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Backcountry lodge hosts first off-piste ski mountaineering race

Some learned about the event on the Golden Alpine Holidays e-newsletter. Others read about it on the popular website, Biglines.com. One heard about it from a friend riding on public transit in Vancouver.
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Some learned about the event on the Golden Alpine Holidays e-newsletter. Others read about it on the popular website, Biglines.com. One heard about it from a friend riding on public transit in Vancouver.

And on April 10, 27 skiers from Whistler, Squamish, Golden, Rossland, Revelstoke, Canmore and Calgary participated in the Esplanade Epic, Canada's first ski mountaineering competition hosted by a backcountry touring operation.

Blessed with blue skies and clear views of the dramatic Rockies to the east and the massive glaciers and shimmering white summits of the Selkirks to the north and west, the competitors raced on a pre-set course of three varying distances that traversed across high alpine ridges and untracked wilderness slopes between GAH's three lodges, Sunrise, Meadow and Vista.

John Bell, owner of GAH, first dreamed of the race as an opportunity to showcase the region's stunningly beautiful terrain and bountiful ski slopes.

"I thought it would be a really great way for people to see how amazingly connected this place is," Bell said. "They would get to stay high in the alpine, and the distances between the lodges are not that far to go."

Located in the Esplanade Range, non-glaciated mountains running for 35 kilometres north to south about 70 kilometres northwest of Golden, B.C, GAH opened in 1986 with the idea of offering European influenced lodge-to-lodge skiing and hiking. In Sept. 2006, Bell, a former oil and gas geologist, purchased the business, including a fourth lodge, Sentry, just a few kilometres north of Vista.

Growing up in Calgary, Bell remembers walking to Toby Creek to get water for the family ski house at Panorama.

"I'm not an oil guy in the mountains story," Bell insists. "I'm a guy who loves the mountains story."

While helicopters transport skiers to GAH's lodges, once there skiers apply synthetic skins to their ski bases to climb up mountain slopes, then strip them off for the descents. By earning their turns, backcountry skiers are rewarded with the solitude of true mountain wilderness in remote places with no crowds or sounds other than the wind and the swoosh of their skis turning on pristine slopes.

"Most of our clientele are the happiest when the helicopter leaves," Bell stated.

Bell's race dream, however, was engulfed by a dark cloud when Sentry burned to the ground in December. While Bell cemented plans to build a new Sentry Lodge this summer, employees and ski guests encouraged him to go ahead with the competition.

So in April, skiers, cooks, volunteers and professional guides were flown by helicopter from near Golden, B.C. to Sunrise Lodge and the start of the race. Ranging in age from 21 to 65, they competed in three categories: Gnarly, which involved climbing and skiing down 630 vertical metres over 8.5 kilometres; Über, with 1,215 metres of elevation gain and 1,143 metres descent over 14.2 kilometres; and the Elite course which involved climbing 1,741 metres of climbing and skiing down 1,665 metres over 19.3 kilometres.

Following a course skilfully laid out by Tim Haggarty, a Canmore-based professional mountain guide certified through the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides who was hired to evaluate the conditions and set the course, the skiers were guided by flags and wands placed by Haggarty and his crew. Nate Sereda, an ACMG ski guide and assistant ski guide Stan Metcalfe helped keep the skiers off slopes that presented any avalanche hazard given the current sensitive snowpack conditions.

With Calgary's Dave Dornian, chair of Ski Mountaineering Competition Canada, refereeing the non-sanctioned event, racers started at two-minute intervals to keep them safely spaced through the backcountry terrain. Gnarly skiers started and finished their race at Sunrise, while the Über skiers finished at Meadow.

Plans for the Elite racers - which included five members of Canada's ski mountaineering team and one U.S. team member who made the journey from Kalispell, Montana - to race all the way to Vista Lodge were modified just hours before the start. Due to concerns about solar heating on a key section of the route, the guides decided the competition would end at Meadow for both Über and Elite racers. Elite racers instead skied two laps of the Gnarly course, then over to Meadow from where later in the day, after the heat of the sun had abated, two guides led them over to Vista to spend the night.

Despite challenging logistics and the last-minute changes, the skiers were exuberant about their experience.

For Caroline Swinn, a 38-year-old Calgary mother of a toddler, and her husband Shawn, skiing in the Gnarly competition offered a great weekend escape to one of their favourite backcountry destinations.

"Sunrise was the first lodge we spent a week at when we were dating," Caroline said. "With no newspapers, no contact with the outside world, it's a true vacation. You always meet the greatest people. We'd never done a race before, so we didn't know what to expect. At the end of it, I was done, but it was fun!"

Calgary's Kylee Ohler, a former national team long-track speed skater who won the Über category in 2:43, said she took up ski mountaineering racing because she loves competing.

"But mostly, I love ski touring because I love getting out to places the general public doesn't go. It's just so beautiful," Ohler said.

Reiner Thoni, a sometimes Valemount resident and currently Canada's top male national team member who recently competed in the ski mountaineering World Championships in Andorra, said GAH's first backcountry race had the makings of a great event.

"It was awesome," Thoni said. "For Canada's first off-piste race the terrain rivalled anything in Europe. It's world class."