You can listen to my podcast episode on my moments of silence - including a very thrilling heli-snowboarding trip to snowy Canada - right here.
There is a certain fulfillment of making it to a remote space on the ever teeming planet that is seemingly impossible, call it difficult, to reach. The commitment of getting there, the effort expended in the process, the dangers involved and the planning that goes in conjunction with absolutely everything else. It is an offering to reassess a set of values, a chance to face a whole lot of fear and done quite simply by just putting yourself out into the wild. Taking oneself somewhere unfamiliar, uncharted, and unexplored by most of the world to the untraveled, untrodden snow. Of course, I was interested in finding out exactly what this meant for me.
Up, up and away from Canada’s Calgary - eight hours northeast to be exact - is where snow is unplumbed and ready for all kinds of new discovery. Away from the tourists seeking snowboarding with gondolas and nearby towns that can provide beer and sustenance, this particular area is actually all about the snow: some call it “Canadian Champagne.” The snow is the remedy and the cure. The diehards come here to revel in the snow, to celebrate its very existence and to push the boundaries of snowboarding as far out as they can imagine. To be able to get as close as possible to this unique snow situation is therefore tricky. And that is why Canada Mountain Holidays (CMH) offer their red and white helicopters for unprecedented access to nothing less than 3.1 million acres (the size of Switzerland) of pure snow high up in the mountains. If I had a fear of heights, at this point I’d have to let that just go.
In fact heli-snowboarding birthed right here, north of the famed Revelstoke and Banff areas of Canada, up in these Columbia Mountains: a lesser-known collection of peaks and ranges which includes traditional territories of the Ktunaxa, Secwépemc, Syilx and Stoney Nakoda Nations. Situated on the western side of the great swash of the Rocky Mountain Trench, and running closely parallel with the Canadian Rockies, are where the heli-ski/snowboarding lodges are perched along its subranges - the Purcell, Monashee, Selkirk, and Cariboo Mountains. Older than the Rockies by a few hundred million years, comparable to them in height, and fully equal in majesty, the geography of these ranges equates to an unparalleled and steady supply of deep, light, powder snow that simply isn’t found anywhere else.
Snowboarding itself originated in the United States in the 60s, although the Turks used planks with no straps hundreds of years ago to zip down the slopes. The sport only became an official Olympic sport in 1998 and spurted a massive subculture that once was rebellious but now is pretty mainstream across Europe, the Americas and Asia.
Arriving at the latest CMH lodge the idea of getting into a tiny helicopter frightened me as I saw the machine standing proudly nearby, but not enough to inveigle me otherwise. The lodge itself, a home-style very casual mountain lodge called Gothics (known for its celebrated storm skiing and playful tree runs), is the perfect place to befriend people interested in something similar: challengers of the body and mind. At this point my mind was telling me that it would be an impossible task. How could I, a novice snowboarder, tackle the finest powder snow in the world?
A night’s rest of course assists well with any kind of doubt – allowing for talking the self off the proverbial ledge if you will. The morning is cemented with a solid breakfast; a joy of being active all day is that feasting is part of the nutriment needed to stay out on the slopes all day. A long and thorough safety drill follows on breakfast and it feels hard to memorize - if you happen to, I don’t know, be in a snow avalanche. But I make a mental note of what to do when there is a ton of snow coming down the mountain straight towards me; I would have written it on my hand if I wasn’t wearing gloves.
Post safety drill, and all geared up with thick clothes, reflective goggles and a multi-coloured snowboard under arm, I watch as the heavy metal machine comes in for landing much too close to me for comfort. The group I have been assigned to, notable with Olympic snowboarders and skiers, all kneel down as the fine snow dust blows up hard against us. Thinking the noisy blades are closer than what they are, I keep low to the ground and manage to hop-crawl into the jarring beast. Time loses all its meaning as the reality of heli-snowboarding finally kicks in along with the ram of adrenaline and a firm punch of excitement.
I am as nervous as I look.
Suddenly the quaint lodge and world below becomes small and the sound of the helicopter turns into a white noise that doesn’t interfere with the graceful sensation of levitating above some of the highest peaks in the country. The white mass below seems gentle and somewhat amorous and the cold is forgotten all together - but only for right now. The tight helicopter drops position with a soft touchdown on a snowy bank high above the lodge - which is now nowhere in sight. The autopilot in me flings open the door, hops out in the taught huddle position as I wait to exhale.
With the helicopter disappearing into the distance the silence of the mountains echoed through my head and ears. Utter quietness, not a reverberation of anything but my heart’s musical beating, fills the space around me. I ponder how I’ve surely won half the battle at this point – I am standing on a tiny plank of carbon fiber up on a mountaintop ready to basically jump down with a whole lot of glee. Clipping on my snowboard in a familiar stance is different when you know there is nowhere to snowboard toward. There is no café up in the mountains where you can have a reprieve and a coffee to warm you up. There is definitely no chair lift that will bring you back up to a certain peak. And there is nothing familiar about the tracks either, because there just aren’t any. The snow is fresh and completely novel. For this a deep breath is most certainly required. My lungs lap up the fresh air and the pull of the slope lures me down. Still, just silence.
It was of course Jim Morrison who said “Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free”. The fear certainly is gone as I careen down hill towards seemingly the abyss. The beauty of snowboarding, and I guess skiing holds the same value, is that you’re all alone up in the mountains where humans have largely left the terrain alone. There is no pollution, no distraction, no cell service and no noise to sway you in any other direction. The sense of purity, of being at one with the wilderness, with nature, is overwhelming and absolutely in sync with what we want as humans. It takes you back to something primal and much simpler – something our ancestors understood as they hunted and gathered, and led a rather uncomplicated, even, straightforward life. They were, of course, without the snowboard in its bright neon colors and a helicopter circling overhead as it came to pick up other boarders, complicating things slightly.
The powder engulfs me as I hightail down the hill; I am not fast enough for the terrain I quickly realize. Deep powder like what Canada offers up requires lightness on the board and plenty of high speed apparently. I sink deep into the whiteness. Quickly my sense of achievement of being able to get down the slopes with no fear is harshly overshadowed by my own shortcomings. At this point I recall that everyone else in my group trained for this for three years and then there are those Olympians – who I now see a mile down hill from me racing like they know what they’re doing.
And so is life, the challenge is not to be the best at something; the challenge is simply to do, to do anything besides for nothing. Heli-snowboarding brings back the challenge of life; it allows you to overcome something that could manifest as fear. It also takes you into nature; a privileged access to pristine wilderness where we can be reminded of a set of values we hold dear. Values like what is right or wrong or what “ought” to be suddenly have perspective without the Internet influencing our society pressing up against the windows of your mind. Naturally, these values are subjective as ever, but space and time is just the ultimate in freedom. Up in the mountains of Canada jumping, well almost jumping, out of a helicopter and embracing nature grants the opportunity for canoodling with this exact freedom. Sometimes the journey to get there requires some dedication and teeth gritting but the bounty is almost always worth the effort - even if you’re not perfect at snowboarding into the white white powder.