Me and 23 other girls at Baldface Lodge, BC
When you write about wonderful things, especially travel, there is one downside: it’s usually done from your desk. Sure, there is the odd trip to spice things up and maybe it was even (mostly) free, thanks to the connections you’ve made over the years. But most of it comes from careful research and interviews with people in the know.
The reason I bring it up is that right now, I’m writing a directory on backcountry ski and ride operations in Canada for the SBC Ski & Snowboard Resort Guide. It’s a pretty dreamy topic, as these things go: endless peaks of powder, getting ferried up the hill in a snowcat or, gasp, a helicopter, which is possibly the coolest thing in the universe. I’ve gotten the opportunity to go catskiing once and it was truly epic–nothing you do on snow will ever quite compare again. So while I am writing about all of this from home, it is bringing all of those memories flooding back: the sheer exhilaration, the incredible feeling of weightlessness in powder, the high-fives at the bottom.
Although these trips can be vastly expensive, I think it’s something every serious skier or rider should try to do at least once in their lives. Catboarding is a more affordable alternative to heli-skiing, and although you don’t get to feel like a Delta Force commando being choppered into some sort of emergency situation, you do get all that sweet, sweet untouched pow just the same.
