It’s winter in Nakusp and since early December tourists have been coming to the village to take part in a variation of a traditional winter pastime: heli-skiing.
With heli-skiing, tourists take a helicopter ride up into the mountains where they can ski designated trails down to a predetermined location before being picked up by another helicopter and flown to a different set of trails.
All heli-skiing trips in Nakusp are run by Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH), which is based out of the K2 Rotor Lodge.
Things this season have been going very well so far.
“The early winter season was really good, despite being cold, we had excellent skiing pre-Christmas,” said Peter Macpherson, a guide with CMH. “Post-Christmas, the last three weeks we haven’t had a great deal of new snow. We’ve had a couple of storms that have dropped about 40-60 centimetres, but there hasn’t been a lot of new snow, but the skiing quality — because of the cold temperatures we’ve had this winter — have actually been really good.”
There are two heli-skiing programs offered: a small helicopter program and a large helicopter program. The small program consists of three groups of five skiers, while the large program consists of three groups of 11 skiers. With a couple hundred designated runs, skiers are pretty much guaranteed a fun time.
Many of the heli-skiers have been coming to Nakusp for a number of years, including Bob Malheiro.
For Malheiro, the atmosphere of the lodge here is part of what keeps him coming back.
“It was really low key compared to other CMH lodges I had been to,” he said. “It’s non-assuming, there’s no ego and it’s very welcoming.”
For others, what they enjoy most about coming to CMH Nakusp is the snow itself.
“The terrain they have is almost limitless, so if you don’t get snow for 10 days you can usually find an area that hasn’t been skied,” said Bill Blewett. “You’re skiing fresh snow all the time.”
While heli-skiing offers a chance to have some fun, both guides and skiers alike must be vigilant in efforts to stay safe. This is especially true when it comes to avalanches.
Macpherson said being prepared for such an event is one of the primary concerns for CMH.
“As guides, every morning we have an hour-long meeting where we go through our runs and determine what runs we think are safe and what runs we think are not,” he said. “We base that on the weather forecast and all the information we gather.”
When CMH guides go out in the morning they’re constantly assessing the snow pack for any potential dangers, and review how things went at the end of each day, including going over things like what the weather was like and if they observed any changes in the snow pack. There is also a complex plan in place should one ever happen.
One skier staying at the K2 was actually involved in an avalanche a few years ago.
Leroy Schmidt was in a group of skiers on top of a mountain when the snowpack shifted.
“No matter how safe you try to be, sometimes things happen,” he said. “In this particular case it was a matter of the sun coming out mid-morning and hitting the slope that hadn’t had sun on it that morning. Just as we arrived, it was the right combination of the wrong things.”
Schmidt was able to stay on top of the deluge of snow, though it took him for a ride of about 300 yards.
Despite the potential danger, skiers have a lot of faith in both CMH and the guides.
“We have confidence in CMH to make proper decisions for where we’re going to ski, and take precautions,” said Malheiro. “They’re always doing snow safety studies before we go out, and we’re very confident in the guides.”