Mustang is a very impressive operation, and in some ways this was my overall best snowcat experience since I'm been coming to Canada since 1997. Pickup is about 30 miles west of Revelstoke on the TransCanada Hwy, then 1/2 hour by truck or bus and usually an hour by snowcat to their lodge at 5,700 feet in the Monashees. 4 of us got the last minute deal for the last 3 days of a 5-day tour, so we were taken in by snowmobile.

It snowed all morning the first day, but without wind and visibility was usually adequate with drop offs around tree line ~7,000 feet. The reported 3 inches new snow topped off the "settled powder" base nicely. The next 2 days were sunny and many of the runs started in the alpine as high as 8,200. The Monashees drop into deep canyons and last fall's SKI Magazine article boasts of a 6,000 vertical run. That would take unusual conditions for the snow to be good, but on the 2nd and 3rd days we had a run of 3,500 and there were several more of 2,000+. They have an extra cat to pickup after the 3,500 run to keep us moving. We were also skiing a much higher percentage of steep terrain than my other snowcat trips as they said the snowpack was very stable.

Another strong point at Mustang is that they use all the daylight hours they have to maximize skiing, figuring (reasonably in my view) that we get a rest on each snowcat ride and should thus be able to handle a longer day. We set out at 8:30AM and and the sun is just coming over the eastern peaks before the first drop, yielding photogenic alpenglow views. Skiing ends 4:30- 5PM. The result was our group skied 15,600 (missing the first 2 runs while we were doing transceiver drills), 18,100 and 17,100 on the 3 days. These are the first, third and sixth highest totals of my 39 (so far) snowcat ski days. The people on the 5 day tour thought the day before I arrived might have been 20K.

These 3 days were the first test of my new Head Jimi skis. As Adam predicted they did very well in the alpine. They like to make big turns and with modest sidecut and some rocker they will plane on but not break through crust. The Jimis also handled the steeps well. In steeps they will sink into the powder some and it's easy to smear turns if necessary to control speed. In trees it took more effort for shorter turns to stay in control. But there were only a couple of runs in thick enough trees for this to be an issue during these 3 days.

Many things went right on this tour, the weather, snow stability and a very compatible group (which included someone who was a year ahead of me in junior high school!) in terms of ski ability. Only the face shot day at Chatter Creek 2 years ago was better. And Mustang probably has its fair share of those as it's close to the old weather station on Mt. Copeland that gets 600 inches of snow per year. The measured base at the lodge was 3 1/2 meters. Other evidence of the deep snowpack was that logging clear cuts were open powderfields with just scattered indications of the huge tree stumps I have seen at other Canadian cat/heli places.