News and Media

Canadian Rockies Team Building Winter Adventure

May 30/2007, Canada.travel online
Subject: Rockies Winter Adventure
Story and photos: Michelle Pentz Glave and Judy Waytiuk
Story located at www.corporate.canada.travel/en/ca/mediacentre

Uphill skiing: sweat equity makes all the difference
Get a new perspective on the Canadian Rockies from your own backcountry skis

by Michelle Pentz Glave

We’re into a good groove when we spot him. Sssss, ssssss, crunch, crunch, our waxless cross-country skis slip through the sticky powder as our poles punch through gleaming mounds of fresh spring snow. We’re weaving through the forest in Banff National Park, AB. The sky is blue, the sun is hot and the only other sound is the occasional whump of snow tumbling off a branch—‘til one of us breaks the reverie. “Ooooo! He’s so cute!”

A pointy-nosed, foxy face twists around a spruce trunk and peers at us through a beard of dark lichen. It’s a pine marten, an elusive and nocturnal cousin of the weasel. What he’s doing up at this hour—I don’t know. But we all stop and stare. It’s one of those moments when you appreciate the simple wonders of life—a gentle breeze, a wisp of cloud hanging on a glacial peak, a day of heart-pumping uphill skiing with a sauna, pork roast and glass of merlot waiting at the top.

“This is my new spoooort!” I yell to the trees blurring past as my snowplow spins out of control and I face-plant into a heap of granular powder, perilously close to rushing Paradise Creek, which emerges intermittently between sparkling sugar domes.

Did you ever climb up on the roof to think things through when you were a kid, and everything suddenly seemed not so bad? There’s something about seeing things from a new perspective that makes familiar terrain look new and shiny (a leisurely tour on bicycle, a view from the water, a horseback sojourn, an old-fashioned road trip). Though the Canadian Rockies are far from ordinary.

Today, we’ve joined an elite tribe, Canada’s 873,000 Nordic skiers*. These folks have figured out there’s no better way to commune with nature, cut fresh tracks and mix the thrill of downhill with a butt-kicking workout. “Many ski for the lyrical quality—the taste of clean air, sighing wind, hardwood forests, frozen waterfalls, weathered barns, open prairie, sandstone canyons, alpenglow on snow-mantled peaks and the miracle of skiing beneath the full moon,” observes the US-based Cross Country Ski Areas Association.

“Nordic” means any kind of free-heel skiing—classic XC, skate skiing, telemarking, randonnée, ski touring and the like. “Backcountry,” our guide says, is essentially anything off-track. Various kinds of goopy wax are involved for glide, kick and klister (grip), though new waxless skis work wonderfully for casual skiers (read: me). Layers are essential as XC uses every major muscle group and incinerates around 700 calories an hour.

It’s cheap (from CAN $15 a day to free), easy to learn and doesn’t require endless awkward lugging of paraphernalia. Grandpa can do it and so can your five-year-old. Norwegians exported it to North Americans; both Euros and Canadians embraced it. And now the sport’s popularity is on the rise in both Canada and the US, according to the Cross Country Ski Areas Association, which calls XC “natural Viagra.”

Soon an image of future frolics forms in my mind. Forget long lines, tedious lessons and expensive lift tickets! We’ll click in and glide. I picture me, my hubby and the kids taking in pristine, winter-wonderland Canada on touring skis. We’re deep in the backcountry. Of course we’re all wearing colourful, hand-knit wool sweaters and pompom-ed toques, laughing and zipping along with rosy cheeks like fresh-faced Norwegians….

Five hours, 14 km and 457 vertical m later, guide Gord Stermann of White Mountain Adventures leads our sweaty, scraggly group out of the woods and into a pretty alpine valley of snow-dusted fir. We’ve been rained on, had near-misses with trees, fallen into under-snow air pockets, suffered blisters and steep icy inclines (“Time to walk”). We’ve learned about varying grades of ski wax in fickle temperatures (“It’s hard to get off your BlackBerry,” Stermann notes). I’m thinking the honeymoon may be over.

But then, the mist clears and majestic Mount Ball, straddling the Continental Divide and British Columbia border, appears behind Shadow Lake. An old 1930s Canadian Pacific Railroad log cabin puffs smoke from its chimney. A hearty dinner is cooking inside the cabin next door. My cozy shack even has a rack to hang my wet clothes and a goose-down comforter that feels like a cloud.

“It’s different when you have to work to get here, isn’t it?” says Stermann, grinning in the glow of the fire. We’ve got Hudson’s Bay blankets, glasses of wine and Canadian Geographics from 10 years ago. “You have this sense of privilege, a sense of being away from the rest of the world and what everyone else is doing. All of a sudden, you’re in a special place.”

* That’s according to the Canadian Ski Council in Mississauga, ON, www.skicanada.org. There are an estimated two million Nordic skiers in the US, according to the Winchester, NH (US)-based Cross Country Ski Areas Association, www.xcski.org.

www.whitemountainadventures.com
www.shadowlakelodge.com
www.banffnationalpark.com
www.banfflakelouise.com
www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/index_e.asp
www.travelalberta.com