By Doug Firby, Managing Editor
BUGABOO GLACIER, BC
His thinning white hair, growing girth and laconic grin speak more of truck driver than helicopter pilot, but Don Wederfort’s wry delivery betrays a powerful sense of mischief.
“My job is to get your guides really high,” he declares, drawing a barrage of laughter – is there a nervous tinge? – from the 30-plus guests basking in a post-fine-dining glow at the cozy Bugaboo Lodge.
It’s introduction time on Day 1 of the Canadian Mountain Holidays vacation, and a collection of weekend warriors who have come here to achieve a new level of outdoor adventure are recovering from a half-day hike high in the Purcell Range of the Columbia Mountains in eastern British Columbia. It’s our shakedown hike, where the expert guides sort the hard-core hikers from the tourists, and create teams based on level of ability.
New addiction: Rush of heli-hiking
Over the next three days, these hikers’ extraordinary and vigorous trips deep into this remote range will bond them together like old friends and pump a new addiction into their veins – the rush of heli-hiking through this spectacular region.
Under any circumstances, hiking through Canada’s great mountains is a humbling experience. The sheer grandeur and overpowering solitude have a way of drawing out an endless list of superlatives, none of which actually captures the full scale of what the senses are taking in.
Cheating on time factor
But grinding your way up from the base of the mountain to a 2,700-metre peak is not only an exhausting undertaking; it’s also the sort of venture that consumes so much of the day, it often requires you to turn around and head back not long after you’ve arrived at your goal.
Heli-hiking lets you cheat on the time factor. It’s almost literally like strapping turbos to your feet.
Each day, a Bell 212 helicopter supplied by CMH’s sister company, Alpine Helicopters, lifts off from the lodge at the base of the massive Bugaboo Glacier, climbs narrowly over towering ridges and deposits its load of eager guests onto a peak so remote that no signs of civilization – indeed no other humans – can be seen.
Our pilot then “parks” his craft on a nearby ridge and whiles away the time until the mid-day call goes out for transport to another scenic location.
Hans Gmoser, an Austrian guide who created heli-skiing in western Canada in 1965, based his first winter operation at the Bugaboo Lodge. Today, the lodge is hosted by lifelong skier and hiker Dave Cochrane, an affable and humble mountain man who decades earlier had come west from eastern Canada for a vacation and never went back.
Lodges built for heli-skiing
The winter activity came first – CMH hosts about 5,800 skiers for incomparable trips through untracked powder. In all, CMH operates 12 lodges over the winter skiing season – from mid-December to the end of April. The nine backcountry lodges (three more are in small BC towns) are based in the Columbia range of British Columbia, a range that runs parallel and west of the Canadian Rockies.
In summer, two of the lodges – Bugaboo and Bobbie Burns, situated a reasonable day’s hike apart – are kept open to accommodate 1,000 hikers over an early July to mid-September season.
The Bugaboo lodge, nestled at 1,500 metres in the shadow of the glacier it is named for, has undergone four renovations since its humble start 45 years ago, and is now a rustic retreat with room for 44 guests. Its modern appointments belie its remote location – and include rooftop whirlpool and sauna, a climbing wall, a games room, available massage, and wi-fi in most rooms, to accommodate the business elite who can never fully unplug.
As comfortable as the lodge is, however, it is a mere sideshow to the hiking experience itself. Guided by Cochrane, and a handful of other experts (guides must undergo a years-long apprenticeship), hikers explore ancient glaciers, unique geology, pristine Alpine lakes, commune with wildlife and marvel as they meander through mountain meadows of wildflowers ablaze in colour. The ever-patient guides move as slowly or as fast as their group demands, and seem to have a fresh morsel of local folklore for each stop along the way.
The guides also provide inexperienced hikers with useful tips on how to save energy while climbing, balance with their poles and avoid some of the seemingly treacherous turns along some of the more harrowing passages.
Daily hikes often start with good-natured banter, but settle into long periods of quiet as hikers absorb the awe-inspiring grandeur of their surroundings. One day, we navigated across a broad scree face until we reached an icy pond that held the runoff from an ice-cave in the glacier we have traveled to. Taking off our sweaty boots, we dipped our toes into the ice water and sat in a sort communal reverence.
Pricey but addictive experience
Hiking the Bugaboos is a pricey holiday for middle-income travelers, but the personal touch, mind-altering beauty, rugged splendor and remoteness make it more than worthwhile. With four helicopter rides per day, quality accommodations and outstanding mountain cuisine, it also represents real value.
One guest in our party from California had done the trip eight times, and keeps coming back for the unparalleled solitude the Bugaboos have to offer. It’s easy to see why. If you go once, you will almost certainly want to go again.
Want to see more? Check out this video of hiking in the Bugaboos in the summer of 2009: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijtECuJD1Mg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijtECuJD1Mg[/url].
