TLH Heliskiing, March 28-29, 1998

Postby Tony Crocker » Sept. 27, 2018

In 1997 I took my first destination trip to a remote snowcat lodge, Island Lake, followed by resort skiing at Fernie, Whitewater, and Red Mt. In 1998 I took my son Adam to Whistler for his spring break, but I went up there a few days early to get a weekend with TLH Heliskiing.

TLH picks up and drops guests from either Whistler or Vancouver airport. Skiers stay at Tyax Lodge on Tyaughton Lake, west of Lillouet and a 3+ hour drive from Whistler



We got up at 7AM for transceiver drills and were ready to take off about 9:30

The lodge is at only 3,300 feet and leeward of the ski terrain, so not that much snow here.

We fly west into TLH's 830,000 acres of tenure in the Coast Range.

Drop points were all high in the alpine, usaully at around 8,000 feet.

Most runs ended a little bit below tree line

In late March the snow began to transition below 6,000 feet. Nonetheless one of the runs was 4,200 vertical with some spring snow down to 4,000 feet.

TLH used large Bell 212 helicopters with a maximum 2 groups of 11 skiers. My trip only had one group, so we had minimal waiting for pickups like this one.


This was my first time in a vast and remote heliskiing tenure so I was mostly taking scenic pics on the first day.


Lunch stop:

At lunch the guide explained that we would have long day and overrun the 14,000 vertical guarantee if we continued to move west. One of the skiers rolled up his sleeve and said, "Stick the needle in. I want some more!" We all shared that sentiment.

More scenery after lunch:




On this day not only did we never cross prior skied tracks, we could not even see another track from any of our 11 drop points.

I finally got around to some pics of our ski tracks.




We are about to ski our last Saturday run here.

It clouded over some and we were back at the lodge at 3:30.



We skied 25,500 vertical, about 21K of powder. This was about 50% more than on the biggest days the year before at Island Lake. I crashed 3 times but in general the snow was consistent enough that I did not hold up the group. My notes mention 2 skiers, one from Switzerland and one from Calgary, who were always skiing right with the guide and far beyond my level. But overall I was only slightly below average for the group despite only 2 prior heli days and 4 prior snowcat days.

On Sunday we skied a less far flung itinerary as it was our last day with a 3-5 hour shuttle to Whistler or Vancouver after skiing. Our runs started as high as 8,700 feet and rarely skied below 6,000, so it was mostly ego powder and not too tiring despite some leg burn from the previous big day.



Group picture:

Final drop point.

Sunday we skied 22,100 vertical, 20K of powder. I was blown away by these two days. My previous two heli days were at day operations with much more limited terrain and vertical. But this trip has held up impressively with more experience. As of 2018 I have 31 heliski days and 75 of snowcat skiing. These two days remain a personal record for most powder skied in two consecutive days.

In 2005 I took Adam on another Whistler spring break and this time brought him along for two days at TLH. This time we were not so lucky with the weather. The first day was a down day and second confined to the eastern part of TLH's tenure closest to the lodge.

TLH is now Tyax Heliskiing. The lodge has been upgraded and each group of 10 skiers has two guides and exclusive use of a Bell 212 for 3, 4 or 7 days of skiing.