Island Lake Snowcat, February 23-25, 1997

Postby Tony Crocker » Oct. 22, 2018

In 1994 and 1995 I worked with Leslie Anthony at Powder Magazine for the October 1995 cover story. Leslie is Canadian and favored the interior British Columbia "Powder Highway" ski areas for abundant snow, interesting terrain and lack of crowds. I began skiing in the late 1970's but by 1995 had only skied in Canada once, at Whistler/Blackcomb in 1991.

My experience in powder through 1995 was intermittent and and highly sensitive to snow quality. Therefore I demoed the Volant Chubb in March 1996 and took it off the backside of Mammoth where it performed impressively in variable crust. I wanted to buy them immediately but they were sold out, so I bought the Chubbs in November 1996 and was eager to take them on the Powder Highway in 1997.

On Leslie's recommendation, for my first ski trip to interior British Columbia in 1997 I signed up for a guided road trip with Ski Plus Tours. Lead guide Brad Karafil operated on a flexible schedule following weather patterns to choose resorts and also utilizing personal contacts to arrange occasional snowcat or heliski days. I was on my own, and to my dismay the rest of the group cancelled just two weeks ahead due to a family emergency. I already had a week of vacation and air tickets to Spokane, so I got on the phone and was very fortunate to get a spot for my first three days at Island Lake Lodge. I rented a car and skied Fernie, Whitewater and Red Mt. the rest of the week.

Island Lake's access road is between the town of Fernie and the ski area. There's a parking lot maybe half a mile in, followed by a 45-minute ride in the snowcat to the lodge. Most of the skiing is in the extension of the Lizard Range to the northwest of Fernie Alpine Resort. While the overall weather and topography are similar to Fernie, the elevation is a bit higher, 4,400 feet at the base with several alpine drop points above 7,000 feet. The Lizard Range bends to face more north at Island Lake vs. east at the ski area and it probably snows a bit more too, around 400 inches/season. There is also skiing on Mt. Baldy on the opposite side of the lodge from the Lizard Range.

The first day group all new arrivals or day skiers. This view of the back of the lodge is probably during early morning transceiver drills.


The first day was overcast but visibility was still good. With no wind the 4-day old powder 1-2 ft deep was still excellent. There was occasional windpack/crust above tree line. I was pleased to be in a compatible ability range on my first remote lodge ski trip. The snow was forgiving and my first powder skis were effective. Most runs were 1200-1500 vertical starting just above the trees. There were a few shorter runs in thicker trees for deeper snow. The last couple of runs were 2,700 vertical nonstop from an alpine saddle.

We skied 17,100 vertical on Sunday. The scale and variety of terrain blew away my only prior snowcat day, 12,500 at Targhee in 1995.

Monday was sunny and beautiful. Wind over alpine peaks was maybe 10-20MPH at the highest dropoff. Untracked snow was still outstanding in the morning on all exposures. South and east exposures transitioned to spring in the afternoon.

With the clear weather, probably most of the pictures are from Monday. And nearly all are from the scenic alpine drop points.







The ~1,000 vertical or so of Island Lake alpine was a marked contrast to the resort at Fernie, which in 1997 consisted only of the "old side" up to 5,500 feet. The "new side" opening in 1999 reached the top of White Pass at 6,300. Polar Peak chair opened above tree line to 7,000 feet in 2011.

Here are some tracks just below Island Lake's tree line.


As shown above, there were several high alpine dropoffs for long runs through bowls then trees. We also skied slightly steeper runs as our group was all on second or later days. Late in the day we moved to Mt. Baldy.


The last run faced SE with spring snow directly to lodge. I fell once in wet surface sluff.

Overall Monday was the best day of the trip and totalled 17,600 vertical. It's no surprise interior BC has been on my schedule most seasons since 1997. As of 2018 I have skied 75 snowcat days and only exceeded Monday's vertical 7 times.

Most of Tuesday it was lightly snowing with fog in the alpine with some windpack and crust above trees from wind last night. We also avoided areas which had been in Tuesday's direct sun. This pic is from the subalpine on Tuesday.


The first run in windpack was OK for us California skiers, but most people didn't like it. So we spent the rest of day in a 700-900 foot band of trees with best powder. Therefore we had more cat pickups and skied only 10,900 vertical. I got lost once in the trees and ended up on the pickup road below the rest of the group.

I have returned to interior BC nearly every season since 1997. At that time Island Lake had quite a bit of publicity as only the third snowcat lodge in B.C after Great Northern and Selkirk Wilderness. Since then the British Columbia government has allowed many new snowcat and heliski operations to open. Thus Brad Karafil and his wife Carole soon gave up Ski Plus Tours in favor of opening their own snowcat location, White Grizzly, where I skied in 2012.

Island Lake remains one of BC's premier snowcat operations. It has a good balance of alpine and tree skiing. Island Lake is also entirely on 7,000 acres of private land, which allows for building efficient roads and glading of some of the trees. The major risk, as Fernie skiers know, is occasional rain. I returned to Island Lake in 2003 and 2004, both times with close calls on the weather. It had rained to the top about a week before those trips but fortunately snowed again before I arrived.