We went into Island Lake Lodge Sunday night. Unlike Mustang, Island Lake remained open in 2020-21, but likely lost money as ¾ of their normal clientele is from the US. Most 2020-21tours ran 2 cats with 8 clients vs. the normal 3 cats with 12 clients. This year some COVID protocols remain. Masks inside are required though in the cat by the 3rd day less than half of us were wearing them. There was also no eating or drinking in the cat. They brought us into the lodge for a 45 minute lunch the first two days and we ate outside the third day. Fernie Brewing Company provided complimentary end-of-day beer or cider and these were also consumed outside at the end of our last run.
I learned from flyover and his friend John that Mustang still allowed people to eat in the cat between runs this season. They did not want to degrade their maximum ski time ethos. At Island Lake we welcomed the lodge break with the cold weather, plus the variable conditions took more effort so I was as tired after 13K as I am usually with 17K at Mustang.
As in 2018 Liz experienced a Canadian deep freeze. All 3 days started out in the -10F range, with high Monday being +2F and Tuesday -3F. Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly sunny, and Wednesday warmed to +5F or so on the second run, which might have been an inversion as that was the Geisha Saddle drop point at 7,000 feet. These temperatures are more manageable in the snowcat than any other ski scenario.
Map of Island Lake runs:
Liz and me by the cat after Monday's transceiver drills:
Conditions were consistently inconsistent. The new snow was deeper on the Baldy side of their terrain, but most of those runs have sunny exposure and thus a frozen subsurface from warm weather the prior week. Sometimes the new snow was deep enough that only the end of the turn scraped so you could still ski fluidly as at the bottom of an early run Monday here.
I took few pics Monday in the cold, but our last run was from the Hot Tub Chutes, over 2,500 vertical. Rick is about to survey this broad bowl at the top and radio his findings back to us.
Rick went far left into direct south facing. In the cold there was no way the subsurface there would loosen up even at the end of the day. Most people skied down the middle, but I followed a couple of people to the shaded skier's right in the softest snow. View back up from the end of Hot Tub Chutes:
This run ended below the lodge, so we had these beers from Fernie Brewing Company before riding the cat. We skied 12,400 vertical Monday
Pre-COVID these refreshments would have been in the cat.
On Tuesday we had an early run on Gunbarrel, with Baby Bear peak in the background.
Papa Bear in background of a lower runout:
There are saddle drop points behind both Papa Bear and Baby Bear for high alpine skiing which I have skied on prior trips.
The Beer Run/Sore Foot path to the lodge for lunch started on this ridge.
Liz on Beer Run:
Near the bottom of Sore Foot:
After lunch one of the highlights was the widely spaced Little Woody. Most of the way down tail guide Brenda lit up this dead tree.
This is the second time Liz has seen this and my fourth. If the tree was killed by beetle or fungus, fire will kill those and prevent spread.
Our last run Tuesday was on Elevator, which is on the northeast side of Baldy, the peak north of the lodge.
We skied 14,300 vertical Tuesday.
After dinner Tuesday there was an ongoing social hour. The shotski is made from a pair of Volants welded together.
The objective here was to assemble 22 people at 22:22 on 2/22/22 but hard to get everyone in the picture.
At Wednesday breakfast we had this photogenic view of the moon over the Lizard Range.
Low elevation also had a frozen subsurface, possibly from the weekend storm starting as rain below 4,500 feet, as I had noticed at Fernie also. Normally in this scenario you spend most of the time in the Lizard Range high alpine, but nearly all of that was wind hammered sastrugi and breakable crust. Even near treeline here's a view of lead guide Rick's turn in slabby snow.
On day 3 the cat plowed a road up to the Geisha Bowl Saddle so we could at least get the view.
A traverse out to Valentine yielded a pitch of decent powder so we did that two more times.
Below tree line from about 5,800 to 5,100 were a few sheltered lines of “normal cat skiing powder.” There was also Psycho Bowl on Wednesday, the steepest run we skied with minimal frozen subsurface. It’s well sheltered, west facing with a steep traverse entry through dense trees before it opens up.
This was the one place where Brenda had to get Liz started on a 38 degree pitch. But in general Liz handled the variable conditions just fine, as the frozen subsurfaces were well within the range of her eastern experience. I fell releasing a ski 3x during the three days, once more than Liz did. We skied 13,300 vertical Wednesday.
Island Lake still has a very high standard of service, with many employees being there a long time. It opened in 1988 and my first visit was in 1997. In 2003 I came here with Adam and in 2004 with my friend Richard Weinstein. In the 1990's investors included Scot Schmidt and the late Craig Kelly. In 2005 Island Lake was sold to Dan McDonald, who had opened Mica Heliskiing in 2003. FYI Scot Schmidt has succeeded Warren Miller as Director of Skiing at the Yellowstone Club.
In 2010 and this time I stayed in the luxurious Cedar Lodge, which is heated via hot water circulating under the floor.
The bathroom was about the size of a Mustang bedroom.
In 2003 the Cedar Lodge had a hot tub on its deck, which has been replaced by a sauna pod with glass view of the Lizard Range. Island Lake recently had a B.C. bureaucrat customer who later made them remove the new hot tubs for violating some obscure regulation against their deck locations in the Cedar and Tamarack lodges. Island Lake is working on an alternative to satisfy this busybody but in the meantime installed these sauna pods.
Most remote cat/heli lodges run on diesel generators and thus are as compact as possible to conserve energy. I thought incorrectly that Island Lake, only a half hour cat ride from its parking lot, might be on the B.C. grid. But one of their advantages of being on private land is that they developed their own hydropower, so backup generator power is rarely needed. As I knew from my prior visits, being on private land allows for efficient cat road design plus selective glading of trees. On this tour the wide tree spacing often made it easier to handle the variable conditions.
I learned from flyover and his friend John that Mustang still allowed people to eat in the cat between runs this season. They did not want to degrade their maximum ski time ethos. At Island Lake we welcomed the lodge break with the cold weather, plus the variable conditions took more effort so I was as tired after 13K as I am usually with 17K at Mustang.
As in 2018 Liz experienced a Canadian deep freeze. All 3 days started out in the -10F range, with high Monday being +2F and Tuesday -3F. Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly sunny, and Wednesday warmed to +5F or so on the second run, which might have been an inversion as that was the Geisha Saddle drop point at 7,000 feet. These temperatures are more manageable in the snowcat than any other ski scenario.
Map of Island Lake runs:
Liz and me by the cat after Monday's transceiver drills:
Conditions were consistently inconsistent. The new snow was deeper on the Baldy side of their terrain, but most of those runs have sunny exposure and thus a frozen subsurface from warm weather the prior week. Sometimes the new snow was deep enough that only the end of the turn scraped so you could still ski fluidly as at the bottom of an early run Monday here.
I took few pics Monday in the cold, but our last run was from the Hot Tub Chutes, over 2,500 vertical. Rick is about to survey this broad bowl at the top and radio his findings back to us.
Rick went far left into direct south facing. In the cold there was no way the subsurface there would loosen up even at the end of the day. Most people skied down the middle, but I followed a couple of people to the shaded skier's right in the softest snow. View back up from the end of Hot Tub Chutes:
This run ended below the lodge, so we had these beers from Fernie Brewing Company before riding the cat. We skied 12,400 vertical Monday
Pre-COVID these refreshments would have been in the cat.
On Tuesday we had an early run on Gunbarrel, with Baby Bear peak in the background.
Papa Bear in background of a lower runout:
There are saddle drop points behind both Papa Bear and Baby Bear for high alpine skiing which I have skied on prior trips.
The Beer Run/Sore Foot path to the lodge for lunch started on this ridge.
Liz on Beer Run:
Near the bottom of Sore Foot:
After lunch one of the highlights was the widely spaced Little Woody. Most of the way down tail guide Brenda lit up this dead tree.
This is the second time Liz has seen this and my fourth. If the tree was killed by beetle or fungus, fire will kill those and prevent spread.
Our last run Tuesday was on Elevator, which is on the northeast side of Baldy, the peak north of the lodge.
We skied 14,300 vertical Tuesday.
After dinner Tuesday there was an ongoing social hour. The shotski is made from a pair of Volants welded together.
The objective here was to assemble 22 people at 22:22 on 2/22/22 but hard to get everyone in the picture.
At Wednesday breakfast we had this photogenic view of the moon over the Lizard Range.
Low elevation also had a frozen subsurface, possibly from the weekend storm starting as rain below 4,500 feet, as I had noticed at Fernie also. Normally in this scenario you spend most of the time in the Lizard Range high alpine, but nearly all of that was wind hammered sastrugi and breakable crust. Even near treeline here's a view of lead guide Rick's turn in slabby snow.
On day 3 the cat plowed a road up to the Geisha Bowl Saddle so we could at least get the view.
A traverse out to Valentine yielded a pitch of decent powder so we did that two more times.
Below tree line from about 5,800 to 5,100 were a few sheltered lines of “normal cat skiing powder.” There was also Psycho Bowl on Wednesday, the steepest run we skied with minimal frozen subsurface. It’s well sheltered, west facing with a steep traverse entry through dense trees before it opens up.
This was the one place where Brenda had to get Liz started on a 38 degree pitch. But in general Liz handled the variable conditions just fine, as the frozen subsurfaces were well within the range of her eastern experience. I fell releasing a ski 3x during the three days, once more than Liz did. We skied 13,300 vertical Wednesday.
Island Lake still has a very high standard of service, with many employees being there a long time. It opened in 1988 and my first visit was in 1997. In 2003 I came here with Adam and in 2004 with my friend Richard Weinstein. In the 1990's investors included Scot Schmidt and the late Craig Kelly. In 2005 Island Lake was sold to Dan McDonald, who had opened Mica Heliskiing in 2003. FYI Scot Schmidt has succeeded Warren Miller as Director of Skiing at the Yellowstone Club.
In 2010 and this time I stayed in the luxurious Cedar Lodge, which is heated via hot water circulating under the floor.
The bathroom was about the size of a Mustang bedroom.
In 2003 the Cedar Lodge had a hot tub on its deck, which has been replaced by a sauna pod with glass view of the Lizard Range. Island Lake recently had a B.C. bureaucrat customer who later made them remove the new hot tubs for violating some obscure regulation against their deck locations in the Cedar and Tamarack lodges. Island Lake is working on an alternative to satisfy this busybody but in the meantime installed these sauna pods.
Most remote cat/heli lodges run on diesel generators and thus are as compact as possible to conserve energy. I thought incorrectly that Island Lake, only a half hour cat ride from its parking lot, might be on the B.C. grid. But one of their advantages of being on private land is that they developed their own hydropower, so backup generator power is rarely needed. As I knew from my prior visits, being on private land allows for efficient cat road design plus selective glading of trees. On this tour the wide tree spacing often made it easier to handle the variable conditions.
Last edited:
