In this insightful and comprehensive conversation, Tim and Orest delve into the intricacies of heli-skiing and cat-skiing, focusing on destinations like Chatter Creek and Monashee Powder. They explore various aspects of skiing, from the dynamics and safety considerations of heli-skiing versus cat-skiing, to introducing family members to powder skiing, and the financial aspects of these experiences. Orest, a seasoned skier, shares his extensive knowledge on choosing the right ski operations, the importance of guide experience, and offers valuable insights for choosing your destinations and even helicopter types, discussing everything from skill level to location preferences and the lasting impact these experiences have on personal memories.
Exploring Skiing Habits and Annual Ski Days
Tim (00:37)
I’m very excited to chat about ski stuff with somebody that’s been to a ton of places. Normally the questions I have are kind of almost a review of one place. Like, I’ll chat with a person about somewhere they’ve skied.
Tim (00:50)
But you’ve skied out a lot. So I’m going to just kind of ask you broad ski questions. Maybe we just chat about one towards the end if we’ve got time. But, yeah, you’re skiing now. How many days in a year are you getting skiing now?
Orest (01:06)
I’ve been averaging about 50 to 55 in the last three years. So I retired in December of 2020, which was year one of COVID And you retire, you have a lot of time in your hands. So I’m skiing more now than I did before retirement just because I got a season pass and I got a place in Canmore.
Orest (01:34)
So that’s sort of the drill these days, around 50 days. But last year was a pretty down year in terms of snow quality. Didn’t get a lot of powder in a lot of places. That’s my usual year these days. That’s a good number.
Inspirational Ski Stories and Picking the Perfect Ski Day
Tim (01:53)
I met a guy, he was 91, skiing Jasper. I had asked him at 91, most people are barely walking and he was skiing and I watched him ski like he takes green runs, but he still has tight little turns. And I asked him, how many days a year do you get out?
Tim (02:07)
And he was getting over 100 even a couple of years back. I’m like, I guess that’s how you still do it at 90 when you’re 70, 80. If you’re getting 100 runs in a year, you’re probably still going to be able to do it.
Orest (02:19)
Yeah, well, if you like powder and if you get a little pickier, too, you kind of pick your days. And if you can avoid weekends, you avoid weekends. So there’s that. But if you haven’t had snow for a week and it’s baked concrete and it’s 22 below, how much fun are you really going to have?
Orest (02:41)
Just to say, well, I skied another day this year. It’s like guys that want to golf in the rain. I’m like, oh, no, that’s not for me. There depends on the temperature. The people I generally ski with, including my two kids, we’re pretty much powder junkies.
Orest (03:01)
We want to hit powder, but you can have a good day in fresh corduroy, too, and rip around on your front side skis. So on a nice day, if the sun is out as well, it’s a pretty spectacular day kind of thing. But powder is really the reason you get up in the morning.
Selecting Destinations for Heli and Cat Skiing
Tim (03:16)
Fair. How do you pick where you’re going to helly your cat ski? How do you make that go? Because it sounds like you’ve been to a bunch of places.
Orest (03:29)
Yeah. How do you decide where you’re going to go for the year? And this year is, I guess, kind of anomalous because everyone seems to be booked up. Yeah, we up. We initially were all going to one of the few places that had cat skiing at that time, and they’re all in BC.
Orest (03:44)
I think there’s three of them back then. But we went to cat powder skiing right out of Revelstoke because that’s the first place that we started going for two days on a weekend and. Cat Powder was then bought out by Revelstoke Mountain that now runs that same area that we cat skied as Revelstoke Ski Hill.
Orest (04:06)
So we started going there in about 1987, didn’t know what we were doing. Everyone is in their slalom 203s, do six turns, do a couple of head rolls. It was just a total gong show. But eventually when you realize that if I could actually make a couple of dozen turns together, this could be a lot of fun.
The Evolution of Skiing Adventures at Cat Powder
Orest (04:29)
So we just kept coming back, coming back and trying to improve a little bit. So we just started skiing there. We got to know the owner quite well. We had little Sidebar deals with him, and so we would just go there.
Orest (04:48)
It eventually progressed from two days in December to like three, four days. And finally we just said, the healthy, we’ll just go for five days, Monday to Friday. So we did that drill for about ten years.
Orest (05:00)
So we spent three trips a year skiing five days at Cat Powder and Monday to Friday. And I had my good buddies. And then when we meet really good people on the trip, we invite them back to, you know, come and join us for our next trip because they’re, you know, they’re good people.
Orest (05:23)
They know how to ski. They’re fun. And we kept building, building the crew of who would come out. So that was great because it was so economical. I mean, the, the owner gave us such a great deal that it was, we stopped flying to Whistler to ski because there’s no point.
Orest (05:38)
It was more expensive to go to Whistler than to go cat skiing. And cat skiing. You got to get the, the rubber hit the road when the owner’s name was Clyde Newsom, and he treated us extremely well, like, I just have nothing but good things to say about him.
Orest (05:55)
But when he sold out, then all of a sudden we had to go find other places to cat ski. But that’s when it got kind of interesting, because not knowing what the other places were like, we decided to explore and go to a whole bunch and see what we liked.
The Challenges of Booking Cat Skiing Trips Today
Orest (06:11)
And then we could circle around, come back and ski those places. So we end up skiing quite a few different cat operations throughout BC. They’re all in BC, and some were lodge driven, where they’d have the nice lodge and you’d stay there.
Orest (06:31)
And then others were like day ski programs. And so we tried all those. And of course, the day ski program is a little bit less expensive, which is okay for some people. So we just went to as many as we could that we’d heard good things about and then doubled back when we liked what we saw and what we were skiing and the guides and that sort of thing.
Orest (06:56)
And then now we just sort of pick and choose the ones that we really like. But the problem now is that cat skiing has caught on so well that it’s hard to book a trip in your favorite places, because for some reason, they have this policy that if you ski there one year, you get to rebook the same time next year.
Orest (07:23)
So it’s hard getting a spot in any cat operation now worth its salt because it’s so sold out. So you almost got to get a bit lucky in a sense that, you know, a group of two, three, four have just decided they’re not going to come back kind of thing.
Orest (07:40)
Right? So now it’s sort of picking and choosing. Well, where can I go? As opposed to where do I want to go? So we have our favorites, and then you may not get in because they’re booked for the year.
Favorite Skiing Destinations and Their Unique Features
Tim (07:50)
What are your current favorites?
Orest (07:55)
Well, the favorites that I’ve skied at that I would definitely want to go back to are probably Chatter Creek, where we’re going in December. Bald face out of Nelson. Monashi Powder, which is due east of Vernon.
Orest (08:18)
Monashi powder experience to do east of Vernon. So those would probably be the top three. And they’re all lodge driven locations where you stay in a nice lodge and you book out of there. Bald Face is nice because they chopper you in from the town, from the airport, so you get a little chopper.
Tim (08:38)
I’ve never been in a helicopter.
Orest (8:40)
It’s a nice experience, so that’s always great. Or Chatter Creek is nice because it’s so close to Canmore. And I have a son now living in Kamloops, so it’s close to Kamloops, so it’s kind of halfway.
Orest (08:56)
But the location is great. And they also chopper you in, which is always a nice little fun ride. But it does delay your departure a little bit on the last day. And Monashi Powder, we were there many times.
Orest (09:13)
It’s a little hard to get to. And you have to drive to the trailhead where they meet at the local golf course clubhouse. And then they bus you away and then they catch you all the way to the top. So those are the three that we’ve probably skied in a lodge setting the most.
Orest (09:31)
There’s some day operations that we’ve had great times that, including Valhalla, which is out of Nelson, it’s owned by the same people that own bald Face. Now, we’ve been at K three several times, which is just outside of Revelstoke.
Orest (09:48)
But K three are changing their day program. They’ve changed even this year because they said they’re going to build. And do the lodge thing as opposed to the day thing.
Tim (09:54)
That’s been my favorite. I’ve mostly skied K Three.
Orest (10:01)
Yeah. So we’ve had some big adventures there, including first Descent and it was pretty wild trip. The hardest run I’ve ever done was at K three. So those are the, the places that on a day basis we’ve been to.
Orest (10:22)
We also tried at other places like we tried Mustang powder. We tried Retalik. Retalik is in Trout Lake, New Denver, that new Denver kind of area. We tried Keefer Lake and I’m hoping to try a newer day program that’s out of Valmont called Caribou Cat Skiing this January.
Orest (10:44)
I’m just trying to connect with some of my guys to go there and they run a day program that’s sort of in the wings this year plus the chatter trip in December. But those three lodges would be my favorite.
Orest (10:59)
Right? And I would say chatter and bald face are one A, one B, or vice versa. And then Monashi would be third out of that group. But those would be my favorites.
Why Chatter Creek Tops the List: Location and Accessibility
Tim (11:03)
Okay, cool. Most of my questions are geared to talking about one resort.
I’m going to ask you a question specific to Chatter Creek. Why does that one make number one? Why is chatter your favorite? What’s the thing that sets it apart?
Orest (11:29)
Well, if you’re in Edmonton or Calgary or Kamloops for that matter, it’s just closer.
Orest (11:36)
The one thing about boldface is it’s in Nelson. And if you’re even out of mean, it’s a real haul to get there. It’s a long drive. I’ve flown there a couple, three times. And you’re just scared. You’re petrified that you’re not going to be able to land because that airport in Castlegar, aptly named Cansel gar, cancels flights Willy nilly.
Orest (12:00)
And so once you land there you think, OK, I’m good to go because at least I’m here now and I’ve heard all these horror stories where they reroute you to Calgary as opposed to even Kelowna. So the stress of flying was too high because you just think you’re booked up for skiing, you don’t get there.
Orest (12:20)
Yeah. And then coming out of it we flew out twice. And then the third time we flew out we got canceled. And so you’re sitting in your hotel in Nelson and it’s a totally blue sky. Like there’s no cloud in the sky.
Orest (12:35)
Then you get the notice saying your flight’s been canceled. So then we started driving and again, it’s just a long haul to get there. That’s the only downside. Nelson is a beautiful town. I mean, I like Nelson.
Orest (12:48)
Lots of great restaurants and it’s just a distance thing. Right. Nice chopper ride to the lodge. The lodge is great. They treated us super well. Got to know the owner and his dog and everything else.
Orest (13:02)
So food was great. Chatter is just a little bit closer. I think on balance their snow depth might not be quite as deep as bald face, but it’s the closeness to Calgary and Edmonton and Canmore that carries the day there.
Getting to Chatter Creek and Lodge Features
Tim (13:22)
And how do you get there? So you just drive straight to chatter? I’d have to look.
Orest (13:30)
Yeah. It’s just about 22 km west of Golden. Okay. Right at the divided highway there and it’s like half a kilometer to the helipad.
Orest (13:39)
And then they fly you up the ridge and to the lodge. And it’s a beautiful old rustic lodge and good people there. Good skiing, and that’s why we went there, just the proximity and ended up going back.
Essential Tips for First-Time Visitors to Chatter Creek
Tim (14:00)
What tips would you give someone going there for the first time?
Orest (14:11)
Well, I think a lot of places advertise that you should be, like a strong intermediate to expert skier, and I would disagree with that somewhat.
Orest (14:21)
I think you should be a strong expert skier if you want to really have the experience of cat skiing to its fullest. So I think you should be a strong skier and be able to tackle any expert run on your local mountain.
Orest (14:38)
I would say you should get in shape, be in good shape, both ski shape and otherwise, because it beats you up every time you fall in powder. It’s ten times harder to get up and get reconnected than it is on hard pack.
Orest (14:54)
So it just saps your energy. When you’re there, you can expect anything. I mean, if you’re going to have bluebird days, it’s pretty rare. If you have one bluebird day out of four, that’s a good trip.
Orest (15:08)
The reason they get so much snow is because they have snow, and being snowy means there’s no sun. So be in shape. If you’re uncertain about things, take a lesson at your local hill with a certified guide and maybe just say, want to go powder skiing?
Orest (15:28)
Can you give me some tips? Don’t be in the back door. Your quads will burn out in no time. So, you know. Take it seriously. So when you’re skiing in the alpine or on a big ski run, it might be 20 meters wide, 30 meters wide, 40, 50, who knows, right?
Orest (15:47)
I mean, sunshine, you go to the top of the sunshine and it’s like hundreds of meters. But when you’re cat skiing, you don’t have that luxury. You’ve got the guide’s track. And then he says, okay, left or right of my track?
Orest (15:59)
But he doesn’t mean like 100 meters left, he means like 2 meters left. So you have to ski really disciplined and tight because a lot of shit can go wrong when you’re in the backcountry. So you have to know how to ski.
Orest (16:16)
But the odds are that you’re going to be doing a lot of trees because when the light is flat and you’re in the alpine, it’s not that much fun. It’s like skiing inside a ping pong ball, right? So you hit the tree line, all of a sudden it’s the same snow, but you can see everything because the trees give you all that contrast.
Orest (16:32)
So you should expect to ski in the trees. You’re going to be in the trees half the time on a good day and on a bad day, you’re going to be there like 90% of the time. And when you get a little bit better, you know that trees are your friends.
Orest (16:49)
You love the trees because the stoves there is great. So you have to have the ability to ski in tight locations with trees and also avoid tree well and all that. It can work on your head. If you’re not ready for it, anticipate it, because it’s intimidating, right?
Orest (17:09)
Anytime you try something new, it’s intimidating, right? So be prepared to ski in the alpine. Be prepared to ski in flat light, be prepared to ski in trees. So the one thing I learned over the years is.
Advice on Skiing Gear and Managing Expectations
Orest (17:22)
You can’t just have one pair of goggles. You got to have your flat light goggles. Then you have your sun goggles. Sun goggles look great. They look great in pictures. You can see the reflection of everything, but you can’t see shit because it blocks 90% of the light.
Orest (17:35)
On a flat day, you want to have everything you can. As you get older, it even makes it worse. So have a good pair of flat light goggles and a pair of sun goggles. Look good in pictures. But that helps a lot, too.
Orest (17:50)
When you’re young, you can fall and do three hundred and sixty s and hock off cliffs, and it’s no big deal. But when you get to me, my age, you don’t want to fall. They just want to stay on the snow.
Orest (18:00)
There’s no cliffs for me anymore. My buddies and I have a saying that if we’re in the air, we’ve made a mistake, so we want to stay in the snow. Right? My two sons, who are addicted now, too, so they’ll find cliffs, they’ll go hucking and chucking and all that.
Orest (18:16)
And it’s good for them. It’s for kids. So those are the things that I would recommend that you do. But take it seriously. If you think you’re an intermediate skier, you’re going to go have fun. You’re in for a long two, three days.
Recommendations for Ski Trip Duration and Choosing the Right Ski Location
Orest (18:33)
You’re going to be tired. Yeah. The other thing I’d recommend is don’t go for two days. If you’re just starting out, go for three days for sure, because two days is too hectic. Because day one, you have all your avalanche training.
Orest (18:46)
Then day two, you’re probably going to be leaving one run early, especially if there’s a helicopter access that you have to use. And so it’s just kind of rush, rush. But if you go for three days, then that middle day is a nice, relaxing day.
Orest (19:00)
And usually that people, if they take three days on day three, they really start improving a lot. And they get confident and they know the drill. They’re not scared to go at the front. It’s okay being at the back, too.
Orest (19:19)
The angst of all, the novelty wears off. Go for three days in a nice lodge and I guess pick a location that doesn’t cater just to hard black diamond type runs. So chatter kind of caters to more of an experienced cat skier, powder skier.
Orest (19:40)
So that just generally means that they have a lot of hard terrain and not that much mellow terrain. Right. It. Some places will even say, look, if you’re not an experienced powder skier, backcountry skier, we’re not the place for you.
Orest (19:57)
You’re not going to have a good time. Right. Do a little research on the location you’re going to and then pick something that’s good for you. Some places also have like all Women’s week and then others have a learning to cat or heli ski week.
Orest (20:19)
If you’re a little bit anxious, that’s not a bad thing to consider either. Right?
Considering Bringing Family Members Who Don’t Ski
Tim (20:22)
So you mentioned you ski a bunch with your sons. One of my questions is particularly, we’re talking about chatter. Would you bring your family?
Tim (20:36)
What does that look like? What if some of them don’t ski? Like my wife skis, but it’s more like she’ll do some green runs then sit in the lodge and have a drink for the rest of the day. She’s not going to be jumping out of a helicopter.
Orest (20:48)
Well, if your wife doesn’t ski. I’ve never had that experience bringing someone along that just stays in the lodge. So I don’t know what they would charge you, but I know Eagle Pass. That’s a helicopter operation.
Orest (21:04)
At a relistoke, they would charge the spouse. There’s a lot of money, probably not worth it. She’s just going to be in the room that I have already, so it’s not like she’s taken up any. Any added space, but I’ll pay for her meals and all that.
Orest (21:19)
But it was pretty exorbitant, so I guess that’s out basically, if you’re not skiing. I don’t think I would bring someone. At the end of the day, you want to talk about your ski day and not mortgages and childcare issues and what Trudeau is doing or Daniel Smith had just said.
Orest (21:43)
So it’s kind of geared towards ski stuff. And then you go from there. But I think might feel a little lost if you were there with a crowd of people that you’re just not just there to. Yeah, so I do my best and get a lot of brownie points and leave her at home kind of thing.
Orest (22:04)
Right. But I started bringing my kids quite early because I really wanted to indoctrinate them into how much fun you can have powder skiing. Right.
Introducing Children to Skiing: Age Considerations and Motivations
Tim (22:13)
And how early? How young are we talking about?
Orest (22:18)
16 and 18.
Orest (22:22)
Okay. So Clyde, the owner of Cat Powder, because they were closing out the business, right. So at 18 you can go, but at 16, you can’t cat ski unless you get permission. So Clyde said, well, if your son is a good, strong skier and he listens, well, no problem, bring him out.
Orest (22:49)
But I kind of used it as incentive for them when they were in grade ten. I said, well, if you get really good marks in school, if be a grad president, I’ll take you cat skiing for a week in Rebel Stoke.
Orest (23:00)
So they were all over that. But the problem was that Dan got his honors every year and going to go cat skiing, just have to go. Well, I’m only 16. I’m in grade ten. Like, what about me? I said, well.
Orest (23:15)
Life isn’t fair. That’s the way it goes. You can’t go. So anyways, he kept asking, kept asking. So I got permission from Clyde to bring along. But I made a promise. If I’m going to take you cat skiing, like that’s on the same basis, you got to get honors in grade ten 11 and 12 or the deal is off.
Orest (23:30)
So he promised me, keep up his marks and do it. And he did. But of course, you get the Rutherford Scholarship and it’s more than $1,000. So I was going to win win situation. So it took them skiing and they had a pretty good time.
Orest (23:44)
Wasn’t the greatest year that year. And then we just started going, doing a dad son trip every year. Eventually some of my buddies would bring their sons or their daughter, and some years we’d have a whole cat, like a dad son dad daughter group of twelve.
Orest (24:03)
We were all by ourselves. One of the best years we ever had was at Bald Face in 2007. And it snowed about 35 day we arrived and every day we were there it was like 30, 35. It was just epic. Bottomless turns every run for four days.
Orest (24:29)
Luckily, on a half day of sun, they sent the photographer with our group. So we got a ton of pictures out of that trip, too. So it’s interspersed throughout my house and my kids skiing and myself.
Capturing Memories: The Role of Photographers in Ski Trips
Tim (24:36)
Do they have a photographer on staff that ski sometimes or just happen to be somebody that’s a photographer that was in the group?
Orest (24:50)
Some operations, like chatter does this bald face did that. I think Monashi did too, is they’ll have one photographer in the lodge and then he or she will take turns riding one cat to take pictures of the group.
Orest (25:06)
And then they’ll sell you a CD or thumb drive of all the pictures and the videos and. Or whatever it was $75 or something, right? We got some beautiful pictures and then we made copies for everyone. So everyone on that dead sun trip has the same pictures.
Orest (25:28)
And you quickly realize when you’re being photographed that you got to stand out somehow. If everyone’s wearing a black Jack and a black helmet, everyone looks the same. So then you want to be a little photogenic and have something colorful and photographers like that.
Orest (25:44)
So if there’s three people coming down and you got the camel jacket on, he’s not going to take pictures. He’s going to take pictures of you because you got the orange Arcterics jacket. So then even gloves, because on a powdered day, sometimes you’re not seeing much except someone’s glove, right?
Orest (26:03)
I don’t know who that is, but that’s a white glove. That’s got to be Orest. So even those little things come up in terms of how to make events memorable. But we’ve been doing the dad’s son trip now every year since my youngest son was 16.
When to Stop Paying for Your Children’s Ski Trips
Orest (26:21)
He’s 32 now. So we just keep going out, and as long as the legs hold out and my ECL doesn’t blow up on me or something, just keep running this thing. We had a deal, though, that I would pay for their trip on these dad son trips until I retired.
Orest (26:41)
But they’re 16. They’re not even thinking straight. So when I finally retired in December of 2020, cat skiing got canceled that year because of COVID and the year after. But at Christmas time, I said, so, boys, we got one more trip that I owe you from this year.
Orest (27:07)
But then after that, the deal is a deal. He goes, what are you talking about? Well, I pay. Until I retire. Right. And I’m now retired. And they go and they both kind of looked at me and said, oh, shit.
Orest (27:22)
You really love that job. So as it turns out, my one son couldn’t go last year. I’m paying for his trip this year, and my other son paid for himself. So this will be the last year that I actually have to pony up money to go skiing with them.
Orest (27:41)
So we’ll see what they say, but I’m sure they’ll keep up their end of the bargain. Yeah, you’ll probably try to find a. Way to make it happen. Yeah, but the idea is you go cat skiing or heli skiing. So I said, well, no sense being cheap.
Orest (27:55)
We could go Helly. Right? So I’ll think about that. But Helly is just getting stupid expensive. I mean, it’s already stupid expensive, but the prices are just going up astronomically.
Evaluating the Value and Cost of Skiing Experiences
Tim (28:04)
How do you think about the value?
Tim (28:09)
Because even cat outfits, there’s such a huge range. Like you can still go cat skiing for a day for $400 or you can go like, Helly skiing for $4000. How are you thinking through some of these? Because prices aren’t the same.
Orest (28:23)
And again, if you haven’t been at. These places, well, I don’t know any cat ski operation that’s running for less than about $700 a day. Now. I think it’s five or $600.
Tim (28:31)
Castle Mountain has one that’s still cheapish, but that’s probably maybe even this year.
Orest (28:40)
That’s normal. Yeah, but that’s kind of, you take the chairlift up. That’s right. A little bit further down. Takes you somewhere. So it’s kind of like a cat, a chair assisted operation kind of working together.
Orest 1 (28:57)
So it’s not a traditional cat operation. Right. And Castle is a great mountain. Right. I love Castle. Right. And if you got Great snow at Castle midweek. Everything to the right of the big chair is just beautiful skiing.
Orest 1 (29:20)
I’ve never been cat skiing there, but if the conditions are great at Castle, I wouldn’t go cat skiing. But most of them are about 700, 750, I think. Yeah. So the. The places like chatter and ball face are probably going to be in the 1600 to 2000 a day now.
Orest (29:46)
Right? Of course, you got the lodge, you got all your food, your accommodation, everything else, right. But it’s a daunting price for most people to pay. You got three days and it’s like six grand and you still got to get there.
Orest (30:03)
It’s getting to be very expensive. When we started off at cat Powder, we’d be spending $1,000 for five days.
Tim (30:20)
Wow.
Orest (30:22)
Now it’s like $200 a day to ski. It’s a surge price at Whistler, probably helicopter skiing.
Their prices increased 25% this year, increased 25% last year. And so since COVID started, prices have gone up 50%. So daily Heli skiing now is coming in at about 2000. 202,300. And if you want to stay in a nice lodge, probably closer to three grand a day.
Orest (30:46)
So you have to have a lot of post tax income to do that. It was all stupid. I mean, people say, well, how much is a trip going to cost you? And you can reluctantly tell them ten grand, even for me. And I’m paying this because I’m addicted to snow.
Orest (31:03)
It’s just stupid. It’s just stupid money. There’s no way around it. And most of us would be very wealthy if we didn’t. Powder ski because we have all this money that we’ve spent over the years on Cat and Heli operations.
Orest (31:19)
Right? So this year my buddies and I decided we weren’t going to do Helle. We’re going to take a year off on the heli because the prices just went up quite a bit. And even if you do the know, we go to a place called Eagle Pass and revelstoke all the time because we know the owner from way back when he was a guide and we skied with him before and we knew his uncle.
Orest (31:43)
And it’s just, Eagle Pass is just the best place to go for heli skiing. Right. But you could do the day program and then rent a big house. Some of the guys even rent their houses out. You got a four or five bedroom house with a hot tub.
Orest (32:01)
Right. In towns, all the restaurants are there and it’s a great way to spend four days with your buddies. Right. But the one year hiatus this year we’ll see how it goes and then see if we can come back.
Orest (32:17)
But if you want to stay in the lodge and you’re spending twelve grand for four days, a lot of people can’t afford that. And even if you can afford it, you think, jeez, can I justify this? How do I explain to my wife, we’re not going to Europe this year, but I’m going to be gone for five days?
Financial Strategies for Funding Ski Trips
Orest (32:34)
Taking that, right. One of the ways I did it was I would always set aside some money, whether it’s my expense account from traveling somewhere, I get mileage. I put that into a separate little ski fund.
Orest (32:47)
And now I just take my CPP because I’m over 65 and my CPP is mine to do as I please. And my wife does the same with hers. That’s her play money, is my play money. So I use my play money to go ski and have fun.
Orest (33:03)
Right? That’s one way to sort of justify it’s just play money and doesn’t go out of the general bank account.
Comparing Heli-Skiing to Cat-Skiing: Preferences and Experiences
Tim (33:10)
And then how do you compare Heli skiing to cat sking? Do you say it’s that much better?
Orest (33:17)
Maybe not at 50% surge price. But is it better in your mind? It is better. And it’s also different. We have always liked the smaller choppers, the A stars, because it’s four skiers. You’ve got a guy in a pilot.
Orest (33:38)
So the A star helicopters are like the Porsche to get around in the mountains. As opposed to the big battle where you’ve got the Mike Wagley, or the CMH, where you’ve got twelve skiers and two guides.
Orest (33:52)
And then the pilot. It’s a big lumbering machine that takes off harder, can’t land in certain areas. So we like the A Star program. And that’s what chatter does snow water out of. Nelson does that too.
Orest (34:06)
Because these machines can just go anywhere, it seems like, and super safe. They’ve been around a long time. And we like skiing in a group of four. So there’s four of you there, you’re all friends, you’re all safety conscious.
Orest (34:20)
One of my friends is an ex ski guide. So everyone is taking care of each other. Because there’s no tailgunner. That’s one of the differences. No tailgunner held skiing. But it’s not this mass of twelve people getting out of a chopper that you don’t know.
Orest (34:34)
And if you’re paying that kind of money. And all of a sudden there’s four people from who knows where that can’t ski. It fucks up your whole day because you’re waiting, waiting, waiting. Because they can’t ski, right?
Orest (34:46)
So with skiing with four people with an A star, you’re going to have a phenomenal day because people are just going to ski. But there’s always that safety thing in the back of your mind. Always looking out for your buddies.
Orst (34:59)
And someone falls, everyone stops, make sure everything’s okay. In the trees, you’re always skiing with a partner. So we have a comfort level with that, because we all know what we’re doing. And then when the guides see that we know what we’re doing now, we do better lines, longer lines.
The Dynamics of Skiing with a Small Group in Heli-Skiing
Orest (35:15)
It doesn’t have to stop and regroup as much. So the one big difference is you’re going to get more skiing in a day. In helicopter skiing, it’s going to be more stressful because you’re getting in and out of the chopper all the time.
Orest (35:35)
And that’s an event in and of itself because the rotors are spinning all the time. They never stop. And when you’re waiting for the chopper to come in, it lands about a meter from you. Just go straight up and go straight down a meter from you.
Orest (35:52)
So you’re always saying, well, there’s wind in the mountains, right? But the land is there. Then you got to hop in and everything is fast. You’re on the clock, it seems like. And so if you want a nice, relaxing experience, helicopter skiing is not the place to go.
Orest (36:12)
You’re going to be skiing hard, but you’ve got to be even better shape to go heli skiing than you do in a cat operation. So it’s more stressful just for landing and takeoffs. And you got to get used to that.
Orest (36:28)
And of course, if an a star has your group of four, then there’s going to be two other groups of four behind you. So when you land, you got to get your abbey bag on and do your crotch strap and get your boots on.
Orest (36:42)
You got to go because there’s another group coming that might be landing in the same spot. So you can’t just sort of sit there and have a smoke and grab a beer and relax. It’s kind of go go. Like most things, you got to get used to that.
Orest (36:59)
And then you get the process going. And if it’s 20 below, like, you can’t take your gloves off and do something and. So there’s that difference. The big thing, too, is that if conditions aren’t great or they haven’t had snow for a week, and there’s three groups, and your tenure isn’t that huge in a cat operation.
Navigating Varied Skiing Conditions and Terrain Choices in Heli-Skiing
Orest (37:20)
Well, a lot of it going to get skied out in a week. Whereas with a helicopter they might have 300,000 acres and they’ll fly from Revelstoke past Three Valley gap. I mean, they’ve got areas south of the TransCanada, north of the TransCanada, they’ve got such a wide area that you can fly anywhere.
Orest (37:42)
Now, they don’t want to fly far if they don’t have to, because it’s just fuel. Fuel costs them money. But you can go hunting for snow and then it might come down to, well, we only want to ski for safety reasons on north facing slopes.
Oerst (37:56)
Then you’re hunting for, north facing slopes are going to have great snow, but they’re safe, whereas South Slope might be too soft, too wet. We don’t want to go there because that’s where all the sloughing is happening and the avalanche is happening.
Orest (38:08)
So you have much larger terrain to pick from, both for safety and for searching for good snow. That’s a good thing, right? But you’re going to ski more. So you got to get in shape. And depending on how good you are, the guides will take you to the areas that you’re going to have a. Lot of fun at.
Safety Considerations and Guide Expertise in Ski Operations
Tim (38:27)
How much do you consider safety as far as picking these places? Or do you think every place has your top notch standards? How much safety consideration do you put in when choosing where to go?
Orest (38:47)
Well, initially you don’t know that much because you don’t know the players there. But you can look at all the lead guides in an operation and just see what kind of experience they have. Are they one year with their ACMG?
Orest (39:05)
They’ve been around for 20 years. Carl Classon, who was a lead guide at Monashi, was the head of the Canadian Avalanche Society, and he lived in Revelstoke. I mean, he was like the guide’s guide. So you can look at that kind of stuff and say, well, I’m pretty comfortable with this guy.
Orest (39:27)
And then if a guide is in his late 40s or 50s, they can still ski like nobody’s business. But they’ve been doing it for 25 years, right? They’re the guys who say, look, I want to come home, too. I got a wife and kids.
Orest (39:43)
I’m not going to be reckless. We’re going to see where that line is and maybe draw back a couple of points and not take those chances. I mean, we all want to come back again and again. So most of the guides are pretty Safety conscious.
Orest (40:01)
If you think you know more than the guides and don’t want to listen to them, then they’re going to leave you on the mountain for 4 hours and pick you up at the end of the day because they’re not going to put up with it.
Orest (40:09)
There’s only one boss. It’s not a Democracy, and you rely on them. Right. We’ve all been in the backcountry a lot, and there’s that saying that a little knowledge is dangerous. So we’ve all seen things happen, but I would not Presume to know, even after decades of backcountry skiing, is this a safe spot to be in?
Orest (40:35)
I don’t know that. I’d have an educated guess, which is a little bit better than a guess, but think you rely on those guys. And when they say, okay, if this looks kind of dodgy, they’ll dig a snow pit in the middle of the day and take ten minutes to dig a snow pit, or they’ll cut a line and just see if anything releases.
Orest (40:58)
And sometimes you do a kick turn and get the hell out of there. And sometimes you drop in. Right. So. You are kind of at the mercy. You don’t know the players as to how good the guides are and what their safety record is.
Orest (41:13)
Most of these operations, though, that I’ve mentioned, they’ve been around for 20 years. That does speak volumes. If you’re a quality operation, you’re going to track quality ski guides, right? There’s no way around that.
Establishing Professional Relationships with Guides and Evaluating New Ski Operations
Orest (41:32)
These are all quality operations. It’s pretty rare that you don’t have a good experience with your guide. Some of them, we’ll hook up with some of our guides in Rebelstoke that we rock skiing with that year.
Orest (41:49)
Just take them out for dinner just to shoot the breeze with them and see how things are going. Right. Because they’re mostly pretty interesting people too, and it’s a nice conversation. That’s kind of a dream job scenario.
Orest (41:59)
How do you end up there? Right? Yeah. If you form some kind of even sort of a semi professional relationship with. You’re not going to be your best buddy, come over at dinner, but you have a healthy professional relationship with them.
Orest (42:12)
It always helps. And they know you after a while, they know what you can or can’t do, so it works out great. Generally speaking, I would trust the operations to have the quality guides and take you to terrain because the repercussions are pretty dire.
Orest (42:31)
If you don’t, they’re around because they have a strong safety record. You have to do that. So I wouldn’t be too worried about that, frankly, if I’m signing up for an operation, if it’s brand new place that just opened up and it’s kind of, everything is sketchy because you just don’t know.
Speaker 1 (42:52)
Just give it a couple of years, let things settle down. Right? Yeah. Okay.
Reviewing the Chatter Creek Experience: Efficiency and Lodge Setup
Tim (43:02)
Back to Chatter Creek specifically. Is there anything you would change about that experience or like how they run things or Lodge any critique at.
Orest (43:14)
No? I really don’t have mean. They have a very efficient operation. The staff know exactly what they’re doing. You’re coming in and leaving. It’s more like a Swiss watch though. The way they run their operation and dinner is always at the same time.
Orest (43:36)
And it’s a nice hall for dinner. I can’t really think of anything that I would really want to improve on. I mean the lodge is sort of. There’s a central eating pool hall, little bar area. Then there’s accommodation across a rotunda in one wing.
Orest (43:54)
And then there’s a accommodation in the opposite way, another wing nearest the hot tub. So you’re a little further away from, say, the noise if people want to get a little rowdy in the bar. But yeah, I can’t really think of anything I would want them to improve on.
Orest (44:10)
Lower their prices. Yeah, they never listen. Good luck. Okay, well, yeah, thanks. I can’t really say anything I try and improve on.
Tim (44:22)
We worked through a lot of my questions just in our conversations. We may have to get together again to chat some of your other places you’ve gone, but yeah, thanks for sharing.
Tim (44:37)
Another question. Anyone else you think I should talk to? Like who else is in the space or even outfits that might take a call like this? I’ve just talked to skiers, but might be worth chatting with somebody that’s running the operation.
Tim (44:49)
Any suggestions with who else I chat with? Next. Again, this information is very interesting, but you can’t find it. You Google. If you’re in Germany and you want to go skiing for a week in Canada, it’s very difficult to find any info.
Tim (45:03)
It’s all know. I know from this person talking to this person. Like, if you’re not in the scene, it’s tricky to know anything about. I mean, you can talk to other skiers and you know it. The one thing that’s nice is to talk to someone who’s been to a lot of different areas because you got some perspective.
Orest (45:32)
If you have a really good experience at one place and you go there all the time, that’s fantastic, right? All the power to you. But you don’t know what all these other places are like. Or what are the places that you have the bad experiences at?
Orest (45:47)
Or where are they lacking. There’s a lot of people I could get you to talk to, but I might want to ask them first whether they want to. Oh, yeah, for sure. I do participate. But like my two sons, they’ve heli skied at Eagle Pass.
Orest (46:13)
They’ve done a lot of cat skiing. And they’re young. They’re 34 and 32. So they’re just starting the journey, right. But they’re kind of spoiled now. You got them addicted powder for powder. Not spoiled, spoiled.
Orest (46:35)
Even if you have an negative experience at a place like we have, it doesn’t mean that the place is bad for everyone. It’s just as things turn out. We did not have a good time going to this place, and that’s why we never went back.
Orest (46:49)
But six people out of ten might go there, and they think, this is wonderful, right? So. Sometimes it’s that one off that just doesn’t work out. But we do have a couple of places that we won’t go back to sometimes once burned on that, that’s it.
Orest (47:09)
If you don’t do things the right way. But there are way more good places to go to or to consider going to than the negative ones. Them. Yeah, way more. Way more.
Evaluating Skiing Locations: Personal Experiences vs. Broader Perspectives
Tim (47:13)
I do have one question we can close out, and I just asked this for all anyone I consider an expert.
Tim (47:31)
Is there anything else? If you were me, what would you be asking you? So if you were me, what questions would you be asking yourself?
Orest (47:44)
Okay, I’m not your typical person because I’m a convert, right? So I’m spending the money to is it worth it to go cat skiing or heli skiing for that matter?
Orest (48:02)
And of course, the answer is yes, because this is your greatest likelihood of being able to ski powder, either boot top or bottomless powder, for three, four days in a row. That’s your best guess, best bet to do that.
Orest (48:20)
And if you want to do that and go to ski hills, you’re out of luck. There’s just no way. So the idea, your typical trip is you want to ski fresh tracks every run of every day of your trip. And if you’re crossing someone’s track, it’s because you want to get to another area.
Orest (48:42)
Otherwise, you don’t want to ever ski in someone’s track. So if you want to do that, cat or Helly is the only way to mean you can go to Lake Louise or Sunshine and have. 20 centimeter day and you get their first thing, you’re lined up in the chair.
Orest (49:01)
And if you get four runs in before things get tracked out, that’s a pretty good morning. And then you got to go to. Everyone has their own little secret stash. You get in there, get some powder and get some turns.
Orest (49:16)
But it goes fast because there’s hundreds, if not thousands of people showing up on those days. Whereas with helicopter, wherever you’re going, it’s four of you plus the guide. And so you’re going to get the fresh track.
Orest (49:30)
So it’s a close thing to guarantee that you’re going to get. And there is no guarantee, but it’s a close thing you’re going to get. So to me, if you want to learn and enjoy powder skiing, it’s the only way to go.
Orest (49:45)
And so is it worth it? You bet. You live for experiences, right? I mean, even with your children, they don’t want things. They want to experience things with you as their father or you with them as the kid.
Orest (50:02)
And they’ll remember those experiences. They won’t remember the toy they got when they were 15 or some new game when they’re 20. But doing things with someone that gets stuck up here, and so those memories are forever.
Orest (50:21)
So is it worth it? Absolutely. I don’t regret any of it. Even though it cost me a lot of money. Sure. But money is not everything. Better that than die on a pile of money, too. Well, what’s the point?
Orest (50:35)
You’re just getting an to give it to the kids anyway, so they’re going to speed with it. Okay, thank you.
Planning Future Ski Trips and Discussing Regional Snow Conditions
Tim (50:40)
We’re just coming up on the hour, and I have to get my bags in the car because I’m heading your way to the mountains here.
Orest (50:49)
Yeah. One thing that I might suggest is after our. Chatter trip in December 15, 16,17. If you want to chat about a specific three day. Three day. Three day trip, that’ll be right on the heels of that trip because last year there was no snow in December and they canceled us.
Tim (51:16)
But that might be a thought of the euphoria of the trip to and see how things went there. Right? That sounds fantastic. Yeah, let’s connect. Maybe your son will want to chat too. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much.
Tim (51:29)
I’m glad this random connection worked out. Yeah. Well, enjoy your trip with the kids. Thank you. It’s a kind of a blue sky day. What’s it supposed to be like this. Weekend up in the mountains? Like, Warmish?
Orest (51:41)
Right? Like kind of minus. I don’t know if you can see through that or not. Oh, yeah. Is there snow? I can’t tell. No, not in Canmore. Canmore gets way less snow than Lake Louisa Sunshine because it’s really low down, too.
Orest (51:53)
So elevation is your friend. You want to get elevation for good snow. Perfectly. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Have a great day talking to you. Take care. Bye.
Tim (00:37)
I’m very excited to chat about ski stuff with somebody that’s been to a ton of places. Normally the questions I have are kind of almost a review of one place. Like, I’ll chat with a person about somewhere they’ve skied.
Tim (00:50)
But you’ve skied out a lot. So I’m going to just kind of ask you broad ski questions. Maybe we just chat about one towards the end if we’ve got time. But, yeah, you’re skiing now. How many days in a year are you getting skiing now?
Orest (01:06)
I’ve been averaging about 50 to 55 in the last three years. So I retired in December of 2020, which was year one of COVID And you retire, you have a lot of time in your hands. So I’m skiing more now than I did before retirement just because I got a season pass and I got a place in Canmore.
Orest (01:34)
So that’s sort of the drill these days, around 50 days. But last year was a pretty down year in terms of snow quality. Didn’t get a lot of powder in a lot of places. That’s my usual year these days. That’s a good number.
Tim (01:53)
I met a guy, he was 91, skiing Jasper. I had asked him at 91, most people are barely walking and he was skiing and I watched him ski like he takes green runs, but he still has tight little turns. And I asked him, how many days a year do you get out?
Speaker 1 (02:07)
And he was getting over 100 even a couple of years back. I’m like, I guess that’s how you still do it at 90 when you’re 70, 80. If you’re getting 100 runs in a year, you’re probably still going to be able to do it.
Orest (02:19)
Yeah, well, if you like powder and if you get a little pickier, too, you kind of pick your days. And if you can avoid weekends, you avoid weekends. So there’s that. But if you haven’t had snow for a week and it’s baked concrete and it’s 22 below, how much fun are you really going to have?
Orest (02:41)
Just to say, well, I skied another day this year. It’s like guys that want to golf in the rain. I’m like, oh, no, that’s not for me. There depends on the temperature. The people I generally ski with, including my two kids, we’re pretty much powder junkies.
Orest (03:01)
We want to hit powder, but you can have a good day in fresh corduroy, too, and rip around on your front side skis. So on a nice day, if the sun is out as well, it’s a pretty spectacular day kind of thing. But powder is really the reason you get up in the morning.
Tim (03:16)
Fair. How do you pick where you’re going to helly your cat ski? How do you make that go? Because it sounds like you’ve been to a bunch of places.
Orest (03:29)
Yeah. How do you decide where you’re going to go for the year? And this year is, I guess, kind of anomalous because everyone seems to be booked up. Yeah, we up. We initially were all going to one of the few places that had cat skiing at that time, and they’re all in BC.
Orest (03:44)
I think there’s three of them back then. But we went to cat powder skiing right out of Revelstoke because that’s the first place that we started going for two days on a weekend and. Cat Powder was then bought out by Revelstoke Mountain that now runs that same area that we cat skied as Revelstoke Ski Hill.
Orest (04:06)
So we started going there in about 1987, didn’t know what we were doing. Everyone is in their slalom 203s, do six turns, do a couple of head rolls. It was just a total gong show. But eventually when you realize that if I could actually make a couple of dozen turns together, this could be a lot of fun.
Orest (04:29)
So we just kept coming back, coming back and trying to improve a little bit. So we just started skiing there. We got to know the owner quite well. We had little Sidebar deals with him, and so we would just go there.
Orest (04:48)
It eventually progressed from two days in December to like three, four days. And finally we just said, the healthy, we’ll just go for five days, Monday to Friday. So we did that drill for about ten years.
Orest (05:00)
So we spent three trips a year skiing five days at Cat Powder and Monday to Friday. And I had my good buddies. And then when we meet really good people on the trip, we invite them back to, you know, come and join us for our next trip because they’re, you know, they’re good people.
Orest (05:23)
They know how to ski. They’re fun. And we kept building, building the crew of who would come out. So that was great because it was so economical. I mean, the, the owner gave us such a great deal that it was, we stopped flying to Whistler to ski because there’s no point.
Orest (05:38)
It was more expensive to go to Whistler than to go cat skiing. And cat skiing. You got to get the, the rubber hit the road when the owner’s name was Clyde Newsom, and he treated us extremely well, like, I just have nothing but good things to say about him.
Orest (05:55)
But when he sold out, then all of a sudden we had to go find other places to cat ski. But that’s when it got kind of interesting, because not knowing what the other places were like, we decided to explore and go to a whole bunch and see what we liked.
Orest (06:11)
And then we could circle around, come back and ski those places. So we end up skiing quite a few different cat operations throughout BC. They’re all in BC, and some were lodge driven, where they’d have the nice lodge and you’d stay there.
Orest (06:31)
And then others were like day ski programs. And so we tried all those. And of course, the day ski program is a little bit less expensive, which is okay for some people. So we just went to as many as we could that we’d heard good things about and then doubled back when we liked what we saw and what we were skiing and the guides and that sort of thing.
Orest (06:56)
And then now we just sort of pick and choose the ones that we really like. But the problem now is that cat skiing has caught on so well that it’s hard to book a trip in your favorite places, because for some reason, they have this policy that if you ski there one year, you get to rebook the same time next year.
Orest (07:23)
So it’s hard getting a spot in any cat operation now worth its salt because it’s so sold out. So you almost got to get a bit lucky in a sense that, you know, a group of two, three, four have just decided they’re not going to come back kind of thing.
Orest (07:40)
Right? So now it’s sort of picking and choosing. Well, where can I go? As opposed to where do I want to go? So we have our favorites, and then you may not get in because they’re booked for the year.
Tim (07:50)
What are your current favorites?
Orest (07:55)
Well, the favorites that I’ve skied at that I would definitely want to go back to are probably Chatter Creek, where we’re going in December. Bald face out of Nelson. Monashi Powder, which is due east of Vernon.
Orest (08:18)
Monashi powder experience to do east of Vernon. So those would probably be the top three. And they’re all lodge driven locations where you stay in a nice lodge and you book out of there. Bald Face is nice because they chopper you in from the town, from the airport, so you get a little chopper.
Tim (08:38)
I’ve never been in a helicopter.
Orest (8:40)
It’s a nice experience, so that’s always great. Or Chatter Creek is nice because it’s so close to Canmore. And I have a son now living in Kamloops, so it’s close to Kamloops, so it’s kind of halfway.
Orest (08:56)
But the location is great. And they also chopper you in, which is always a nice little fun ride. But it does delay your departure a little bit on the last day. And Monashi Powder, we were there many times.
Orest (09:13)
It’s a little hard to get to. And you have to drive to the trailhead where they meet at the local golf course clubhouse. And then they bus you away and then they catch you all the way to the top. So those are the three that we’ve probably skied in a lodge setting the most.
Orest (09:31)
There’s some day operations that we’ve had great times that, including Valhalla, which is out of Nelson, it’s owned by the same people that own bald Face. Now, we’ve been at K three several times, which is just outside of Revelstoke.
Orest (09:48)
But K three are changing their day program. They’ve changed even this year because they said they’re going to build. And do the lodge thing as opposed to the day thing.
Tim (09:54)
That’s been my favorite. I’ve mostly skied K Three.
Orest (10:01)
Yeah. So we’ve had some big adventures there, including first Descent and it was pretty wild trip. The hardest run I’ve ever done was at K three. So those are the, the places that on a day basis we’ve been to.
Orest (10:22)
We also tried at other places like we tried Mustang powder. We tried Retalik. Retalik is in Trout Lake, New Denver, that new Denver kind of area. We tried Keefer Lake and I’m hoping to try a newer day program that’s out of Valmont called Caribou Cat Skiing this January.
Orest (10:44)
I’m just trying to connect with some of my guys to go there and they run a day program that’s sort of in the wings this year plus the chatter trip in December. But those three lodges would be my favorite.
Orest (10:59)
Right? And I would say chatter and bald face are one A, one B, or vice versa. And then Monashi would be third out of that group. But those would be my favorites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHOmBV4js_Ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmffZqzARsc
