13 Mar 2023
A brief account of some pretty crazy backcountry skiing I did in British Columbia with friends a few weeks ago. It was a bit out of my league but I’m going back.
My Strava shows that I “backcountry ski” a lot in the winter. This usually means skinning up my local mountain before the lifts open (or after they close,) and skiing down once. It’s nice hard cardio in a beautiful outdoor place, and quite a bit of fun. Skiers who only use lifts sometimes say it seems extreme, but I’d say that only in the way that climbing a couple hundred flights of stairs is extreme. Not usually crazy or intense, and almost never technically challenging.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my local crew and our uphill adventures, and there are certainly times when I’m challenged to my limits. Those occasions are usually because one or another skinning partner is in a mood that day and wants to go hard, which means I’m going to pay an aerobic price and chase them up the hill. But it’s also not really backcountry skiing, which I’ve only done a few times, all in Vermont, in one-shot, single-day efforts months apart. For years I’ve wondered what the real backcountry is like.
So a few weeks ago I went to British Columbia with 13 friends to live, ski, and eat with Valhalla Mountain Touring. Based on the prior experience of a few of these friends, VMT seemed to promise the experience I sought.
They delivered.
VMT encompasses a few buildings in the center of 19,000 acres of skiable terrain, with a small staff of ACMG-certified guides, a cook (chef really), and a few other staff. The place runs like clockwork, the food is outstanding gourmet fare, and most importantly the skiing is phenomenal.
I’m an adult-onset skier who has been skiing up mountains for 10 years or so, despite never had a proper lesson. Many of my friends have skied since they were children, and have been ripping up all sorts of terrain on- and off-piste ever since. So hey, I was into it, abut I also knew I was likely to be a bit out of my league.
The uphill part was fine, with outings up to 8.5 miles and 4000 feet of climbing, most of which had access to multiple downhill runs. The downhill was pretty intense, steep and deep beyond my experience. I had a couple physical issues, so I took some short days and even skipped one altogether. Many of our crew did a bit more skiing than I. The distance and vertical didn’t bother me, the simple profusion of powder gave me a different-enough and intense-enough experience that I got stupid on many of the steeper and longer downhill runs.
But that’s all minor detail. It was sufficiently cool that I’ve already booked for next year, and I’m bringing my son Carl along for the adventure. Most of the crew that went this year is also joining, so I’m looking forward to another insane trip. The difference for me next year is that I intend to take some early lessons in powder snow, almost certainly out West somewhere, before I go, to get some practice skiing the deep stuff that Vermont almost never affords.
If you’re interested, here is a selection of the better pics that we all took, and here is the entire archive if you’re endlessly interested.