Island Lake Snowcat, BC, Feb. 20-22, 2023

[Tony Crocker]

I drove to Island Lake’s parking as requested by 5PM Sunday in my new Helly Hansen snow boots. My ski bag arrived in Fernie’s Park Place hotel 2AM Monday. At Park Place breakfast this morning I chatted with a retired couple from Brisbane(!). The wife’s luggage had been waylaid in Vancouver by Air Canada on the way to Calgary. She wasn’t leaving the hotel at-25C until it arrived with her winter clothing, hopefully by noon today.

Though we only saw a little snow overnight at the lodge, it snowed 8-10 inches up in the ski terrain. There was some discussion of how difficult January had been in Canada, both for lack of snow and for developing instability. As in 2003, the occasional rain event at Fernie stabilizes its snowpack while many mountains farther north still retain their weak layers.

We started on the Baldy side north of the lodge with this view across to the Lizard Range.

It’s typical Great Gray North weather with the occasional sunny break. The light was good enough that I did not need to wear goggles. It was 20-25F, surprisingly warm in view of the imminent Arctic blast forecast. We soon moved over to those Lizard Range bowls as they expected we would be in the trees most of our second and third days. They did not take us to the highest drop points above 7,000 feet as the snow was wind affected up there.

We generally started skiing around 6,500 feet. I wondered if there would be a subsurface as at Castle over the weekend and at Island Lake last year, but happily there was not.

Guide Rick giving instructions at Lizard Pass:

And here above the aptly (for this tour) named Face Shot Bowl:

The snow was so good here that we skied three variants of Face Shot Bowl.

Zoomed view down to the lodge and the lake:

The open water is where they are aerating the lake. The lake’s outflow has the hydroelectric generator that powers the extensive lodge facilities most of the time.

We continued to work over the subalpine terrain on the Lizard Range side because of the snow quality and that it was likely we would not be back there on this tour.

As we crossed Lizard Pass we get a good view of the west side of Baldy where we will be skiing more the next two days.

Those runs are Big Woody and Little Woody.

Late in the day Rick torched a dead tree to kill its infecting fungus.

We skied 14,200 vertical of very consistent snow, which is a fairly high amount on a first day where you don’t start until after the transceiver drill. I told Liz that snow quality was much closer to her first cat day at Wild Horse in 2013 than to last year. But the best was yet to come.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Overnight the predicted collision of a Northwest storm and the Arctic cold occurred. It dumped a foot of new snow, and with temperature declining to 10F it yielded ideal right side up powder skiing. We could not return to the Lizard Range alpine due to avalanche exposure from above.

On Monday they had kept us off the direct south facing above the lodge because of a subsurface, but that was all buried by Tuesday. So we worked over runs like Gladiator, Hodad, Sore Foot and our last run (also aptly named this tour) Five Star while the snow was fresh and temperature cold.

We had one miscommunication where three of us dropped way early into Little Woody. I was the third and heard tail guide Brenda yell. I made sweeping turns skier’s right and still ended up about 20 feet below Rick ,with one skier about as far below me. The first skier got considerably farther down and got a tongue lashing from Rick about following directions and keeping tracks in sight.

Since our three tracks were potentially misleading to other groups, we took a second lap on Little Woody which Rick described as “Cleanup on Aisle Two.” Quality of snow was so perfect that no one complained about the rerun.

As at Mustang a steady diet of tree skiing in cold weather is not conducive to picture taking. I mistimed this one of Rick dropping in.

He is behind the little tree at center but his cold smoke trail extends far behind him.

Here’s one more Tuesday pic at the end of a run.

Although tree spacing in the Lizard Range is naturally good as is evident at Fernie, Island Lake on private land can glade selectively to enhance spacing. This is a good idea as I keep taking these trips into my 70’s. Runs like Spooky Forest were described as having tighter tree spacing, but I was comfortable and commented that Vermonters would laugh at that description.

We skied 19,600 vertical, the most I have ever skied in 17 days at Island Lake and only exceeded by 3 of my 31 days at Mustang. In quality as well as quantity Tuesday would be in the conversation with the top 10-15% of days at Mustang.

Island Lake has a hot tub again. They also have 5-6 massage therapists, as they can live in Fernie and be brought in from Fernie for their 3 hours of work by cat or snowmobile. Monday’s massage was excellent. For carnivores, chef Ryan Cain sources some dry aged Wagyu beef from a local Alberta rancher.

Any Idaho Wagyu I have eaten tastes like most high quality American steaks. The buttery texture of Japanese Wagyu is very different. I tried the sampler plate Tuesday night. The A6 Wagyu split the difference with some of the buttery texture while retaining some traditional steak flavor. A8 Wagyu would be similar to Japanese. One of the skiers had previously tried one of the 49 day dry aged steaks, and recommended that as a unique experience.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

The first skier got considerably farther down and got a tongue lashing from Rick about following directions and keeping tracks in sight.

Despite the fact that guides are entrusted with the safety of their guests and take that responsibility very seriously -- have you ever seen an entitled guest take exception to a tongue-lashing from a guide? As in, "DO NOT TALK TO ME LIKE THAT."


I witnessed that in a mountain-biking context decades ago in Moab. It was uncomfortable.
.

 

[EMSC]

have you ever seen an entitled guest take exception to a tongue-lashing from a guide? As in, "DO NOT TALK TO ME LIKE THAT."

Wow, what an interesting question.

For me, never seen it that outright. Usually snarky comments, under the breath muttering, or etc.. is about as far as it has gotten (sometimes even justified too, IMO).

That said, I was told a story of 2 guys (I think one was an EE on a day off at the time?) at Mustang in the early years that skied by the guide and said FU with middle fingers in the air as to stopping at the right spot. They skied another 1K plus vert and it took hours for someone to make their way down there and find them, eventually getting back to the lodge at 9p. I forget what happened to the two of them, but I found it interesting that apparently Mustang built cat roads down to there after that and does runs all the way down into that drainage when the snow/weather is right (that was the take-away I actually remember).

 

[jamesdeluxe]

it took hours for someone to make their way down there and find them, eventually getting back to the lodge at 9p.

Wow, how embarrassing and then to have to face the rest of the group at the restaurant/bar that evening.

Wow, what an interesting question.

I ask the questions that wouldn't occur to people who've done a lot of cat/heli skiing!

 

[Tony Crocker]

Some guides are better than others in terms of terrain choices, sizing up the group, etc. But I do not recall customer backtalk about following directions.

 

[Tony Crocker]

The Arctic high pressure won out by Wednesday as predicted. Temps were fairly steady around -10F all day. It was still high overcast with occasional sunny breaks. While there was only occasional wind at a few drop points, there must have been strong winds overnight. Snow above tree line was definitely wind affected as were some runs lower down that were exposed to direct wind, notably Elevator. Rick had intended to finish our day on 2,700 vertical Hot Tub Chutes, but they sent a couple of snow safety people over there who reported extensive variable snow.

We were in the same sectors as Tuesday with runs like Hoopla and Enchanted Forest being comparable in snow quality. Most runs had some wind packing near the dropoffs. South facing runs like Sunnyside, Gladiator and Beer Run were a touch less fluffy than Tuesday but still skied very well.

Needless to say I was not taking my mittens off outside even though I was wearing glove liners too. The only exceptions were on midday and end of the day runs when I knew we were going into the lodge. Here's tail guide Brenda with our Tuesday tracks on Hodad in the background.

Here we are the bottom of our final Beer Run.

View across to the Lizard Range from the same spot:

We skied 16,700 vertical on Wednesday. I felt some fatigue, but others did too, so I ascribe it mainly to the cold weather and less consistent snow. But our cat was overall quite compatible in pace of skiing and no one got exhausted enough to sit out runs, as we heard happened in the other two cats. A few people even quit early, though I suspect that was more due to excessive celebration on Tuesday night. That lasted until past 2AM and a couple of people fell asleep on couches in the Bear Lodge bar.

 

[Sbooker]

^^^^^^
Some of those pics look skiable for non experts. Interesting.
I wonder if they would cater to an adventurous intermediate?

 

[Tony Crocker]

I wonder if they would cater to an adventurous intermediate?

I brought a friend in that situation in 2004.

That situation worked very well because:
1) He was in the best physical condition of his life, having trained for Kilimanjaro the previous summer.
2) The group had 4 other skiers at a similar level.

What no one wants to see is an outlier much slower that the rest of the group. That applies particularly to a day like Tuesday, when conditions are so good that experienced powder skiers have to exert little effort. Ours was a very compatible group and I was about average, which I no longer would be at Mustang.

It's best to do cat or heli first at a day operation. With 2 hours transceiver education and drills, you're not going to get much more than 10K of skiing, which also means that you're less likely to get exhausted and burn out. Plus the day operation is more likely to have other first timers, and the guides ae going to be cautious in terrain selection until they know their group.

For experienced powder skiers or highly trained experts like EMSC or Lonnie, my advice is the opposite. On a second or later day at a remote lodge you will likely be doing more skiing and possibly on more challenging terrain once the guide knows what everyone can do. You do not want to be the person who limits the guide's pace or terrain selection. I've seen guides recommend that certain people sit out more demanding runs.

Heli is much more expensive but some of the operations use A-Stars, where there are just 4 skiers with each guide. That allows for finer ability splits. Snowcat is usually 12 people per group, and the number of cats per operation varies. More cats is better for ability splits, but the more cats you have, the more terrain you need to avoid tracking it out too fast between storms.