Snowgo

Snowboarders for Kerry-Edwards

I posted a while back about John Kerry's snowboarding stunt and now it seems that the snowboarder vote is being mobilised.

I wonder what chance we have of seeing Tony Blair on a board before next year's general election.

Greenland

Nice article over at Natives about a late season trip to Greenland. While the article talks about a trip in May there is plenty of snow right through the summer.

I have often marvelled at the seemingly endless snow covered mountains when seen from a transatlantic flight and it is somewhere I would love to visit one day.

Les Familles Saisonnières

Saw an interesting idea on rec.skiing.resorts.europe: getting a group of families together to share tutors for their children while doing a 13 week season in the Alps coinciding with the Easter school term. Although, as one poster has already noted, it is surely the ideal opportunity to put your children in French schools and have them learn French, which might also be a good way to sell the idea to a sceptical partner (coincidently employees in the UK who are parents are entitled to 13 weeks parental leave per child).

Cat-skiing / cat-boarding operators in BC

After fantasising about a cat-boarding trip yesterday I went and dug out issue 01 of The Snowboard Journal, as I remembered that they had run an article on the subject. They conveniently listed 16 cat-skiing operations in BC and I hope I won't be treading on their toes by reproducing that list here for reference.

Baldface Mountain Lodge
Chatter Creek Mountain Lodges Ltd
Fernie Wilderness Adventures
Great Northern Snow Cat Skiing
Highland Powder Skiing
Island Lake Lodge
Monashee Powder Adventures
Powder Cowboy Cat-skiing
Powder Mountain Catskiing
Retallack Alpine Adventures Ltd
Revelstoke CAT Powder Skiing
Selkirk Wilderness Skiing Ltd
Snow Water Creek Lodge
Valhalla Powdercats
White Grizzly Adventures Ltd
Wildhorse Cat Skiing

Update: I just heard of another cat-skiing operator in BC (if I find any more I'll add them here):
Powder Hounds Cat Skiing
Big Red Cats

BC cat-skiing blog

I had an email today about a new blog promoting Chatter Creek, a small cat-skiing operation near Golden in British Columbia. The blog is only starting out but hopefully it will develop to cover cat-skiing and boarding generally in BC and, If nothing else, I look forward to seeing more beautiful pictures of the BC backcountry.

I really like the whole idea of cat skiing. It offers many of the advantages of heli-skiing but has a much lower environmental impact and is more flexible in poor conditions, for example, if the weather is too bad to fly a cat can take you to an untracked tree spot. Of course, its cheaper too.

Reading up about Chatter Creek made me drool. I love the whole backcountry aspect of the location. They fly you in to the lodge by chopper (so its not without environmental impact) and there is only a satellite phone and a single connected computer should you wish to contact the outside world. They also advise you to bring ample supplies of any medication you might require. The thing that struck me was that if when I stump up the two thousand or so Canadian Dollars (eight hundred quid) for a three day trip I would will want to take plenty of spares for my rather flaky Flow bindings!

Glencoe update

New owners have emerged at Glencoe. Good luck to them.