RK Heliskiiing, March 30, 1999

Postby Tony Crocker » Oct. 22, 2019 5:23 pm

For my son Adam's spring break week in 1999 we took our first "Calgary Loop" trip. This itinerary started by drving south from Calgary to Pincher Creek, then skiing the next two days at Castle Mt. and Fernie. We finished the week skiing in Lake Louise and Sunshine Village. We broke up the drive up Hwy 93 from Fernie to Lake Louise by spending two nights at Fairmont Hot Springs

While at Fairmont we drove to Panorama for a day with RK Heliskiing. Adam was only 14, and in general exceptions need to be made by Canadian cat/heli operators to take anyone under Canada's majority age of 19. However, RK is nearly exclusively a day operator used to accommodating a wider range of skiers than many of the other places. RK offers 3 and 5 runs packages and we selected 5.

Weather and conditions were close to ideal. It had snowed 6 inches each of the prior 3 days. There were off & on clouds with some fog across the valley but not where we skied. We had some snow flurries about 2PM. At the time I noted that this was overall the best snow of my then 9 days of cat/heli in Canada.

First run, Around the Corner:


Entrance to EuroSport:
The skier in the white helmet set off a 1 foot deep fracture in the chute below.

Near Eurosport pickup area:


Top of Farnham Glacier, 9,800 feet:

Adam makes some fast tracks behind the guide.
Adam did not own powder skis then, and RK rented him the Atomic Powder Plus. He was then 5 foot 1 inch and 90 pounds, so on those skis he planed on the powder similar to a snowboard. He learned to go last so he wouldn't overtake the guide.

Middle of Farnham Glacier:


We watched an avalanche on this mountain at lower center, above the large crevasse.

Our guide gives directions for the bottom section of Farnham.

Our group got to ski a steeper section of Farnham on our 5th run.


Groups resorted late in the day. We're waiting for an extra run we bought due to the great conditions.

View of our first two runs in the Jumbo drainage.
Yes this is the area later proposed for the all season Jumbo Glacier resort. Jumbo's development has been blocked by local opposition, so future lift served glacier skiing is more likely to be developed at Valemount.

Halfway down 3,700 vertical Long Run.


Pickup from Long Run, ice formation upper center:

We skied 15,600 vertical in 6 runs, nearly all of it in A+ quality powder.

This day illustrated the difference between day and remote lodge heliskiing. Terrain was similar and powder was even better than at TLH the previous season. But we only skied 60% as much due to the helicopters serving multiple groups, some of which were first timers on 3-run packages. So there was some waiting between runs.

To RK's credit, as the day evolved terrain was stepped up for groups that could handle it. When we bought an extra run, they chose one that was 3,700 vertical with hero snow top to bottom. Overall this was not too shabby an intro to Canadian mechanized skiing for Adam.