Backcountry

4 Day Backcountry Experience

After 5 weeks of coaching your skiing will be much improved and you'll be pushing yourself on terrain you perhaps previously avoided! The group will head towards Kimberley where you will take a helicopter ride (see video above) to the Boulder Hut.
This region is famous for being one of North America's best powder destinations and one of Canada's best areas for touring.

You will spend the four days in a remote but lovely mountain cabin surrounded by stunning mountain scenery. The term ‘Hut' is an overly modest name for this comfortable and spacious cabin, which can sleep 15 people. It is well furnished and equipped with cooking facilities, stoves, gas lanterns and wood burning fire and an outdoor hot tub! All your meals are provided for you and they are fantastic.

Staying in a touring cabin of this type will provide a true Canadian mountain experience and we'll be able to access some of the best off-piste skiing and snowboarding straight from the front door.

Ski Touring Training

During the third and fourth week you'll experience two days touring with professional mountain guides so that you know how to use the touring equipment used in the touring experience. This will provide a great chance to not only put the skills you learnt on the avalanche course to the test, but also to concentrate on your powder skiing/riding. Using touring skis and split boards we head into the backcountry and travel uphill using skins and then enjoying the descent down making fresh tracks in the untouched powder.

Avalanche Course

Close to the start of the course you'll take an Avalanche Course which provides essential knowledge, skills and confidence for off-piste skiing. You'll learn about avalanche theory, stability assessment, route finding, and search and rescue techniques. The course includes an indoor day of theory involving slides shows, video presentations and demonstrations on how to use transceivers and other safety equipment. The second part is a field day putting this knowledge to use. You'll learn how to dig snow pits, check snow layers, effectively use transceivers and probes and have your skills tested in a search and rescue avalanche scenario.

This course will not only make you aware of the potential dangers of off-piste skiing but will also provide the knowledge and skills required to confidently enjoy the pleasures of backcountry skiing.