After weeks of groomers, and barely enough snow on the ground to scrape together a snowman with my daughter, our wives kicked Rob Karz and me out of our respective houses for excessive grumpiness caused by lack of snow.

The only cure – deep powder! So, in early January we left the bone dry confines of our usual snowy Utah, and headed north to British Columbia to ski with CMH Heli Skiing at the Galena and Revelstoke Lodges. We booked into Galena at the last minute ahead of our long scheduled Revelstoke trip. 

Landing in Kelowna, it was awesome to just see winter, and the further north we got, the higher the snowbanks climbed. The bonus to finally finding winter, of course, was an extended period of guaranteed fresh tracks. 

We had never skied at the Galena Lodge before, but it gave us about all we could ask for as Duncan and Carri and the crew provided a great five days. The terrain is classic interior BC, and if you love tree skiing, pillow drops and abundant features, this is your place. 

The final day was capped with steep shots and about six inches of low-density snow. We started and finished with Bernie as our guide, which was awesome, as that guy clearly loves to ski, and ski fast in the falline. While the other groups ventured into more open terrain, he heeded our wishes to stay in the trees, which insured a great finish and fueled the desire to return to the Galena Lodge.

The next five days saw us hooking up with the rest of our Park City/Hood River crew for our scheduled Revelstoke trip. All the guides in Revelstoke are great, but we lucked out again and skied with Kevin Boekholt – a fun Kiwi who rips it, knows what we like to ski, and is a top notch photographer. 

Heli skiing can be a crapshoot, as multiple factors like weather and snow stability can conspire against you, but we hit a great week. Kevin, Jorge, and Mike worked hard to get us the goods and each day was a step up in better terrain. 

Revelstoke has a myriad of run choices and great skiing, but we coveted nothing more than time skiing in the North Fork trees. This area provides burnt forests, terrain features and steep open chutes that run at least twice the length of my all time favorite resort run, Alta’s Alf’s High Rustler. Imagine that, without a blemish or bump for those thousands of vertical feet, and you will realize why heli skiing becomes more addiction than ski vacation. The area is aesthetically pleasing, as the pics accompanying this story clearly prove. 

At the end of the day, Mother Nature and CMH served up just what you hope you get on a BC heli trip – great snow, steep shot,s and good people. From what I hear, things have not changed much up there, so if it is not snowing in your locale, this might be just the year to make that dream heli trip happen. 

(Photos: Kevin Boekholt)