We were picked up at Whistler Friday morning for the 4 hour drive through Lillouet to Tyax Lodge. The weather forecasts for the weekend proved to be quite accurate. While there was no snow at the Lodge when we arrived, it snowed all morning Saturday. The snow level rose in the afternoon, but it remained cloudy and there was no flying.
We did get out Sunday, but it was still overcast with the clouds touching some of the peaks. There were about 6 inches new snow, denser than the previous weekend and becoming heavy below about 6,000 feet. Drop points were a little over 8,000 feet.
It was a quiet weekend with only 5 customers in total. There were a couple from London and a guest of one of the employees, so we had an A-Star all to ourselves. The guest was inexperienced in powder, so she could rest and sit out about half the runs in the helicopter with only one group. After the down day TLH stayed out skiing until 5:30PM to make up some of the lost time.
TLH has an immense permit area of 830,000 acres served by a maximum of two groups per helicopter. The new Sea-to-Sky yacht heliskiing that started up this year actually skis in the far western part of TLH's tenure. We we were confined to the eastern part by weather this time, but I skied much farther west on the clearer days I was here in 1998.
One of our afternoon runs ventured into the trees, which in addition to heavy snow did not have much in the way of open skiable lines compared to the Selkirks or Fernie/Island Lake. TLH is all about the high alpine and glacier skiing, which they can provide on a scale and level of service that is the best I have ever seen. This does require some cooperation from the weather.
I have now signed up for 11 days of lifetime heliskiing, and have had a down day on each of my last two trips. Of the remaining 9 days 4 were wide open and the other 5 constrained in some way by weather. On a constrained day you're better off at an outfit with lots of tree skiing like Selkirk-Tangiers (1999) or CMH Kootenay (2002). But my 2 clear days with TLH in 1998 remain my highlight heliskiing experience.
We did get out Sunday, but it was still overcast with the clouds touching some of the peaks. There were about 6 inches new snow, denser than the previous weekend and becoming heavy below about 6,000 feet. Drop points were a little over 8,000 feet.
It was a quiet weekend with only 5 customers in total. There were a couple from London and a guest of one of the employees, so we had an A-Star all to ourselves. The guest was inexperienced in powder, so she could rest and sit out about half the runs in the helicopter with only one group. After the down day TLH stayed out skiing until 5:30PM to make up some of the lost time.
TLH has an immense permit area of 830,000 acres served by a maximum of two groups per helicopter. The new Sea-to-Sky yacht heliskiing that started up this year actually skis in the far western part of TLH's tenure. We we were confined to the eastern part by weather this time, but I skied much farther west on the clearer days I was here in 1998.
One of our afternoon runs ventured into the trees, which in addition to heavy snow did not have much in the way of open skiable lines compared to the Selkirks or Fernie/Island Lake. TLH is all about the high alpine and glacier skiing, which they can provide on a scale and level of service that is the best I have ever seen. This does require some cooperation from the weather.
I have now signed up for 11 days of lifetime heliskiing, and have had a down day on each of my last two trips. Of the remaining 9 days 4 were wide open and the other 5 constrained in some way by weather. On a constrained day you're better off at an outfit with lots of tree skiing like Selkirk-Tangiers (1999) or CMH Kootenay (2002). But my 2 clear days with TLH in 1998 remain my highlight heliskiing experience.
