Skiing yet?
LL: Yes and no. I was guiding until I was 5.5 month pregnant with Emilie. She has been on 6 helicopter flights. When she was 4 months old we took her to a backcountry lodge. I was guiding and Dominic was the chef and Emilie came along. Dominic was cooking and taking care of her during the day. I am planning to take her out Heli-Skiing in the spring during the staff day.
TD: Has having kids changed your approach to managing risk in the mountains?
LL: My approach to managing risk has not changed that much. I would say that I think twice when I make a decision about managing risk.
TD: Does CMH Heli-Skiing do anything differently from the old days (when guides worked for a month or more straight) to make it easier for parents who are guides to be with their kids?
LL: The schedule is 2 weeks on, 1 week off. CMH has been really good about accommodating time off so we can spend more time with the kids.
TD: How does winter season affect Dominic's relationship with the kids?
LL: They spend a lots of time together so their bond is getting stronger. Dominic is extremely comfortable spending all day with the kids, keeping them busy and entertained - and he has fun has well.
TD: During the winter, what does your workday look like?
LL: I leave the house at 4:45am to get a bit of a work out. The guide’s meeting is at 6:00am until 7:00am, then breakfast and go skiing from 8:00am until 4:00pm. Between 4:30pm and 5:00pm I go home to see how Dom and the kids are doing. Them I’m back at the guide's office from 5:00pm till 6:00pm for guides meeting. I go back home from 6:00pm till 6:30pm and then go back to be with the CMH guests from 6:45pm until 9:15pm. I’m in bed buy 9:30pm.
TD: How long have you been guiding and how old are you?
LL: I have been guiding since 2000 and am 41 year old. I was born in Rimouski , Quebec and I never lost my accent...
TD: How did you get into the mountain sports?
LL: My family was into skiing. My Mom put me on skis at 2 years old. I grew up in Rimouski (near the Val Neigette ski area), ski racing and teaching skiing and telemark ski racing. At 16 I started ski touring in the Chic Choc in Gaspe (1.5 hours from Rimouski). In my early 20's I moved to Banff to go skiing. Then I really got involved in telemark ski racing on the Canadian National Team as well as ski touring and mountaineering. I did my ACMG Assistant Ski Guide Training in 2000 then got hired at CMH for the winter 2000-2001.
TD: On the scale of 1-10, how happy are you with the life of a guide and parent?
LL: 9 out of 10. I am super happy. The minus 1 point is because I get tired. I get tired from not sleeping all night (kids waking up!!). I feel very lucky to have a great partner, 2 great kids and to be able to guide. Life is good.
TD: How do you reconnect with your kids after working such long days?
LL: Emilie and Thomas are use to having one of us away. When I get back I make sure that I spent time a lots of time playing hide and seek and then doing puzzles to get back in the groove. It seems that if I play a game that both them can be involved it seems to be the trick.
Every CMH ski guide has a story like Liliane's, so next time you’re out with them in the snow-laden woods, in awe of their professionalism and mountain savvy, remember to ask them what they do when they’re not guiding. It’s always a great conversation that follows.
Photo of Liliane Lambert in her big office, the Selkirk Range of CMH Revelstoke, by Topher Donahue.
One of the first things any CMH Heli-Skier learns is that, as part of CMH Heli-Skiing’s endless quest to make Heli-Skiing as pleasant and safe as possible, each guest is assigned their own radio and is trained in how to use it. From a user’s perspective, it’s easy, but behind the scenes, CMH communications are a marvel of modern technology covering almost three degrees of latitude and costing over a million dollars.
For an insiders view of the CMH Heli-Skiing communication system, I tracked down Bob Lutz, the Manager of Infrastructure at CMH:
TD: How does repeater communication differ from direct radio communication?
BL: Every radio has a receive frequency, Rx, and a transmit frequency, Tx. When your radio is operating in what we call Direct Mode, the Tx and Rx frequencies are the same so you transmit on the same frequency that everyone’s radio is receiving on. This works great if you want to talk to someone nearby, like your guide or other members of your group, but the small battery and antenna on a handheld radio can only transmit so far and certainly not through mountains to reach a group in another valley. This is where our VHF repeaters come in.
When you change your radio to Repeater Mode, only the Tx frequency changes so that you can still hear radios sending on direct, but you broadcast on a different frequency that only the repeater is listening for. The repeaters have a much larger antenna, plus they are positioned up high to be able to cover a much larger area. The repeater also has four to eight batteries similar to the ones in your car for power so it can re-broadcast your transmission much longer distances on the Rx frequency that everyone’s radios (including yours) are listening for.
This leads to the natural question of, why don’t we set the radio to Repeater Mode all the time? For most of the communications between you and your guide the direct mode works well and there is the possibility you might be too far or too low to reach the repeater that might be 10km away when your guide is just 200m below you. Secondly, the repeaters are in low power standby state most of the day but when they kick into gear to re-broadcast someone’s message they use a lot of power to reach as far as possible. If they were running all the time the batteries would run out faster than our solar panels can recharge them.
TD: How do the repeaters support the remote internet at the lodges?
BL: Well, our remote lodges are too far from towns to make running phones lines or fibre optic cables feasible especially when you look at all of the avalanche paths we would have to cross along the way. So for each lodge we had to find a location in a neighbouring valley where we could get telephone service and an Internet connection fast enough to support a lodge full of guests and staff. Then we had to find sites with a direct line of sight to the lodge and that site. The shortest leg is 6km and the longest is 31km. The Bobbie Burns connects to phone lines and a fibre optic cable that are 73km away by the time you add all three legs together.
The phones and people’s web browsing use the same link, the trick is that there is device at the lodge that converts your voice into data packets to join the flow of Internet traffic, but when they reach civilization we convert the data back into an electric signal that we transmit down the phone line.
TD: What is the value of the complete CMH repeater system?
BL: Hmm... a lot of maintenance and upgrades have occurred over the decades and it would be hard to add all of that up. If you had to rebuild everything from scratch, it would cost roughly $50K-60K per site so a little over $1,000,000 to manage our safety communications, coordinate the ski program, and let people connect to friends and family when they get back to the lodge at the end of the day.
TD: Where is the southernmost CMH repeater?
BL: CMH K2’s Kuskanax repeater at 50°23'54"N
TD: Where is the northernmost CMH repeater?
BL: McBride’s Mt Halverson Repeater at 53°15'30"N
TD: How much maintenance do they require?
BL: Most repeaters require one inspection visit during the off season but during the winter some of them need to be visited regularly to remove rime (ice) from the solar panels to allow the batteries to recharge. With the Internet repeaters faster radios are coming out every few years so this summer we also went out to upgrade all of the radios that link the Bobbie Burns and Bugaboos to the Internet at Brisco.
TD: How does the power system for the repeaters work?
BL: The VHF and UHF repeaters are all solar powered with several batteries similar to the ones in your car. The Internet repeaters use solar power over 97% of the time but they also have propane Thermal Electric Generators, TEGs, as a backup in case the panels are covered in ice and for those weeks where it snows a lot during the day and they don’t see any direct sunlight through the clouds. The TEGs rely on a principal where a small electrical current can be created between two different types of metal if there is enough of a heat difference between the two metals. One side is heated by the propane flame while the other is exposed to the cool mountain air. The Bobbie Burns system ran on propane for 961 hours last winter during the dark stormy days of December and January.
TD: When did CMH start using the repeaters for internet as well as radio?
BL: Our first attempts were in the summer of 2006 to try and connect Valemount and later the Cariboos to a farm house that was close enough to the Town of Valemount to get ADSL service from Telus. Our Valemount lodge is farther than the 4.2km limit for ADSL service from the phone company’s central office in town. In 2009 we realized that we could no longer find parts for our old telephone repeaters for five of the areas so we spent most of the summer of 2010 combining the phone and Internet repeaters into a single site that brought both services to the lodge much more reliably than our early experiments.
TD: Are the internet telephone repeaters and the radio repeaters always in the same locations?
BL: No, we position the radio repeaters to provide good coverage to our ski tenures. This often means putting them up very high near the middle of the tenure. The Internet/telephone repeaters are placed wherever we can get a line of sight to the lodge and a location with good Internet and telephone service. We try to keep the Internet repeater sites as low as possible to reduce the electronics’ exposure to harsh mountain weather.
TD: How many repeaters does each area have?
BL: It varies from one to four.
TD: Anything else you'd like to add?
BL: We have three kinds of repeaters, VHF, UHF, and microwave. The VHF repeaters are the ones most familiar to our guests that allow the lodge to talk to the guides in the field when they are skiing in the outer reaches of our terrain. Most of our VHF repeaters have a set of UHF radios to allow one area to connect to a neighbouring lodge’s repeater to share information. If you activate all of the UHF repeaters together it forms a radio link over 400km long, the guides in the Cariboo Range up north can talk to guides as far south as CMH K2 and the Bugaboos.
Up until a few years ago, when we switched to telephone conference calls, this is how the guides in the different CMH Areas exchanged observations made in the field to give everyone as much information as possible about the snowpack.
The microwave repeaters are in separate locations and are used to connect our lodges to phone lines and the Internet at the fastest speeds possible regardless of how hard it is snowing.
CMH Heli-Skiing’s vast communication network is one of the many reasons that 70% of our skiers are return guests. For more information, contact CMH Reservations at 1 (800) 661-0252.
Next month, K2 athlete Collin Collins will be joining a group of CMH Heli-Skiers for four days of Steep Shots and Pillow Drops in the Selkirk Mountains south of Revelstoke. They will be based out of the CMH K2 Rotor Lodge in Nakusp and will be some of the fortunate few to help usher in the inaugual season of CMH K2.
Collin Collins is one of the new breed of skiers, park trained and backcountry savvy, with the cat-like ability to take his jibbing skills into the untouched wonderland of British Columbia’s most famed Heli-Ski terrain. To get an idea of what that combination is like, I tracked down Collin and this is what he had to say:
TD: It sounds like you're pretty good in the park. How do you apply those sorts of skills to the backcountry?
CC: Well, it's always a different scenario depending on the terrain I'm skiing, but I definitely love to bring tricks to natural features when the conditions are right, so I'm always looking for some nice cliffs and cornices, and longer lines where I can bring everything together; some good turns, steep shots, and air time! I grew up without a park, so I learned to ski the whole mountain and turn everything into my playground. I tend to build a lot of backcountry jumps too. It's really fun to learn new tricks and play in the park, but I've always loved skiing powder more than anything.
TD: How hard is it to stick a trick off of a soft lip in the backcountry as opposed to a hardpacked park edge?
CC: It's quite a bit more difficult, you don't have that firm takeoff to pop off, so setting a trick is usually much more challenging. You need to have some finesse and be light on your feet. And then landing in powder can be very tricky, you have to be strong. But the more you do it the easier it becomes.
TD: While heliskiing with CMH K2, what kind of features will you be looking for to throw down on?
CC: I'm super excited for the legendary deep powder and hopefully some big pillow lines. And as I mentioned, always looking for nice cliffs with steep landings.
TD: What are you looking forward to most about Heli-Skiing with CMH?
CC: Just stoked to explore new terrain and ski some deep powder. It should be a very unique experience with some cool new people. Getting rides in the heli is always a privilege, too, so I'm looking forward to that!
TD: How old are you?
CC: 27
TD: How long have you been skiing?
25 years or so. Pretty much my whole life.
TD: What is you home ski area?
CC: Sun Valley, Idaho
TD: Any advice for younger riders taking park skills into the backcountry?
CC: Just have fun! It's definitely not easy, but it's worth it, be ready to work hard and struggle a bit. I encourage kids to get out of the park more often and ski the whole mountain, it'll make you a much better skier. Skiing powder is the greatest thing on earth. Nothing beats stomping a trick into bottomless powder.
TD: Have you had any close calls out there?
CC: Not that I can think of; I've been pretty lucky out there so far.
Collin is sponsored by K2 Skis and Saga Outerwear, and will be ripping it up with CMH Heli-Skiing on January 3-7. A ski pro to inspire, CMH guides to mange safety and find the best lines, and you. I'm jealous already.
Photo of Collin surfacing for some fresh air by Alex O’Brien/K2 Skis.
We’re leaving the ski area. You can’t really blame us. The ungroomed, untouched and unbelievable terrain and snow outside the ski area boundary is the stuff of skier’s dreams.
Not only are the snow quality and the terrain of wilderness skiing dream-worthy, but today’s equipment makes deep powder skiing easier and more accessible than ever. According to Backcountry Magazine, backcountry skier visitation has risen 124% since 2009. But what's up with all the different words that are used to describe it?
Europeans call it off-piste, and it's become so popular in Canada and the US that the different flavors of unbounded snow riding have developed their own North American nomenclature.
Here are the Heli-Ski Blog’s definitions of the backcountry bonanza:
Sidecountry:
Several leading outdoor gear companies have watched “sidecountry” become their fastest growing product category. For good reason. Sidecountry is generally defined as using ski lifts to get up the mountain, and then leaving the ski area through approved gates to access the goods.
European ski areas have allowed sidecountry skiing since the first ski lifts we installed, but it was slower to catch on in North America. Areas like Washington's Mt. Baker were instrumental in making sidecountry skiing an acceptable part of this continent’s ski area management. Many ski areas now require skiers to carry avalache gear when leaving the resort.
Frontcountry:
This is easy-access backcountry skiing. Places such as the more user-friendly canyons of Utah’s famed Wasatch Range inspired the term frontcountry. This is where you have to ski or hike up to earn your turns, but if you break a ski you can fairly easily wallow down the hill to the car.
Good frontcountry destinations have become so popular that early-bird strategies can be necessary to get the freshies after a dump.
Slackcountry:
A slacker’s version of frontcountry. Teton Pass in Wyoming, Stevens Pass in Washington, and Berthoud Pass in Colorado are perfect slackcountry destinations. Drive to the pass, ski or hike as far up as you want, and then rip powder turns to meet the road far below your car. Hitch a ride back to the pass with an understanding ski bum. Repeat as often as possible.
Roger’s Pass, near North America’s powder skiing epicentre of Revelstoke, British Columbia, has roadside backcountry access that almost falls into the slackcountry category, but the size and complexity of the terrain make it suitable for only the more motivated and experienced slackers.
Backcountry:
Whatever you call it, anywhere without ski patrol actively working must be treated as backcountry skiing, even skiing inside a ski area before or after the resort's open season. Just because you’re near your car, ski lifts, or other skier’s tracks doesn’t mean you’re safe from avalanches and other backcountry hazards. In fact, being around a lot of other skiers, tracks, cars and lifts can create a complacent attitude about risk.
The remote wilderness skiing around Revelstoke in British Columbia’s Interior ranges, where CMH Heli-Skiing operates, has become known worldwide as the ultimate deep powder backcountry skiing destination.
To go side, slack, front or back, here are a few starter tips:
- Take basic avalanche training, then carry and know how to use a transceiver, shovel and probe.
- Hire a ski guide. Even experienced backcountry skiers find that hiring a guide is a great way to learn a new area and find the best terrain.
- Ski with friends who are experienced but not overly aggressive.
- Learn what safer ski lines look like, and stick to them - safe terrain choices are easier to get right than snowpack evaluations.
- Always check the current local avalanche forecast, and then ski accordingly.
At CMH, we’ve been exploring some of the snowiest, biggest backcountry on earth for over half a century. In 1965, we invented Heli-Skiing to show more people the wonders of British Columbia's backcountry, the place many people consider home to the world’s greatest skiing. Today, we continue to reinvent backcountry skiing with programs such as Heli-Assisted Ski Touring and Ski Fusion.
Photos by Topher Donahue.
Well, it is February 1st. So, if I post pictures only from January 2012, they are technically the best photos from the year... Right? Well, I will go with it anyways.
As I was going through out "best of" gallery for January, there were so many pictures that could have made a best of list! So, I decided to break it down into a category: Guide Photos. Now, everyone loves seeing a skier in a bright orange jacket blasting through blower pow, but you will notice that all but one of these pictures is missing that. Each of the following pictures was taken by one of our guides across 4 different heli-ski areas, with the Bugaboos getting the double shout out. Here they are, in no particular order.
CMH Bugaboos:
Photographer, Dani Lowenstein
Skier, Lianne Marquis
Few people know that Lianne is actually on telemark skis here. But honestly, after the snow January brought, I would believe it either way...
CMH Revelstoke
Photographer: Jorg Wilz
Skier: Bell 212
The Selkirk Mountains near the Rogers Pass make for a nice back drop at the end of the day.
CMH Galena
Photographer: Mike Welch
Skier: Patrik
Burnt forrest, fisheye lens, deep pow... Can it get any better?
CMH Bobbie Burns
Photographer: Carl Trescher
Skier: Marty Schaffer
Marty claims this is him... So we'll give him credit for taste testing the snow in the Bobbie Burns
CMH Bugaboos
Photographer: Andrew Wexler
Skier: Sepp Hochlahner
Sepp proves just how light and fluffy the snow is in the Bugaboos. He is also missing the top half of his tuque...
Well, that is the end of the epic photo recap from January. Today is the first day of February, which means you have 29 days to be included in the next round! Send us an email to find out when you could be out there: info@cmhinc.com
While heliskiing, there are inevitably a few delays; at the pickup, when someone is looking for a lost ski, while the helicopter that has gone for fuel, or waiting for a fog bank to pass so the helicopter can fly again. To pass the time, telling jokes has become a big part of the heliski culture.
To give you committed Heliski Blog readers an edge-up on the other heliskiers next season, here are 10 ski and snowboard jokes for next season that might even make the helicopter smile:
On the first day of her vacation, a woman fell and broke her leg. As the doctor examined her, she moaned, "Why couldn't this have happened on my last day of skiing?" He looked up. "This IS your last day of skiing."
From the Sports Joke Cafe:
A woman and her husband decided to go on a skiing trip one weekend. They rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain, and were preparing to go down. The woman suddenly announced that she needed to use the restroom, and NOW. Her husband told her that since the coast was clear, she could just hide behind a tree and go. Well, the woman had her pants down around her ankles when she suddenly began going down the mountain. She hit a tree on the way down and broke her leg and her arm and had several other bumps and bruises. When she awoke at the hospital, she was surprised to see another man who was dressed in a skiing outfit and also looked as if he had been in a skiing accident. The woman was very curious about this man, so she asked him what happen. You'll never believe it, he told her. I was just skiing down the mountain, and a woman went by with her pants around her ankles, and I crashed into a bush.
Q: What's the difference between a government bond and a ski bum?
A: government bond will eventually mature and make money.
From Amenta:
Q: A car has five snowboarders in the back seat; what do you call the driver? A: Sheriff
From Epicski:
Q: How do you become a millionaire as a professional skier?
A: Start out a billionaire.
From Ski My Best:
Q: Why are most snowboard jokes one-liners?
A: So the skiers can understand them!
Q: What do you say to a ski instructor in a three piece suit? A: "Will the defendant please rise...."!
Q: On a date, what does a ski instructor say after the first hour? A: "That's enough talk about me; now let's talk about skiing."
This skier walks into a bar at the ski area and says "Hey, you guys wanna hear a snowboarder joke?"
The bartender says, "Well, I'm a snowboarder, the guy on your left is a snowboarder, same with the guy on your right, and a couple of folks behind you as well!"
So the skier says "Ok, I'll tell it a little more slowly then."
Q: How do you know there’s a Mountain Guide at the bar? A: Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
Anyone out there have another one to add to the list of heliski jokes?
Back in the early days of heliskiing, the guide pack sometimes included a bottle of wine to share at lunch, skins for ski touring because the early guides were not confident that the helicopter would really be able to return, and other heavy gear that made the whole profession harder on the knees and backs of the ski guides.
Today, the CMH guide pack is much lighter and more streamlined - and don’t bother looking for that bottle of wine from 1969. For a view into the guide pack, I tracked down Erich Unterberger, the Manager of Guiding Operations for CMH, who took the time between a few days of guiding in the Monashees to share with us the guts of the guide pack:
"The guide pack got a bit lighter over the years with newer materials being used for lots of our tools. But essentially, the contents are not much different from what we used a quarter century ago when I first started with CMH."
- The shovel and probe only weigh a fraction of the first generation of their kind.
- The rope kit (for crevasse or cliff rescue scenarios) is small and still very strong.
- The headlamp is another tool that is much smaller and still provides better function than the older versions.
- Some guides use their probes as the ruler for the snow observation kit. The other Snow Observation tools remain the same.
Guide's Pack Contents:
1 medical kit
1 headlamp or light
1 improvised splinting materials
1 collapsible avalanche probe
1 snow shovel
1 bivouac bag
1 jacket
1 pair of spare gloves
1 warm hat
1 multi-purpose tool
1 metal container for melting snow
1 altimeter
1 compass
1 bush saw
1 snow observation kit:
- folding ruler
- crystal screen
- magnifying glass
- field book, waterproof
- thermometer
- pencil
1 rope kit: may be carried separately
1 min. 25m / 8-9mm rope or equivalent
2 locking carabiners
2 carabiners
3 5m slings
Photo of Erich Unterberger and his guide pack getting up to speed in the CMH Adamants by Topher Donahue.
Although you spend a lot of time on your heli-ski trips with a few guides, there is one guide that you may never ski with. This guide, even though he or she may never ski with your group, has a job that affects you more than you might think.
The snow safety guide plays a huge role in the safety, and smooth running, at each of our heli-ski areas. Mike Welch, area manager of Galena, gave me some insight as to what the snow safety guide might do to make our day out in the mountains better.
Snow Safety- Digging snow pits, checking stability, and explosives control are all part of the snow safety guides day. They might be doing all of the above on runs that are going to be skied later that day, or ensuring more consistent stability for later in the season. Once a run has been deemed safe, the snow safety guide may also check for snow quality. We all know how a thick sun crust can kill a great run, the snow safety guide will relay information back to the lead guide so their group can successfully avoid any poor snow conditions.
Helicopter Safety- We love skiing in deep snow, so what happens if it snows a couple of feet overnight and the landings are no longer accessible? This is where the snow safety guide may quickly become your best friend… They might be out early in the morning digging out landings, replacing landing flags, or clearing brush all so that your pilot can land safely and you can start skiing.
Refueling- When it comes time to refuel, the helicopter will often head to one of our remote fuel caches to avoid the long flight back to the lodge. Generally at the lodge, the helicopter engineer will refuel and avoid the need to turn off the engines, saving you a lot of time. Because our remote fuel caches are so remote, it often becomes the job of the snow safety guide to meet your helicopter at the fuel cache so that refueling happens quickly and efficiently.
Finding the perfect lunch spot- Did you ever wonder how that amazing lunch gets set up in the middle of nowhere? Although the guides may often have an idea of where a good lunch spot would be, the snow safety guide will pinpoint a spot where there is maximum sun, minimal wind, and you aren’t sinking up to your chin in snow. Lunch is one time where deep snow isn’t optimal conditions!
Balancing the groups- What happens when you or someone in your group gets tired and starts slowing down your group? Often, the snow safety guide will be called in so that the faster parts of the group can do a lap while the slower group members take a break or slow down their pace. This keeps everyone skiing, and everyone happy!
Anyone who has been heliskiing with CMH knows there are two seats in the helicopter that are always taken: the pilot’s and the guide’s seats. Nobody questions the pilot’s choice, but why does the guide always get the best views?
To find out what goes on up there, I asked Peter Macpherson, the assistant area manager of CMH Bugaboos. Here’s what he revealed about the coveted front seat:
Why do we ride shotgun? Primarily sitting up front is for safety. It allows you to gain a lot of information about recent avalanche activity, not only on the run you are skiing, but also the adjacent runs and even whole creek drainages.
You can view the hazards on the ski line, like crevasses and cliffs, just minutes before skiing it.
Also, if there is an accident, the guide up front can get an aerial overview of the site or the injured skier’s exact location and then radio pertinent information to the guides on the ground and the pilot.
Second to safety is skiing quality. You get a relatively unobstructed view of the run from the air. You can loosely assess skiing quality by getting a look at the snow surfaces. You can determine if there is a lot of wind affected snow and sun crusts, as well as how soft it may look. Skiing all winter on the same terrain gives you a good eye for these subtle changes.
You can also determine which lines have been skied by other groups, adjust accordingly, and take your group to a fresh line or a line that best suits your group’s ability. It provides an opportunity to have an overview of the run and the all-important pick up.
While lead guiding (each day, one guide is designated lead guide) I make a great number of decisions from the front seat. Particularly, if weather and snow conditions are changing or if we're skiing in an area that we have not been to recently. Many times lead guides will decide to ski, or not to ski, a run based on what they have observed from the air.
You can’t learn everything from the air however. Decisions made from the air are generally macro terrain decisions where as on the ground they are micro terrain decisions. For example, I may choose the ski line from the air, but while on the ground I may ultimately ski around certain features on the intended ski line.
With the pilot, all experienced heliski pilots from Alpine Helicopters, we mostly talk about the logistics of the day. Things like flying conditions, landings that will work with which loads, pick ups that will work with which loads, which runs are going to be skied, fuel flights, and how the other guides and groups are doing.
Then there is also the “office water cooler” conversations that occur between people who work together a great deal: sports, music, politics, gossip - the usual.
Because you get in and out of the helicopter 8-15 times a day, you learn things about other guides. How do they wear their seatbelts? Who needs to turn the headset to max volume to hear and who is deafened by max volume? Who drinks water during the day and who does not?
Sitting up front holds a great deal of responsibility, but it is perhaps the best seat in the house.
Photo at the "water cooler" in CMH Adamants by Topher Donahue.