British Columbia Archive

Ski Conditions Holding Strong in and Around Revelstoke, British Columbia, Despite Warmer Weather on the West Coast

The Staff of Mica Heli Guides, One of Canada’s Premier Heliskiing Outfits, Reports Excellent Ski Conditions for the Area Surrounding Revelstoke, B.C., While Warm Weather Patterns Continue to Affect the Coastal Areas of British Columbia.

Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada, February 26, 2010 – With this year’s Winter Olympics coming to a close, temperatures in Vancouver have been as high as fifty degrees Fahrenheit in the last few weeks, prompting some people to redub the event the “Spring Olympics”, while others joke that the official drink of the 2010 games should be the Slushy. Organizers have been trucking in snow for weeks as heavy rains accompanied by fog and exceedingly warm temperatures have made conditions all but unbearable for the scores of athletes who have gathered here from all four corners of the globe in order to participate in the world’s most important winter sporting event.

But while temperatures on the coast continue to rise, ski conditions in the area surrounding Revelstoke B.C. are holding, making this one of the best seasons ever for Mica Heli Guides, British Columbia’s premier heliskiing outfit. In fact, with temperatures below freezing, a snowpack of nearly three meters and 16 cm of fresh, dry powder having fallen over the last week, conditions at Mica’s vast backcountry tenure simply couldn’t be better. In the words of one guest, who was knee deep in powder just yesterday: “Take the best skiing you’ve ever had and multiply it by 3-that’s what today was.”

Mica Heli Guides is a world class heliskiing company located near Revelstoke, British Columbia, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, unquestionably the world capital of heliskiing as well as heliboarding. Mica specializes in transporting small groups of skiers and snowboarders into the some of Canada’s best backcountry ski terrain, where they can enjoy their fair share of natural steep fall-line tree runs for snowcat skiing, picture perfect pillow lines, dramatic alpine ridges, deep bowls and adrenaline pumping glacier runs, without having to share the fun with anyone except Mica’s guides and a few of their closest friends or family members.

Mica’s impressive tenure consists of nearly 178,000 acres of phenomenal backcountry ski terrain and encompasses eight distinct valleys that range in altitude between 1900 and 5900 feet above sea level. The unique location of this vast territory, which sits on the Western slopes of the Canadian Rockies, is consistently home to some of the best ski conditions on the planet, with mountains of deep, dry champagne powder falling there each season. In fact, conditions at Mica are so good, so often, that the company’s powerful A-Star and Bell 407 helicopters have an average of only 1.5 down days per season and are in the air almost every day between December and April of each year. Although January is typically one of the best months for catskiing in the Rockies, Mica sees an average of 42-66 feet of snowfall each year, much of which is the result of the winter storms that hit the area in late February and early March.

Skiers and snowboarders from around the globe come to Mica for one reason and one reason only: powder. Because Mica’s tenure is situated on the western slopes of the Rockies, nestled between the Selkirk and the Monashee mountain ranges, it typically gets a copious amount of deep, dry snow, often referred to by skiers and snowboarders as champagne powder or cold smoke. This is the kind of stuff that skiers dream about, and hundreds flock to Mica each year in order to make those dreams a reality.

Because Mica caters only to small groups, the only obstacle for many is being one of the lucky few who actually get a chance to ski Mica’s tenure each season. With a remote, but comfortable backcountry lodge that sleeps only twelve guests, Mica specializes exclusively in small groups and the guest to guide ratio is an astonishing 4:1.

With snowfall deeper and more abundant than ever, 2010 has proven to be a great season for Mica Heli Guides. And with conditions holding and more winter storms expected to hit the Canadian Rockies in March, it doesn’t look like the staff at Mica will be getting a break any time soon.

ABOUT:

Mica Heli Ski near Revelstoke, B.C. specializes in small group heli-skiing. It is one of three operations in The Island Lake Resort Group, the others being Powder Cowboy Cat skiing and Island Lake Lodge near Fernie B.C.. For more information, contact Darryn Shewchuk at 1.877.837.6191 x2002.

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What is this, April? Mid-February Spring Skiing at W/B!

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The Olympics are actually pretty fun. There are lots of free concerts, and all the crowds are in the village and not up the mountain. We took advantage of all this and had a pretty sweet time skiing. Check it out.

For my first night off in a week, I decided to take a cruise around Whistler village to check out the sights and sounds, and also to catch the medal ceremony at the celebration plaza. Barenaked ladies played a free concert right in village square, and, as you can see from the photo below, people still love them. Of course they played 'If I had a Million Dollars,' and cops were directing traffic around the massive crowd. These are the grumpy cops who aren't getting paid to ski all day, I feel bad for them.

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Ian Provo Interior BC Trip Report

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Ian Provo is both a talented Armada skier and a freakin amazing photographer. Anyone who can film themselves while throwing shiftys and threes on huge pillow lines deserves some serious street cred. We like Ian and his brother Neil (an insanely good snowboarder). Fortunately for us, Ian has a photo and gnar-filled blog from his trip to interior BC last month. This is a must read, so read more to see some serious ski porn. The tasteful no-nudity kind.

I just returned from a 17 day road
trip through the southern interior of British Columbia. It was probably
the best ski trip I have ever been on. With this being my first time to
the region, I was completely humbled by the mountains. The amount of
easily accessed backcountry skiing is just mind boggling. During our
trip, we became quite familiar with the region, but only saw a sliver

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HEAVY SNOWFALL HAMMERS WHISTLER BLACKCOMB WITH 70 CENTIMETRES / 28 INCHES FALLING IN 24 HOURS

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Snowbase reaches 297 centimetres or 9.7 feet; well over a metre/47 inches of snow has fallen in the past seven days. SICK! See you up the mountain! Read more for details.

WHISTLER, BC, January 15, 2010 – The latest storm to hit Whistler Blackcomb has dumped a whopping 70 centimetres or 28 inches in 24 hours, immersing the resort in deep winter conditions. Although the heavy snow and high winds prevented a number of lifts from opening today, the forecast for clearer skies this afternoon and tomorrow bodes well for weekend skiers and riders.
 

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