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  1. #1
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    Nelson Cat Skiing and Touring Madness (TR) - now updated

    so here it goes...

    just before new years i got a phone call reminding me of a cat/ touring trip i was invited to around nelson, BC which i had somehow cracked out and forgotten about. After scrambling for a couple days to get my shifts covered i was finally able to get my shit togethor enough to enjoy this opportunity. So after a loooonnng night of partying and with a gnarly 5:00 pm hangover on January 1 i took off down the long road towards nelson...

    Day one we were invited to ski at a relatively new operation called Valhalla Powder Cats which is about 30 minutes outside of Nelson. The terrain here was like nothing i have ever seen or heard about at a cat skiing operation. Massive alpine runs and incredible burnt out tree coupled with deep snow and a private cat and the whole tenure to ourselves made the skiing a memorable experience. Tight ship and i reccommend any and all maggots to help support these guys.

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16866.jpg

    in the tenure...

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16868.jpg

    more tenured terrain

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16862.jpg

    the trees in "The Burn"

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16861.jpg

    BP ripping it up

    Day Two - Kootenay Pass touring

    With no concrete plan for the second day we decided to head up to kootenay pass and do some quick runs next to the highway. What proceeded next was one of the best days of touring i have ever had...sooo deep and no one around. Unfortunately it was one of those days here you didn't want to stop to take photos so there are no action shots.

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16870.jpg

    touring up towards Ripple Ridge

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16859.jpg

    Beauty Day

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16857.jpg

    On top of baldy rocks about to ski lunch box back to the truck

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16858.jpg

    The boys sussing

    Day Three - The Shitshow

    After being warned about a certain character we decided against our better judgement to capitilize on an offer from him and his cat skiing operation for some free cat skiing and a couple days at his touring yurts. The first day got off to a late start and after being reassured we only needed day packs and that we didn't need a topo map for our tour to the yurt we got underway. Other then that the 15km ski in got under way with out a hitch. We were with another person from the operation checking out the line they were going to use to push in the cat road to the yurt. We decided to leave the person from the operation so we could get a run down to the yurt instead of only having a full day of walking. As the sun started to fade and the "lake" nowhere in sight from the ridge panic began to set in. We skied along a ridge and still could not find where we needed to be and saw no smoke or light coming from anywere in the valley. At about 6:00 options were weighed and we decided against digging a snow cave and continued to look for the yurt. After about an hour of searching in -20 temperatures we finally located it. After a great dinner we went for a midnight ski under the moonlight which i will say is probably the highlight of the trip.

    Next day the shitshow got into full effect. We were supposed to meet the cat at 11:30am on the other side of the ridge but got to a late start due to extremely cold temperatures. After an epic run we got back down to the valley where we saw the snowcat waiting at the top of a cutblock. We toured up to the cat to find no sign of any person, no notes, no radios, nothing. After about an hour of waiting we decided to start a fire to keep warm and once again began to face the prospect of spending another cold night in the backcountry without proper gear. Another hour passed until the owner of the operation finally toured up after having done a heli drop with another media film crew where he informed us he was too sure how we were going to get out. It was rapidly getting dark and the owner was frantically making phone calls even though he had known the cat was broken down for hours. Due to the approaching dark the prospect of being heli'd out was done, and the operation had no sleds on the mountain to speak of, so he informed to start hiking and skiing the 15km back to the vehicles. Another hour passed until one snowmobile finally showed up to tow out 11 riders. Needless to say there was a lot of anger involved, especially since our "guide" had dropped the ball in such an incredible way.

    I'm happy to still have my toes.

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16851.jpg

    Me, cold, looking for the yurt at sunset

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16850.jpg

    Touring up the ridge at sunset

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16853.jpg

    Beauty full (near) moon shot of the yurt

    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16852.jpg

    The moon


    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16855.jpg

    Jesse James hucking
    Last edited by powslut; 01-06-2004 at 07:35 PM.

  2. #2
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    tease
    If you have a problem & think that someone else is going to solve it for you then you have two problems.

  3. #3
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    update one finished...more later

  4. #4
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    Glad you had a good time and sorry to be a bummer but..................................

    Thank god Lindsay is bailing on that drainage next year. Too much hassle with the locals who have been touring in there for over 20 years, myself included. The local guides were so worried about having their places burned down that Joe was the only one silly enough to take the job. Needless to say he is none to popular with the locals.

    I guess Lindsay is moving northeast to Greasybill Ck. next year and the locals get it back as their touring meca. If you look at the first photo on the left I was standing just to the lookers right of the last rocky bit a couple of times between Christmas and New Years skiing in another drainage. I just couldn't stop thinking what a shame it was that he had gone in and fucked up two drainages. In the drainage to the south he cut a road right to a cabin which has meant no end of sledders at a cabin which used to be a beautiful mountain retreat.

    I'm not anti cat skiing, I just don't like guys who have no respect for anyone else and only think about lining their own pockets.

    Good riddance Valhalla Powdercats.
    Last edited by JR; 01-06-2004 at 06:39 PM.

  5. #5
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    Originally posted by JR
    Thank god Lindsay is bailing on that drainage next year. Too much hassle with the locals who have been touring in there for over 20 years, myself included. The local guides were so worried about having their places burned down that Joe was the only one silly enough to take the job. Needless to say he is none to popular with the locals.

    I guess Lindsay is moving northeast to Greasybill Ck. next year and the locals get it back as their touring meca. If you look at the first photo on the left I was standing just to the lookers right of the last rocky bit a couple of times between Christmas and New Years skiing in another drainage. I just couldn't stop thinking what a shame it was that he had gone in and fucked up two drainages. In the drainage to the south he cut a road right to a cabin which has meant no end of sledders at a cabin which used to be a beautiful mountain retreat.

    I'm not anti cat skiing, I just don't like guys who have no respect for anyone else and only think about lining their own pockets.

    Good riddance Valhalla Powdercats.
    So is there any place in BC that "the locals" don't claim as their own? Do "the locals" want the economic benefits of tourism but don't want the tourists? Just curious.
    If you have a problem & think that someone else is going to solve it for you then you have two problems.

  6. #6
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    Okay, I'll bite. The vast majority of locals in the Slocan Valley are American draft dodgers, or descended from them. They grow pot for a living along with other small cottage industries and would rather have some peace and quite than snow cats roaring up and down the mountian sides all day.

    As for the financial benefits, sure work is good but taking over a drainage which has a long history of intense local usage to provide 2 or 3 jobs for 3 months a year at most is just plain wrong. He can have Greasybill Ck. No one goes in there any ways.

    Like I said earlier, I'm not anti cat skiing, I just don't like seeing people coming in and creaming out long time, high usage recreational areas for their own financial benefit.

    To his credit, Lindsay was smart enough to see the writing on the wall and move on.
    Last edited by JR; 01-06-2004 at 07:05 PM.

  7. #7
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    incidentally, Linsay is one of our own, and he cut us all a HUGE deal last year while in Nelson, and got 40 of us chatters out there for a day for insanely cheap. They accomodated our bloated numbers and generally impressed the hell out of me. From my perspective, they were the antithesis of pushy, money-grubbing, distrespectful operators, but then, I don't live there, so maybe the fact that its not in my backyard makes the difference. All I know is, access issues aside, they guys were fantastic.

    That being said, if the drainage really was used for heavy touring, it sounds like it was the wrong place to open up a cat op indeed.
    Last edited by Yossarian; 01-06-2004 at 07:06 PM.
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  8. #8
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    "After being warned about a certain character we decided against our better judgement to capitilize on an offer from him and his cat skiing operation for some free cat skiing and a couple days at his touring yurts."

    LOL, you gotta be talking about Pat Maloney. His reputation preceeds him.

  9. #9
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    Originally posted by JR
    As for the financial benefits, sure work is good but taking over a drainage which has a long history of intense local usage to provide 2 or 3 jobs for 3 months a year at most is just plain wrong. He can have Greasybill Ck. No one goes in there any ways.
    Well there's more to it than 2 or 3 jobs. He buying fuel and supplies and the tourists are staying in hotels in town and eating in restaurants. Like Yos said, he gave the maggots are great deal and they're just ski bums chasing a dream.

    It's all Crown land so it belongs to the province. I can understand having your favorite places, I don't understand the possessive nature. There's a story in the current Skier about some mystery place where the lines are sweet and "the locals" want to keep "the outsiders" away. Well I grew up in Vancouver and it's just as much my land as theirs. When I'm off hiking in SW BC there's no us and them, no locals and outsiders -- there's just us hikers.
    If you have a problem & think that someone else is going to solve it for you then you have two problems.

  10. #10
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    JR, Beav - I thought such ops on Crown lands was only granted if it didn't conflict with other recreational pursuits in the same area. How'd that happen, who dropped the ball, how did the conflict occur, wasn't there a comment opportunity for locals? Just curious.....

  11. #11
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    Sweet TR slut. Kootenay Pass is one of the coolest touring locals I've ever been too.

    What do you know about Trevors opp a little north of there (I think), Ymir Yurts?

  12. #12
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    Originally posted by splat
    JR, Beav - I thought such ops on Crown lands was only granted if it didn't conflict with other recreational pursuits in the same area. How'd that happen, who dropped the ball, how did the conflict occur, wasn't there a comment opportunity for locals? Just curious.....
    In BC when we say "recreational pursuits" we mean logging and mining. In reality a bunch individuals may not even notice the tenure application. Some user groups have clubs that actively monitor government applications. Some don't.
    If you have a problem & think that someone else is going to solve it for you then you have two problems.

  13. #13
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    Originally posted by Foggy_Goggles
    Sweet TR slut. Kootenay Pass is one of the coolest touring locals I've ever been too.

    What do you know about Trevors opp a little north of there (I think), Ymir Yurts?
    see the last update

  14. #14
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    That is what everyone is lead to believe Splat but when the rubber hits the road, nothing could be further from the truth. This is the 3rd cat ski operation which has been granted in areas of high recreational usage over the last 4 years. The first was Baldface Lodge, the second was Snowwater Lodge.

    Unfortunately the government agency responsible for granting these tenures is also responsible for dropping the ball. LWBC or Land and Water British Columbia as they call themselves are a division of the Ministry of Finance and are concerned only about money. They really do not care about local concerns, or even land and water as their fluffy name implies. LWBC has put the cart before the horse and started handing out large numbers of tenures without doing any sort of inventory of local usage. The responsibility to map usage and try and maintain some sort of local recreational areas has fallen firmly on the recreational users.

    In reality, I have a certain amount of sympathy for the likes of Lindsay and Valhalla Powdercats. He has been lead down the garden path by LWBC and put into a situation where he has now invested countless thousands of dollars in an area where if the process operated in a responsible manner, he never would have touched with a ten foot poll. Now not only is he left with two years of time and money invested, but he will be forced to go back in and "rehabilitate" his road network by the Ministry of Forests. If I was in his shoes, I would get my new tenure and promptly hire a lawyer and pursue damages against LWBC.

    If you read through the tenure application guidelines (as I have, cover to cover) they state quite implicitly that local concerns shall be heard and addressed. Unfortunately your concerns are only heard if you are part of a large organization and even then not one tenure has been denied because of concerns addresses by other stakeholders, be they recreational or otherwise.

    The tenures are also touted by LWBC as non-exlusive. This is one of the ways that they try and soothe concerned individuals. Locals are allowed to use the areas alongside of commercial operators according to the tenure agreements. The truth is a little bit different however. Selkirk Wilderness Skiing (SWS) in Meadow Ck. has had a lot of problems with snowmobilers using crown land inside of their tenure. 3 years ago, Alan Drury, the owner of SWS approached LWBC and complained about this. LWBC promptly organized a meeting with all involved ministries and all local snowmobile clubs and told the snowmobile clubs to come up with an agreement with SWS that the commercial operator would agree to or they would be legislated out of the area. Now I am no genius Splat, but that sounds a hell of lot like an exclusive tenure to me. I have long suspected that when push came to shove that recreational users would be forced out. If it is truly crown land as Snow Dog Ascertains, how is it that the general public whos income and property taxes have paid for the stewardship of this land for over a century can be denied access?

    If you have ever seen one of these tenures once they are completed, you would see a document the thickness of two Powdermags (the old ones before they got all skimpy) full of rules and regulations which the tenure holder must follow. When I visited Robin Fawcett, a land manager with LWBC in his office in Cranbrook last year, I asked him who was responsible for enforcement. He responded unabashedly that in the whole province where thousands of tenure are handed out each year for various activities, not one person is tasked with policing and enforcement. It falls on the general public to educate themselves on their own time and report offences to LWBC or other ministries in the hope that they will be enforced.

    As you can tell, I feel strongly about this issue. I am not anti cat skiing or anti development for that matter. I realize that as much as I loved growing up in the Kootenays and living there for over 30 years, I can not expect that it will remain the same forever or that I should be able to have it all to myself as Snow dog implies. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am simply in favour of good planning, responsible development, and making smart decisions that will improve the area, not detract from it. While I realize that voicing my concerns in this forum is a bit like wandering the woods in a deer suit on opening day of hunting season, I feel that it is important that people consider both sides of an issue. I have cat and heli skied, I have worked for several commercial lodges but this does not mean that I think that they should be allowed to take over any piece of land they wish and push other users aside.

    I am not a local elitist either. I would welcome Snow Dog or yourself Splat to come and ski may favorite stashes with me. It would be my pleasure to scare you silly and show you some skiing that is out of this world. Unfortunately when it comes time to have a say or try and have some impact on the tenure process, it is the "locals" who end up doing all the work (or most of it anyway) and taking cheap shots like those leveled at me by Snow Dog. Yes I live in and love the Kootenays, but I am not a hick who sleeps with his kinfolk, has never travelled the world and can not see the other side of the coin.
    Last edited by JR; 01-06-2004 at 08:16 PM.

  15. #15
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    Originally posted by JR
    "After being warned about a certain character we decided against our better judgement to capitilize on an offer from him and his cat skiing operation for some free cat skiing and a couple days at his touring yurts."

    LOL, you gotta be talking about Pat Maloney. His reputation preceeds him.
    Hate to tell you JR, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't Patrick. Try a little south of WH2O, with a guy that is another nationality, not Canuck, nor Yank...bet I'm right !

  16. #16
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    Originally posted by splat
    JR, Beav - I thought such ops on Crown lands was only granted if it didn't conflict with other recreational pursuits in the same area. How'd that happen, who dropped the ball, how did the conflict occur, wasn't there a comment opportunity for locals? Just curious.....
    OH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!, don't get him started here!

    ,too late!
    Last edited by powderpyg; 01-06-2004 at 08:27 PM.

  17. #17
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    Excellent reply, JR. Thank you. Doesn't come across as anything but well thought-out and sensible. I hope I make it up to ski with you sometime. Thanx for the invite. As usual, it sounds like a case of the government taking the money and screwing all the people in the process. I remember when things in Revelstoke got a little heated from skiers getting towed in by sleds and tracking up the heli terrain.

  18. #18
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    Originally posted by Snow Dog
    In BC when we say "recreational pursuits" we mean logging and mining. In reality a bunch individuals may not even notice the tenure application. Some user groups have clubs that actively monitor government applications. Some don't.
    Getting tenures through without opposition has become a business. In the Kootenays, Dave Butler, who used to work for BCAL (British Columbia Assets and Lands) as they were known before they changed their name to LWBC has made a tidy business out of it.

    The latest trick is to hide these applications (the equivilent of 2 column inches) in an obscure section of the paper in the middle of the busiest summer holiday weekends. Catch everyone off guard when they are thinking about something else.

    Why the hell should we have to play detective to keep ourselves informed? I have often suggested that the proponents should have to place 4X8 signs at all acces points to the areas which they intend to use for no less than one year to get the word out and encourage some input. Instead they have to place two advetisements in the paper and that is all.

  19. #19
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    Originally posted by JR
    I am not a local elitist either. I would welcome Snow Dog or yourself Splat to come and ski may favorite stashes with me. It would be my pleasure to scare you silly and show you some skiing that is out of this world. Unfortunately when it comes time to have a say or try and have some impact on the tenure process, it is the "locals" who end up doing all the work (or most of it anyway) and taking cheap shots like those leveled at me by Snow Dog. Yes I live in and love the Kootenays, but I am not a hick who sleeps with his kinfolk, has never travelled the world and can not see the other side of the coin.
    Sorry, I'm not trying to take cheap shots at you, I'm just trying to understand the local mood. From my semi-urban vantage point rural BC has been screwed over by several governments and urban dwelling environmental groups so I would think that any economic boost would be welcomed. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Or an I too far away and just don't see what's going on? Are people satisfied with the local economy?
    If you have a problem & think that someone else is going to solve it for you then you have two problems.

  20. #20
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    Ironically Snow Dog, I am living in Fort St John at the moment because I could not find work (that didn't pay $10/hour anyhow) in my field in the Kootenays with my limited experience. I have just retrained and need some decent work experience before I can hope to secure something there. The economy in the Kootenays is not great right now but I think that most residents will agree that they would like responsible development over short sighted jobs any day. Money is not the means to an end and most people who live there do so because of the abundance of recreational opportunities and the incredible scenery. Many like Piglet and others work two jobs and patch together an existence not because they couldn't do something else but rather because they choose to.

    I was back for Christmas and it breaks my heart not to be there tonight, but I wouldn't trade the beauty of the place and it's people for a bunch of jobs at the expense of what makes it so incredible, ever.

  21. #21
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    Originally posted by JR
    Why the hell should we have to play detective to keep ourselves informed? I have often suggested that the proponents should have to place 4X8 signs at all acces points to the areas which they intend to use for no less than one year to get the word out and encourage some input. Instead they have to place two advetisements in the paper and that is all.
    That's just insane (the lack of a sign, that is). If you do any kind of development around Vancouver (subdividing or rezoning) you have to put a standard sign (roughly 4' x8' with a map, application number, contact information, etc.). It has to be there for some number of months.

    In reality you have to play detective. With my local hiking club there are people assigned to watching what the government is up to. Plus there's the FMCBC (Federation of Mountain Clubs) that tries to keep track. With enough eyes you can see what's going on. (Being able to actually do someting is another story.)
    If you have a problem & think that someone else is going to solve it for you then you have two problems.

  22. #22
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    Wink

    soooo, did ya see an AK enemy up there?
    Craig Kelly is my co-pilot.

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  23. #23
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    Originally posted by gonzo
    soooo, did ya see an AK enemy up there?
    I think it's in the chute in the gully in the second pic above, gonz.

  24. #24
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    http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16853.jpg
    http://www.blackstate.com/yoda.jpg

    Yoda...heard of him I have....

    that pic doesn't even look real. Crazy.

  25. #25
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    Originally posted by powderpyg
    Hate to tell you JR, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't Patrick. Try a little south of WH2O, with a guy that is another nationality, not Canuck, nor Yank...bet I'm right !
    So it was the guy we went out with a couple years ago? (Is there some reason we can't say his name?)

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