EVERYTHING CHANGES…

Reading Time: 7 minutes

NIGEL HARRISON LETS THE PAST GUIDE THE FUTURE AT MIKE WIEGELE HELI-SKIING.

We stand thigh-deep in perfect snow at the top of an untouched run. Hoar frost sparkles, crystals scatter in tiny breaths of arctic wind. Everyone is quiet in the cathedral stillness, happy just to be here, to stand and stare at countless peaks of the Cariboo and Monashee mountains. And there’s a lot to stare at in this heli-ski tenure of 6,070 square kilometres. 

Let that sink in: 6,070 square kilometres, one-fifth the size of Belgium, bigger than 64 of the countries on earth. And there are, at most, 100 people skiing here. Welcome to the People’s Republic of Wiegele. Capital city: Blue River.

It’s almost a shame to break the silence, but someone has to. A buddy kicks his feet into bindings. The trance broken, we look at the landscape through skiers’ eyes. Suddenly, no one cares about the snow crystals, the sighing wind. We’re looking at the rolling terrain, the shallow gullies and rounded ridges. I know where I’m going to make my first turn: down into that dip and then up the other side, so I can pump the skis a little and add some speed with a sneaky double fall line. It’s fun searching out speed in mellow terrain, feeling acceleration come on as a reward for getting it just right. “Well,” says Dave, a fellow guest from California, “God damn.” 

I know what he means.

“Ski to the left of my tracks,” says Hainault, our heli-ski guide. I do. Until I forget, and ski to the right. Nothing empties my mind like skiing (or biking, or gin and tonics), but Hainault’s subsequent scolding is good-natured and delivered just right. The group teases me. I blush like a school kid. A delicate situation expertly defused by a guide with pitch-perfect people skills. He’s used the moment as an ice breaker, and eight people who don’t know each other are laughing, having fun. The tone of the day is set.

LOFTY GOALS

A lot has changed at Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing (MWHS) recently. Nearly three years after Wiegele’s passing in 2021, his family has sold the operation to Alterra Mountain Company, owner of Steamboat, Tremblant and CMH Heli-Skiing along with a roster of resorts on the Ikon Pass (see A Match Made in Powder, page 54). And yet, despite his absence, Wiegele is routinely remembered by staff and friends as “visionary.” Tough at times, always striving toward a goal that could never be attained, the momentum he created is being carried forward by the team he built. 

A single day here and it’s obvious current operations are still guided by Wiegele’s basic principles: exceptional service, high staff ratios, excellent food, luxurious accommodations, and extras like technical chats from the guides, ski skills advice, weather updates and evening gatherings. Safety was Mike’s ultimate priority, hence the Canadian Institute of Mountain Safety’s home at Wiegele’s Blue River base. 

All guides are also qualified ski instructors, including Hainault, a CSIA level four, but that doesn’t begin to express the depth of their experience. The first three I spoke to, collectively speaking, had more than 100 seasons under their belts at Blue River. Since knowledge gained is knowledge shared, each guide benefits from the experience of the rest. Despite the massive size of Wiegele’s tenure, few regions are so intimately known, so understood, by their guides. That authenticity keeps the guides coming back year after year—or, as Hainault puts it, “coming home.”

LUCKY LITTLE BUGGERS

Back on the hill, we’re unloading once again from the helicopter. The blades thrash the air above our heads. We have two guides: Jason unloads the skis, while Hainault makes sure we’re all comfortable. The thumping of the air intensifies, then quickly dulls; our helicopter is gone, dropping away down the valley to grab the next group. Although you’d never know it from this fine-tuned choreography, we share our machine with two other groups and their guides. The illusion that the helicopter and the terrain are ours, and ours alone, is maintained. There is no question that right this second, as my wife often notes, I am indeed “a lucky little bugger.”

This time the run is steeper and we get our first face shots. There are pillows, banks, rocks to jump off. Early-season snow levels leave more interesting terrain features. In two or three weeks this will be a uniform slope; still fun but not as funky. We roll over bumps, pop off stumps, plunge into choked mini gullies. This is skiing at its finest. I can hear whoops from somewhere behind me. We follow Hainault through tight trees and converge. Our pilot swoops in, and in less than a minute from touchdown we’re off the ground, heading who knows where? We don’t care. We trust these experienced guides to make smart choices.

At day’s end we land outside our lodge. From helicopter to crackling fire in under three minutes is my plan. My goals are a little more modest than Mr. Wiegele’s. 

DAY TWO, MEET BILL THE KIWI

Bill, our new guide, is a Kiwi. “Roight,” he says while standing atop a planar slope that disappears into the distance like train tracks. “What we’re gonna do is this…” It’s pretty obvious what we’re going to do, but Bill sets the tone for the day, lays down some rules, tells us how we are to behave without us feeling like we’re skiing under orders. He calms our over-excited minds, and leaves us thinking we’re going to ski the way we’re going to because it’s the smart thing to do, not because Bill has told us to do it that way. It’s leadership at its best; leadership that you defer to because it’s clearly correct, not because it’s demanded. 

And then he’s gone, with a little Kiwi whoop, leaving our second guide, Jason, to release us one at a time. I wait, feeling like a dog at the entrance to the dog park. Then, suddenly, it’s my turn. 

I straight-line at first, as always, feeling out the way the skis and snow interact today. The snow is cold, and a fine crust makes a broken-glass sound against the tips as they slice through it. Eventually I feel the skis reach a working speed, as though they’ve become lighter, and my body floats down the fall line. Snow chunks patter off my clothing, the noise in my ears becomes a roar. The skis are doing just what they were designed to do, pushing me back and forth across the hill from one deep turn to the next. 

This is pure skiing, pure fun. I let the speed build, to see if I can still hang in there, because it’s exhilarating to be just hanging on. We are nearing the limits of the forces these soft skis are designed to handle, and the limits of my ability to resist those forces. Like a stone skipped across a pool, I’m going from zero load to massive G-force. The fun-o-meter is way through the roof. Why find your limit if you’re not going to go beyond it? 

And then it all explodes. My head is definitely the part of my body furthest down the hill, but I have time to look ahead and gauge my trajectory. There’s nothing but billowing softness up ahead. I’m pretty sure that my skis are already off my feet. I can relax knowing this isn’t going to end my week. And then it’s cartwheeling: dark, light, dark, light. I hear my buddy laughing at my incompetence. I laugh too. 

Once I stop, Jason finds me, grins, shakes his head, hands me my skis, and we go again, though perhaps a little slower. I’m still laughing, in line for the pratt-of-the-week award and not caring, heading for the pick-up, already excited to do it all again, though perhaps without the yard sale.

FINDING PERFECT

Never the same twice, the mountains offer us something new every day. One day’s icy bowl is tomorrow’s powder pitch. Today a face offers perfect snow, tomorrow it’s sastrugi-covered hell. Up here, everything changes all the time, but perfect is always there, somewhere, and the guides know where to find it. 

Yet among the changes are constants too. Mike Wiegele knew it, and lived by this understanding. Like yesterday’s perfect snow, he’s moved on, but Alterra is here and there’s more good snow coming. Chasing the perfect mountain day was what Mike Wiegele was all about. The hunt continues.