Heli skiing Canada has long been considered a staple experience for anyone interested in the beautiful sport of skiing, and its popularity continues to grow. Canada has some of the most consistent and reliable heli skiing terrain in the world, full of vast, varied and beautiful skiable terrain, making it one of the world’s top destinations.
Canada is also home to CMH (Canadian Mountain Holidays), a partner of Pure Powder and the most established heli ski operator in the country, which has been running for sixty years now. In this article, we explore the reasons behind the growing popularity of heli skiing Canada, looking at the experiences offered to different standards of skier, the variety of accommodations available, and the preparations that you’ll need to make before embarking on your helicopter skiing adventure in Canada.
Pure Powder is the UK’s largest and most established facilitator of heli ski trips, providing our clients with the peace of mind needed to enjoy the adventure of a lifetime, knowing full well that the logistics of the trip are in good hands.
Heli Skiing Canada: Skill Levels
Canada is a heli-skiing destination with an appeal to skiers of every level, including beginners, intermediate skiers, and expert skiers, as well as those in transition between these levels. You can attribute this to two reasons: First off, the physical scale of skiable terrain in the Canadian wilderness, the sheer size of available landscape guaranteeing enough variation to suit skiers of every level. This means enough gentle snow bowls for beginners to practice in and enough rugged, steep slopes for the experts to ski down. The second is the scale of CHM operations, allowing for services catering to every level of the heli skiing experience.
The Beginner Experience
Heli skiing Canada is often argued as the best place for any beginner to start the helicopter skiing journey. As you embark on your helicopter skiing adventure for the first time, you’ll want to a route suitable for your pace and standard of skill, as well as guides to assist you on the slopes whenever needed.
British Columbia has plenty of beginner-friendly routes that are exciting, far-stretching, and gorgeous. First-timers are bound to have an incredible experience taking on the slopes for the first time, and Pure Powder matches you with routes perfectly suited to your ability.
Among the many beginner-friendly routes and packages available, Pure Powder also offers a Heli Ski Coaching Programme specifically designed to give novices all of the foundational skills needed to send you along your journey as off-piste pros. To take this course, you should already be a strong to intermediate backcountry skier ready to add on the necessary skills to graduate from resort to helicopter skiing.
The Expert Experience
As is with every sport, some continuously challenge themselves to reach the pinnacle, always looking to take on difficult tests to improve their skills and become one of the best in the world. Expert heli skiers have more than enough on offer in Canada, and specifically, British Columbia. The B.C. Mountains are full of steep slopes and challenging routes perfect for adrenaline junkies and expert level helicopter skiers.
Pure Powder also offers the CMH Steep Shots and Pillow Drops heli skiing programme, taking veteran heli skiers into some of Canada’s most challenging terrains and pairing them with two expert guides and a guest athlete coach. The substance of the course is all about pushing the boundaries of your skills, sharpening your free-riding skills to the point where you can confidently tackle the most hair-raising terrain that Canada has to offer.
By pushing expert skiers into new and challenging terrain with world-class guides helping to refine skills, the programme aims to take skiers who are already operating at the highest levels and provide the extra edge needed to be considered some of the best in the sport.
Heli Skiing Canada: Accommodations
While skiers around the world flock to Canada for its incredibly varied terrain, deep powder snow, excellent services and friendly ski culture, there’s no denying the quality of accommodation options. Canada is known for a long tradition of superb ski lodges, and heli ski specific lodges in particular tend to stand out for their remote exclusivity, adventurous nature and luxury amenities, often adding to an already exceptional experience for many.
Fortunately, there is enough of a variety of accommodation options to offer skiers plenty of choice. In this section, we’ll cover a few of the best accommodation spots for people with different preferences.
The Rustic Galena Lodge
The Galena Lodge is a rustic mountain lodge nestled in the Badshot Range of the Selkirk’s that can only be accessed via a helicopter trip. Despite its exclusivity, the lodge has a laidback atmosphere and casual attitude where skiers can enjoy their time off the slopes relaxing, unwinding and taking in the scenery. The lodge can sleep up to 44 guests and has access to 1,080 square km of skiable terrain. The surrounding snow is known for its extreme depth, and the nearby terrain for pillow lines and great tree skiing.
The Galena Lodge is particularly well-suited to advanced skiers, as the surrounding terrain gives experts the chance to take on steep tree-lined slopes and fast-paced shots that only the best can.
The Luxurious Bighorn Lodge
You’ll be braving freezing temperatures, deep powdered snow and howling winds as you soar down the rugged mountain slopes of British Columbia. As you wind down for the day, nothing quite compares to luxurious comfort. Luckily, at The Bighorn Lodge in Revelstoke, supreme luxury meets the ultimate adventure.
The popular heli skiing lodge is upheld to the highest standards of accommodation and service, lavishing guests with world class amenities and comforts such as a sauna, outdoor hot tub, indoor swimming pool, small gym, Wi-Fi, pool table, TV, modern games consoles and games library, a guest computer, private cinema and even an award-winning private chef from Europe. The Bighorn Lodge gives guests an unforgettable experience, one that can be hard to match anywhere else in the world.
The Town-Based Regent Hotel
Canada is known as the Mecca of helicopter skiing, attracting enthusiasts of the sport from around the world. For the more social-oriented skiers, meeting local town folk and other passionate skiers in the area can make the experience even more enjoyable. The Regent Hotel, where the CMH home base is, is a town-based hotel where helicopter skiers can stay and embrace the local culture.
This town is often dubbed the Powder Capital of North America because of its high annual snowfall of 18 metres, providing heli-skiers with superb conditions for enjoying the sport to the max, whether you’re a first-timer or long-time heli-skier. As a result, it is positively lively with skiers; the town is built to accommodate this influx of passionate powdered snow enthusiasts. The place is full of cosy restaurants and one festive pub where locals and tourists alike make friends and share stories. The Regent Hotel sits in the centre of Revelstoke, accommodating up to 48 guests who have easy access to the amenities and festivities of the Powder Capital.
The Remote Bugaboos Lodge
If big crowds aren’t your thing and you’d prefer to embrace the solitude of the great Canadian wilderness, soaking up the sight of endless forests, distant lakes and towering peaks, heading to a remote lodge is what you want. In that case, make the pilgrimage to where it all began—the Bugaboos Lodge, where Hans Gmoser founded CMH and effectively started the extreme sport of helicopter skiing.
You can only access this remote mountain lodge by helicopter, where you’ll find yourself surrounded by nothing but breathtaking nature. It’s been built to make the most of the views that surround it, providing sweeping vistas of the granite spires and glaciers that populate the area. Be sure to head up to the rooftop, where you’ll find a hot tub to steam in while you take in the spectacular natural landscape that surrounds you.
Heli Skiing Canada: Preparations For Every Skier
Canada comes with all kinds of skiing and accommodation options to suit your needs, but there are a few things that every adventurer visiting the country needs to keep in mind. These include a good level of ski fitness and a proper acclimatisation routine to avoid altitude sickness.
Fitness
As a skier, you’re probably well aware of the importance of fitness, and with helicopter skiing, fitness is emphasised even more. The fitter you are, the more likely you are to enjoy your experience to the maximum.
Like all activities, the best way to build up the kind of fitness specific to heli skiing is to ski regularly, which can be done traditionally on groomed lines at a skiing resort or, even better, with backcountry skiing. Doing some easier runs on the slopes before your helicopter skiing adventure is a great way to prepare yourself.
Not everybody can go skiing to prepare for heli skiing though, so we’ve worked alongside professional Craig Mclean (who runs the Putney Chiropractic Centre) to create a detailed Stretching and Strengthening online programme for heli skiers to follow, with video guides taking you through workouts designed to build up core, leg, and back strength and limberness, all key attribute of helicopter skiing fitness.
With the right fitness level, you’re far less likely to get fatigued during off-piste skiing. Getting fatigued can lead to you falling behind, making potentially dangerous mistakes, and having a far less enjoyable experience than desired. Always make sure you’re at the right fitness standard before embarking on your trip to avoid injury and other potential hazards.
Acclimate
Of course, helicopter skiing takes place at high altitudes. Without a helicopter, it would be next to impossible to reach some of these destinations. The downside of the remote, untouched nature of the landscape is the potential for altitude sickness, which can put a significant damper on your entire experience. But this can all be avoided by acclimatising yourself to the area before you head to the very top of the mountain for your skiing adventure.
You can do this by spending some time at one of the many lodges, as mentioned above, and doing some resort skiing in the local areas before going further up. Don’t rush to mountain peaks before your body is used to it, and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble overall. Acclimatising to the altitude allows you to have the best helicopter skiing experience possible.
Final Thoughts: Heli Skiing Canada With Pure Powder
In this blog, we see how heli skiing Canada continues to rise in popularity for outdoor enthusiasts and powder snow lovers, drawing in skiers from all over the world. It’s a country rife with exciting and vast swaths of skiable terrain, offering features suited to skiers of every experience level.
The well-established nature of heli ski operators here means that skiers can be confident that there’s an experience tailored to them, such as a beginners or expert training course. The accommodations here are world-famous, leaving guests with memorable experiences across the board, whether you stayed at a rustic, luxurious, central or remote lodge.
At Pure Powder, we take care of everything so that you don’t have to. From finding the perfect accommodation and destination to suit your ability and desires to making sure every logistical box is ticked, we have you covered. For more information or to book your helicopter skiing trip today, reach out now!
