K3 Cat Ski, BC: January 26, 2022

[ChrisC]

Next on deck after Eagle Pass was K3 Cat Ski. We were not sure what to expect since I could not find too many reports online. The website is a bit retro -- like straight from the 2000s. ??? I was sure it was going to be a letdown after heliskiing.

Could not have been more wrong.

K3 is required to pick everyone up from their accommodations since the road is crazy stupid getting up there. It's an old logging road that is heavily snow compacted. No signage really. But the valet service was nice - lowered stress. Our driver Craig explained late in the trip that K3 had messed up reservations, so we would be getting our own private cat! Also, the owner of K3 - Dave - would be driving our cat. Our guide turned out to be a lead guide who had been with K3 since its inception in 2007? Major score - a gift from heaven! No need for masks and Covid protocols.

K3's tenure is from the Trans Canada highway directly up to the boundary of Mustang. Dave finally built a lodge for 2020. Really only the first 2 zones/bowls of their tenure are accessible to day skiers and lodge skiers. Dave has plans to add 2 more lodges in the northern terrain near the Mustang boundary in order to take advantage of his entire tenure. The terrain we skied faced primarily east and south. We skied fire burn, bowls, cedar glades, chutes, etc. Dave also took us to the summit - generally not available in typical weather.

Starting the day below the inversion

The beauty of your own cat

Pic of the east side of the front bowl

Gully which we would ski later

The burnt trees were fun - slalom poles. We took a few runs in this area since the snow was quite good.

We then looped to the west side of the tenure to access glades, chutes, and the summit.

Checking out chutes from the false summit:

True summit of K3 - 7400 ft

Looking north towards Mustang

Chutes off the top

We called K3 later to buy a T-shirt. They said NO - we will just send one to you!

Overall, K3 was a great day cat ski operation. I would highly recommend it.

 

[ChrisC]

Initially, we rode up out of the base area with a group of 7 ski tourers and their guide. This group had to divert from Japan (closed to tourists) so they were doing day/2-day tours from Banff to Revelstoke over 10 days. Their guide mentioned Dave did not want to charge them for the lift/cat ride. He had to explain to Dave - you are charging us for this ride. It's just the right thing to do. Dave is definitely doing this for the love of the sport, not the money.

Our total vertical for the day was 12.9k.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Our total vertical for the day was 12.9k.

That's pretty good for a day operator when you have to start with transport and transceiver drills.

 

[ChrisC]

That's pretty good for a day operator when you have to start with transport and transceiver drills.

Actually, it was 12.7k …. Eyesight failure.

 

[EMSC]

This comment to encourage ChrisC to keep posting these day heli/cat trips. Good beta for me for the next few years where I plan (hope) to start doing some more esp Cat stuff.

 

[Tony Crocker]

My educated guess is that ChrisC hit the top cat day operators in Valhalla and K3. But the multiday lodge setup embedded in the ski terrain is definitely better. Logistics, transceiver drills only the first day add up to more and better skiing per $$$ spent in most cases.

I plan (hope) to start doing some more esp Cat stuff.

Careful, you might get hooked!

 

[ChrisC]

This comment to encourage ChrisC to keep posting these day heli/cat trips. Good beta for me for the next few years where I plan (hope) to start doing some more esp Cat stuff.

I think we hit every possible day cat and heli in BC (exceptions are RK Heli near Panorama and CMH Purcell near Golden. Also, I believe in prior years Great Northern Cat Ski had a relationship with Revelstoke Mountain Resort for day cat ski trips, but do not see that listed anymore.) it was amazing to ski the Monashees, Selkirks, Purcells...as well as the Valhalla range and whatever you want to call the Red Mountain area in a single trip. Everyone was game for it!

We could have done a 4 person heli day with Selkirk Tangiers in Revelstoke on our down/travel day (Jan 28th), but I just said NO to the madness. If we were staying at the Ainsworth Hot Springs - let's use it and get there at a decent hour. Allowed us to have a night out too - we had been getting up between 5:30-to-6:30 am almost every morning. If we had gotten more snow on the 28th, we would have just skied Revelstoke Mountain. (One reason why I was a bit laid back about our Revelstoke day on the 27th was I skied it with 10-12" new back in 2017. Seen it at its best. Fun Mountain!)

Overall, it was great seeing all these different operations, but I would not repeat my entire trip again. Too much movement, a repeat of safety drills, reestablishing trust with different guides, lost time, different ski buddies, operations, etc. We stayed in Rossland, Nelson, Revelstoke, Kaslo/Ainsworth, and Nelson again.

In the future, I would base in Nelson and/or Revelstoke - and add operations from there. More importantly, I would try to get into a cat lodge program for 3 or 4 days (just read Tony's reports). That's a vacation. Add some resort skiing to it. In the future, I would even consider doing 3 days with CMH Revelstoke (more reasonable than other CMH operations).

Anyways, British Columbia is a special place.

 

[ChrisC]

K3 built a second lodge over the summer and is moving away from day cat skiing. I believe the second lodge is deeper into the northern part of its tenure, but I am trying to verify. Currently, most of K3's tenure north of its current bowl (up to the Mustang Lodge tenure) is unused, since is only the current lodge guests could get in/out on a normal ski day.

Currently, they are not accepting single-day reservations but might change this policy in the fall of 2023.

What is interesting, K3's rates are higher than Mustang's catski tours for 2023/24.

Mustang - $1750 CAD/day
K3 - $1,850 CAD/day.

While I am sure terrain and snow might be pretty equivalent (likely to give the upper hand to Mustang since it's deeper into the mountains and is more familiar with its terrain), I doubt the lodging and food is not comparable. Mustang is likely at a higher level or two. K3 looked a little rustic.

Even CMH Revelstoke Heli skiing comes out to $1,385 CAD/day on its longer-term packages.

 

[Tony Crocker]

ChrisC will have to modify his ski travel M.O. in order to optimize the Canadian cat lodge experience. You are rarely getting into the best places on short notice. You usually must commit a year in advance, and if you get a lodge/time slot that is a good fit, you need to renew for the next year at the end of each trip.

Newer places like K3 can have growing pains. Adam and I spent two ski days and one overnight at Retallack in January 2000. Notes here:

Open bowls up to 7,800 ft. Cloud layer ~5,500. Tree line @ 6,000. 2 weeks since major dump, but cool weather had preserved powder. Day 1: 3 alpine runs AM. Then 2,700 vert Super Bowl. 45 min ride to start & 2,000 vert cat road end of day. 1 group: slowed by newbie skier. Very high quality runs though. 11,500 vertical. Day 2: Missed 1st run when skis fell off back of cat. Slow skier sat out tougher runs this time. Cat rides are long in this terrain. Still plenty of steep untracked available though, 9,500 vertical.

But the total cost for two days plus an overnight was about $500pp. I'm sure that was much cheaper per day vs. what I paid already well established Island Lake in 1997.

 

[ChrisC]

ChrisC will have to modify his ski travel M.O. in order to optimize the Canadian cat lodge experience. You are rarely getting into the best places on short notice. You usually must commit a year in advance, and if you get a lodge/time slot that is a good fit, you need to renew for the next year at the end of each trip.

Yeah. Missed opportunities. Also, the crew who I ski with cannot handle this reality/commitment. Might just have to go it alone ….or book 2 seats for a shorter tour. Meet up for skiing with others later.

All the startup cat/heli operators from the 2000s now have an established clientele - everything is multi day, everything gets booked 12/18 months out and not too many deals.

I will likely avoid the the Cat/Heli operators with mostly tree skiing: White Grizzly, Retallack, CMH Kootenay /Monashees /Galena.

Revelstoke seems to be the favorite town right now, but Nelson is a potential rival. Within about 1 hr of Nelson: Whitwater and Red Mountains for downhill, day cat skiing at Valhalla and Big Red, and day heli skiing at Stellar. Also, Nelson is larger, has better restaurants and closer to US border.

Note: Stellar had the best snow - dry, consistent - due to skiing the Purcells (3 ranges inland - Coast, Monashees, Selkirks), higher and drier.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Stellar had the best snow - dry, consistent - due to skiing the Purcells (3 ranges inland - Coast, Monashees, Selkirks), higher and drier.

That was my theory with Chatter Creek, until I spent 4 tours there. Yes the snow is drier, and when it's good as in 2008 there's nothing better. But the reality is that those farther inland mountains seem more vulnerable to wind hammering and unquestionably more likely to have unstable snowpacks.

I will likely avoid the the Cat/Heli operators with mostly tree skiing:

When you have to book a year in advance it's not a good idea to go with the operators heavily dependent upon the high alpine either. That was why Liz' first heli day with Purcell in 2013 was a bit of a disappointment. Clouds/fog kept us out of the alpine and their tree skiing was not that impressive. The entire week I was with Wiegele in 2006 the Cariboo alpine was wind hammered, but the Monashee trees were great. The next year I came back for two days and one of them was 27K in the Cariboo alpine.

Note that overall I have the same strong preference for high alpine that ChrisC does, but the bottom line for cat/heli is to ski where the best powder is. That's one reason why I chose Wiegele for my only full week heli trip. I want both alpine and tree terrain available. Of the CHM operations, I believe Galena, Gothics and Adamants have the best balance of alpine and trees, with Gothics maybe being first choice from the map below.

Weather was cloudy and snowy on my 1999 day at Selkirk-Tangiers (east side of the Columbia River at Revelstoke), but I know they have alpine terrain there up to 10,000 feet.

As for snowcat, despite being on the Monashees, Mustang's tenure gets a little over 8,000. While only a modest proportion is completely above tree line, my favorite terrain there is the subalpine with scattered stunted trees (Showtime, the "Roman" runs). Those trees provide just enough orientation to allow skiing during snowy weather and deep conditions. I do not know if Monashee Powder south of the Trans Canada highway is comparable.

All of the cat operators in the Selkirks south of Revelstoke ski at/below tree line, though those two days at Retallack had plenty of the subalpine similar to what I tout at Mustang.

Although the Lizard Range tops out not much above 7,000, Island Lake has a solid 1,000+ vertical of alpine from its highest drop points.

Chatter Creek is the one cat operator with a lot of high alpine including a rain proof glacier up to 9,800 feet. But as noted above you also get a sometimes finicky continental snowpack. ChrisC would also not be happy with the 10,800 vertical per day average over the 16 days I have skied there. By contrast I've averaged 16,500 vertical over 31 days at Mustang and 14,500 vertical over 17 days at Island Lake.

Might just have to go it alone

Before I got Tseeb and flyover into Mustang for 2015, I had done about 85 cat/heli days since 1997, with over half of them being alone. But all I can say at age 70 is that I'm very glad I started doing this at age 44.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Map of B.C. with heli, snowcat and backcountry lodge locations.