Ski feature published in Snow Magazine, Winter 2010/11
Canada new kid on the block already has a rich pedigree when it comes to advanced terrain and excellent snow. Robert Leslie headed to Kicking Horse to see if the young steed could really buck with the best.
“The Dutch Wallet has already been punched - so let’s scoot on round to the Red Light District.” A. Code. Language. It must be. After all, my friends and I aren’t in Amsterdam – we’re in Kicking Horse in the Canadian Rockies, high up on the spine of CPR Ridge and on the look out for powder, not prostitutes.
Soon we begin to decipher. Both “Dutch Wallet” and “Red Light District” are tricky 40-degree couloirs and “punched” simply means skied out. And because Chuckie, our guide, is trying to find us the best possible “unpunched” terrain, we follow the former pro snowboarder on towards the Red Lights.
“There’s a mandatory three-to-four foot air on exit.” Chuckie then chuckles, glides off the lip and is gone. We follow and are soon in the guts of one of the many shoots and gullies on which Kicking Horse is slowly heaping its reputation. Steep, technical, varied terrain, with small trees and snow-laden rock features – leading to wide out-runs. And Chuckie was right in this case – the Red Light District is indeed unpunched and the ‘air’ without doubt ‘mandatory’ – the landing cushioned by dry banks of blown snow, cradled by the couloir.
It was in 1858 that geologist Sir James Hector was kicked and almost killed by his own horse while looking for a suitable railway route through the Rockies – but it was not until 2000 that Kicking Horse Mountain Resort came to be. A young upstart compared to its closest neighbours Banff and Lake Louise, Kicking Horse still only has one principal lift, the Eagle Eye Express gondola, which can whisk you up over 1000m vertical in 12 minutes. All this means that if in extreme weather conditions it closes, apart from a couple of slow low-level chairs, it’s game over.
But when the game is on, this is perhaps the most advanced in-bounds terrain in North America - and one of the continent's best-kept secrets. Yes, there may only be one way up, but there’s a hundred ways down. From the top of the gondola, you’re already on the spine of CPR Ridge, rather disappointingly named after the Canada Pacific Railway - and not a life-saving drill that is better suited to this heart-stopping terrain. While one side of the ridge is steep, open fir glades, the other is a furrowed brow of narrow lines, reached by a long and rutted traverse. This approach is tricky enough, navigable only by the best snowboarders. For skiers, it's the kind of traverse that, if you spent an entire season here, one thigh would soon outgrow the other, leaving you with a rapper's limp to rival Snoop Dog.After our next ride up the 'gondy' it's time to give both thighs a work-out - and a hike up to the 2,400 metre Terminator Peak, from which the full scale of the Columbia River can be seen as it beats its relentless path towards the Pacific. But before we get to the top, Chuckie is digging a snow hole - for Chuckie is no ordinary guide. He works for Kicking Horse's unique Big Mountain Company (BMC). Not quite ski school, not quite mountain safety camp and not quite guiding service. It's all of these - and even joins the dots in between.
So, crouched over a snow hole, we learn about snow layers and how to identify hoar frost on a wind lip. And on the way down 'Dare' - a tricky route off the back of Terminator Peak - we don't just ski pockets of powder, but are taught why they are there and how to find similar elsewhere. Not bad when you think it had been six weeks since Kicking Horse last had it hooves in any fresh snow. Even my 1980's jump turns are given the BMC treatment. It turns out I'm employing the same technique with the pontoon-like Rossignol S7 Barras under my feet as I did with my needle-straight 210 cm Rossis of yesteryear. Out goes the exaggerated jump and in comes the an 'unweighted' swivel, made possible by the early-rise ski tips - a tuck of the knees and you're round. I'm told my freeride skis are also good for pulling off a 'smear', but I dare not ask what one of those is and anyway, we're still negotiating a narrow shoot where, according to the trail map, it's unwise to 'fall out of the saddle'.
By day four, we're feeling pretty tired but there's no stopping now because the snow has finally come. Forty centimetres overnight and it's still coming in hard. The punched bumps and hollows fill with future face-shots and the firs sag and sway with their new white weight. The high wind closes the gondy but we're already at the top, running lap after lap under the 'Stairway to Heaven' chairlift that takes you to the top of Redemption Ridge. While hundreds of frustrated skiers wait down in the
village, we track fresh lines through the trees under the chair, the air filling with the whoops of snow-starved skiers and a fine haze of light powder.By the time the gondola is on the move again, word of the dump has spread as far as Calgary, a 3.5 hour drive to the east. The queue is now huge but if resort planners get their way, this sort of bottle neck will soon become a thing of the past. The resort's master plan includes building more lifts to open up a far wider ski area - as well as adding another 20,000 bed spaces and a golf course. The idea is to take the edge off Kicking Horse's gnarly reputation and open it up to a wider market and for longer periods throughout the year.
At the end of the week - with thighs burning and back aching - I felt like I'd taken a thorough shoeing from this particularly feisty horse. I just hope they don't tame it too much before I get a chance to come back.
Kicking Horse, March 2010 from Robert Leslie on Vimeo.
