Campbell Icefields trip
This is the trip that we have been waiting for all year. In fact it was because I knew we were doing this trip that I started running in the middle of winter on snow in order to get a little aerobic staying power. Shangri La was good, but Campbell Icefields Chalet was supposed to be even better. We were helicoptered in from a little staging area outside Golden, B.C.
Excited much?
This is what was waiting for us when we landed
The Campbell Icefields Chalet is probably the most luxurious telemark ski destination I could imagine. It is a lovely 3 storey wooden building that sits up on a little hill above the valley looking out over Thunder Mountain and the Bluewater Glacier. The whole chalet was built with wood that was taken from Bernie Schiesser's land and some of the fir finishing inside is truly beautiful. There's a microhydro plant that provides electricity (unfortunately not working this season due to an ice blockage) and it remains remarkably warm all day and night even without the pot belly stove on due to good insulation and windows facing the right way.
There were 10 of us on the trip plus two guides, a cook and a caretaker. So on our longest days there were 14 of us punching up the uptracks and sharing the fun on the downhill. I have to say that taking a chopper in, having guides and not having to worry about making food made this trip for me. Not having to schlepp all our food in, being served amazing meals at all times of the day and night and also having local knowledge about the area to draw on took all the stress and hard work out of things and allowed us to concentrate on the good stuff. Getting as much champagne skiing done as we possibly could. And boy does this place have some amazing and beautiful skiing.
The start of the day went through this gap in the trees
The Bluewater Glacier
Tina carving the hill
One day we set off on what proved to be an all day trek out to the fabled "Diamond Dust" run which promised to be the best skiing we'd ever see. Turn after turn of perfectly pitched slope with waist deep powder, followed by a flat bench and then another drop at the same angle for another mittful of turns.
Start of the trek to Diamond Dust
Knife edge ridge on the way over to the Icefields
It was a long trek there, especially when you don't know how far you have to go, but the weather was good and the views were amazing, plus the snow was just perfect. Unfortunately when we got there we had some subsidence of the snowpack at the top of the run and wisely decided that caution was the better part of valour and left it alone for another day. Even though we didn't get to ski Diamond Dust, we still got the best ski tour I've ever been on and had a lot of fun along the way.
Col on the edge of the world
The snow at Campbell was just beyond belief in terms of depth, quality and sheer quantity. There was one particular day that we skied on the slopes up behind the cabin that I think I'll remember forever. We hit about three different faces with one or two runs on each. That may not sound like a lot but when you have to climb back up the hill as well as ski down it you find that your day takes a little longer than at a ski resort with chairlifts and that after half a dozen spectacular runs you're more than satisfied. These sorts of days have what I like to call "hero snow" which is powder so good and a slope so perfect that even when you can't ski all that well like me, you can't help but leave the best tracks of your life on the hill. You're a ski hero because the powder just makes it all so easy.
Hero snow tracks - mine are fourth from the right
Of course I was the only one to crash - but how fun does that look!!?
There's no creature comfort spared at the Campbell Icefields, it's warm and cosy, the food cooked by our wonderful cook Celine was amazing, there's a primo drying room so all your wet stuff is magically useable the next morning and the views out the dining room window for breakfast are out of this world.
View from the breakfast table
And then at the end of a hard day shredding the slopes, you get to kick back with a nice cold beer in the wood fired sauna and let all your muscles release the day's aches and pains. The pot belly stove in the sauna heats up a stainless steel pot of water and with that you get to have a hot shower afterwards which is above and beyond the call of divine. Normally you'll come out of a week long ski trip smelling like a wet bison, here you're almost more refreshed than when you arrived.
A joyous sight at the end of a long day
We were lucky enough that the owner of the chalet, Bernie Schiesser, was one of our guides for the week. A nicer guy you won't meet, and full of good yarns about his days in the Alpine community in the Rockies as a Park Warden and some of the hair raisingmountain rescues he'd been on. We eventually convinced him that he should show us how to do that most Canadian of activities and build an igloo. After all he said he'd probably spent over 100 nights all told in igloos that he'd built while on traverses and ski tours. It was actually a really fascinating process and one that I'd love to try again sometime, maybe when we go back!
Thom and I providing the building blocks to Bernie
Dennis the caretaker helping with the last few blocks
I'm actually in an igloo!!!
Big enough for 4!
Glowing at night
It was actually harder digging the tunnel to enter and exit than the walls of the igloo itself. It was incredible how warm and soundproof it was once you were inside. Actually Dennis spent that night sleeping in the igloo as he was going on a ski traverse the week after and they were planning on making an igloo on one of the nights of his trip. Apparently very comfortable except for when the local pine marten poked his nosy little head into the tunnel at 4am to see what had been built on his path from the chalet to the sauna. Not very impressed from all accounts!
Needless to say this was the best ski trip I've ever been on and it wouldn't have been the same without all the wonderful family and friends who were there to share it with us. We'll definitely be back and have already booked our week for next year. Hopefully we'll get out to Diamond Dust again and this time ski the elusive powder slopes that go on forever...
The chalet in all its glory
Excited much?
This is what was waiting for us when we landed
The Campbell Icefields Chalet is probably the most luxurious telemark ski destination I could imagine. It is a lovely 3 storey wooden building that sits up on a little hill above the valley looking out over Thunder Mountain and the Bluewater Glacier. The whole chalet was built with wood that was taken from Bernie Schiesser's land and some of the fir finishing inside is truly beautiful. There's a microhydro plant that provides electricity (unfortunately not working this season due to an ice blockage) and it remains remarkably warm all day and night even without the pot belly stove on due to good insulation and windows facing the right way.
There were 10 of us on the trip plus two guides, a cook and a caretaker. So on our longest days there were 14 of us punching up the uptracks and sharing the fun on the downhill. I have to say that taking a chopper in, having guides and not having to worry about making food made this trip for me. Not having to schlepp all our food in, being served amazing meals at all times of the day and night and also having local knowledge about the area to draw on took all the stress and hard work out of things and allowed us to concentrate on the good stuff. Getting as much champagne skiing done as we possibly could. And boy does this place have some amazing and beautiful skiing.
The start of the day went through this gap in the trees
The Bluewater Glacier
Tina carving the hill
One day we set off on what proved to be an all day trek out to the fabled "Diamond Dust" run which promised to be the best skiing we'd ever see. Turn after turn of perfectly pitched slope with waist deep powder, followed by a flat bench and then another drop at the same angle for another mittful of turns.
Start of the trek to Diamond Dust
Knife edge ridge on the way over to the Icefields
It was a long trek there, especially when you don't know how far you have to go, but the weather was good and the views were amazing, plus the snow was just perfect. Unfortunately when we got there we had some subsidence of the snowpack at the top of the run and wisely decided that caution was the better part of valour and left it alone for another day. Even though we didn't get to ski Diamond Dust, we still got the best ski tour I've ever been on and had a lot of fun along the way.
Col on the edge of the world
The snow at Campbell was just beyond belief in terms of depth, quality and sheer quantity. There was one particular day that we skied on the slopes up behind the cabin that I think I'll remember forever. We hit about three different faces with one or two runs on each. That may not sound like a lot but when you have to climb back up the hill as well as ski down it you find that your day takes a little longer than at a ski resort with chairlifts and that after half a dozen spectacular runs you're more than satisfied. These sorts of days have what I like to call "hero snow" which is powder so good and a slope so perfect that even when you can't ski all that well like me, you can't help but leave the best tracks of your life on the hill. You're a ski hero because the powder just makes it all so easy.
Hero snow tracks - mine are fourth from the right
Of course I was the only one to crash - but how fun does that look!!?
There's no creature comfort spared at the Campbell Icefields, it's warm and cosy, the food cooked by our wonderful cook Celine was amazing, there's a primo drying room so all your wet stuff is magically useable the next morning and the views out the dining room window for breakfast are out of this world.
View from the breakfast table
And then at the end of a hard day shredding the slopes, you get to kick back with a nice cold beer in the wood fired sauna and let all your muscles release the day's aches and pains. The pot belly stove in the sauna heats up a stainless steel pot of water and with that you get to have a hot shower afterwards which is above and beyond the call of divine. Normally you'll come out of a week long ski trip smelling like a wet bison, here you're almost more refreshed than when you arrived.
A joyous sight at the end of a long day
We were lucky enough that the owner of the chalet, Bernie Schiesser, was one of our guides for the week. A nicer guy you won't meet, and full of good yarns about his days in the Alpine community in the Rockies as a Park Warden and some of the hair raisingmountain rescues he'd been on. We eventually convinced him that he should show us how to do that most Canadian of activities and build an igloo. After all he said he'd probably spent over 100 nights all told in igloos that he'd built while on traverses and ski tours. It was actually a really fascinating process and one that I'd love to try again sometime, maybe when we go back!
Thom and I providing the building blocks to Bernie
Dennis the caretaker helping with the last few blocks
I'm actually in an igloo!!!
Big enough for 4!
Glowing at night
It was actually harder digging the tunnel to enter and exit than the walls of the igloo itself. It was incredible how warm and soundproof it was once you were inside. Actually Dennis spent that night sleeping in the igloo as he was going on a ski traverse the week after and they were planning on making an igloo on one of the nights of his trip. Apparently very comfortable except for when the local pine marten poked his nosy little head into the tunnel at 4am to see what had been built on his path from the chalet to the sauna. Not very impressed from all accounts!
Needless to say this was the best ski trip I've ever been on and it wouldn't have been the same without all the wonderful family and friends who were there to share it with us. We'll definitely be back and have already booked our week for next year. Hopefully we'll get out to Diamond Dust again and this time ski the elusive powder slopes that go on forever...
The chalet in all its glory
