Another title I had in mind for this article was "Canada, eh!" because that’s how we were beginning to talk towards the end of our 11-day escapade north of the border in BC and Alberta in March of 2002. By "we" I mean Alex Kovell and Al Dubovick – the usual suspects, specializing in exciting, if somewhat masochistic, ski vacations off the beaten path.

Banff, which is located, logically enough, in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada - holds a special place in my heart. It was my first trip out west. Some you may remember ten years ago Diane Stewart and Steve Eskin brought Trailside there for a fun-filled unforgettable (at least for me) week. The scenery of that region of Canada is simply breath-taking, easily rivaling, if not surpassing that of European Alps. In many aspects it is unique with its multitude of solid rock treeless mountains looking like enormous vertical granite walls, huge cirques filled with snow, hanging glaciers tens of meters thick. In other ways it has similarities with other exotic spots on Earth – for example, the expansive larch and fir forests are very similar to Siberian taiga, the reason this location was chosen for filming of "Doctor Zhivago" in the seventies. One can clearly imagine the fantastic forces of nature shaping this land: gigantic mountains erected by pushed up layers of Earth’s crust, smooth-walled canyons and giant ravines carved out during the Ice Age by glaciers. Wildlife is abundant not only in bars and clubs, as it is in New Jersey.

For skiing - opportunities are unlimited. There are three official ski areas within forty minute’s drive from Banff. Mt. Norquay – small, but steep, about the size of Pico, Vt. – walking distance from town. Sunshine Village – a much bigger place with phenomenal views, about half of its runs above the tree line – twenty minutes away. Lake Louise – easily the biggest ski domain in Canada (Whistler and Blackcomb have higher vertical, but each separately has less acreage), comparable in size, variety and scenery to many European resorts. Also, there is a sleeper resort called Kicking Horse, just outside town of Golden, with bus access (about two and a half hours door-to-door) from many hotels in Banff. I called it "sleeper" only because so far it is little known in Canada and practically unheard of in America, but I am afraid, not for long…

Most of the time we spent at Lake Louise – its vastness provided the incredible opportunity for exploration. Having done our homework before coming out there, we had the general idea about the main places of interest for us. On the front side it was the West Bowl – just outside the boundary rope, reached by the summit platter draglift. More interesting skiing, as it usually happens, was to be found on the backside of the mountain. Unfortunately, it seemed that everybody and their cousin considered it their duty to ski or be seen at the Back Bowls. Thus Back Bowls at Lake Louise, an enormous wide-open area fairly steep in some sections moderately steep in others, to our disappointment, was almost completely tracked out. There were a few places worth mentioning separately – Ptarmigan, everything served by Paradise chair ("The Diamond Mine", ER7 gullies), and Larch.

Ptarmigan, served by its own quad lift, is the rightmost (facing south-east) part of the Back Bowls. Looking down, on the left side of the lift you find marvelous steep trees, to the right – anywhere all the way out along the ridge is OK to drop in, up to the boundary rope and a little beyond. Challenging gullies, deep snow. We had a bit of trouble there because of that south-eastern exposure – the top layer of snow after some sun-baking, formed a soft crust about two inches thick, and that made for difficult skiing. Fall Line Glades, although on the same aspect but due to tree-sheltered surface, gave us much joy for many runs. It is a large triangle with its summit near the top of Ptarmigan quad. We found many excellent untouched lines on its moderately pitched rolling terrain.

Larch, on the other hand, turned out to be a let down. The area on skier’s left of the lift line from the top of the Larch Express chair to about mid point is strewn with exciting chutes in the trees ("Lookout Chutes", "Tower Twelve"), three-four foot drops which could’ve been so much fun, was almost completely skied-off, its inconsistent snow cover created challenging conditions.

Of the places we regret to having missed, were the Purple Bowl, and the one beyond it – the Wolverine Bowl. The trail called "Elevator Shaft", which serves as climbing route to the top of Lipalian Mountain and its spine as part of the trek to those bowls (which lay quite far into the out of bounds territory), was closed due to high avalanche danger, nixing our chances to access these gems of the area.

On the bright side though, we discovered for ourselves a secluded place where most of the tracks for several days were mostly our own. If one continues northward along the ridge from the Summit Platter, ducks under the boundary rope, passes the West Bowl, negotiates the unnervingly narrow saddle point and climbs back up onto the ridge crest – a wide an long snowfield will open up below. Once off the crest, which can be wind blown and somewhat thin-covered, the snowfield is an amazingly sweet run, eventually funneling into a small ravine. The little ravine grew quite a bit steeper toward the bottom, before ending in nearly flat shoulder, from which traverse back started. For some reason (perhaps for being too far out – we are talking way out, since the West bowl we passed was already out of bounds, perhaps due to seemingly sketchy chances of making it back to the lifts) there were only one or two tracks that we saw on this whole run. After the ravine, the long traverse lead us back to the lift-served trail close to the base lodge of the resort. There were many little gullies and mini-faces with fluffy powder along that traverse – it was so easy to become greedy and milk them to the end. We got suckered in once and paid dearly by an hour of the meanest bushwhacking I’ve ever experienced. From then on we dutifully stayed on our "traverse from hell", as we christened it because of its length, narrowness, million of treacherous blind turns and speed (once we packed it down). But, boy was it WORTH it! That powder run from the top was simply out of this world. We were screaming in euphoria, just could not get enough of it. The snowfields were not steep at the top (around 25 degrees), but a few small clumps of trees along the way down created two- or three-foot high snow berms due to the wind, which we jumped on the fly at speed, landing into powder – making an excellent run into a phenomenal one.

Kicking Horse resort was recommended to us by the staff at the hotel, as well as the guide with whom we made arrangements for a backcountry tour on our next to last day in Canada. No lift lines (not that it was a problem throughout the entire trip), and deep untracked powder were the magic words that cut down decision time for us down to two seconds.

Until last year, Kicking Horse was a local ski area mainly for people of Golden, BC. Golden is a small industrial town two hours west of Banff along Trans-Canada highway. It is probably better known as a home base for many heli-skiing outfits in Purcell, Selkirk and Kootenay mountain ranges. Then, after ski area changed ownership, a new high-speed gondola was built, which opened a wealth of incredible terrain, previously accessible only by climbing and hiking. Another lift is in the works, if ready by next season, will bring total inbounds skiable acres to over four thousand, making it second largest ski area in Canada after Whistler/Backcomb.

You can scoop many amazing descents while riding the gondola, as it passes parallel the central ridge, called the CPR ridge. Innumerable chutes of varied difficulty open up to skier’s left all the way down to the floor of the Bowl Over bowl. Crystal Bowl, to the left of the CPR ridge is excellent for intermediate to advanced skiers, as well as for beginners, providing the only easy way down from the summit. When the proposed lift ("Stairway to Heaven") opens, another ridge on the other side of the Crystal bowl will become "public domain", so to speak. Al and I had to do some climbing and traversing for about twenty minutes to reap the sweet rewards of a beautiful powder run from that ridge. I understand the resentment of locals when new lifts make their private stashes they are willing to sweat to get to, open to all. While previously, pristine conditions would keep for days after the storm, now it takes less than a day to thoroughly track everything out. That pushes the purists and the aesthetes farther out to mine the diamond dust of powder.

We did much of mining of our own that day, after a helpful suggestion of two friendly Canucks we met on the gondola. A formidable-looking ridge, called the Terminator Ridge, flanks the right side of the Bowl Over. Couloirs facing into the bowl are so sick – they do not look skiable, but they are (we were told), whenever the avalanche danger is low. It was high at the moment, so we postponed skiing those until some time in the future. On the other side of Terminator ridge (the ski area boundary passes along the knife-edge of it) there was the Super Bowl – yet unspoiled by the lift-accessibility wilderness. Thirty or so minutes of slightly elevation-gaining traverse around peak, deposited us on the shoulder just above that magnificent cirque. There were but a few lines left by skiers or boarders, so the entire run- down the bowl, followed by a minor uphill and then another long descent in a wide but steep gully of constantly variable pitch, growing denser with trees towards the bottom, was divine in above the knee-deep fluff. Two laps of this in the afternoon just about knocked us out. This was simply awesome. Our powder technique was rapidly reaching level of seasoned heli-dogs, and as luck would have it – just in time.

The pinnacle of the whole trip happened on the day before last, when our guided backcountry outing was scheduled to take place. We were to meet our guide Joe McKay (of the McKay clan, as he joked) at ten in the morning in the park rangers building. We were going to go into the backcountry Mecca of North America – the Rogers Pass, British Columbia. After three-hour drive from Banff over treacherous mountain passes in intensifying snow, we assembled our gear - shovels, probes, extra clothing, water, lunch, put on avalanche beacons, attached climbing skins to the bottoms of our skis in preparation for adventure. Joe showed up ready to go, so we started our three-and-a-half-hour climb right from behind the parking lot. The weather, as I mentioned, was heavy snow, with temperature in the high-twenties - ideal for skiing, but much too warm for the heavy work of steep climbing. Within minutes we stripped down to only undershirts and shells and still sweat was beading down my back, making shell wet and clammy inside. "This is a good exercise, eh? Will keep you in shape, given half a chance!" – quipped Joe after making what felt like 1001 st switchback, waiting for us to catch up. We were climbing to the area called "Grizzly Shoulder", which is just below the summit of the Grizzly Mountain. A few other groups chose the same place that day because of the weather. Heavy snow and summit winds created high avalanche hazard and total whiteout conditions above the tree line, making forested "Shoulder" the preferred place to be from visibility as well as from avalanche standpoint.

As we climbed, it became apparent why the meeting time set by Joe was ten o’clock, not eight or earlier. The most obvious concern I’d have – not getting the first tracks – I quickly brushed aside: there was so much terrain and so few skiers, this would never be the issue. The one I did not even contemplate was obvious to Mr. McKay. Late start almost guarantees that someone else had already broken trail for you. In five to ten inches of snow this is not a factor, but in two feet – it definitely is! "Watch this, Joe said as we huffed and puffed up the steep slope, we’ll catch up to the early-starters before we reach top". Sure enough, so we did, albeit those guys were already in the process of removing climbing skins, getting ready to rip the pow.

The wind was whipping in powerful gusts and we felt the chill immediately as soon as the climbing stopped. The dry fleece was put on, the skins stowed in the packs – we were anxious to get off the treeless shoulder before wind chill gave us frostbite. To describe our descent as epic would be an understatement. It was powder heaven, nirvana, euphoria! You’ve probably noticed that at this point I am running out of expletives. Well, let me try to describe it. The depth of snow when you are standing still is about mid-thigh – and that is just how deep you sink with you skis on. There is no firm base under the skis – it is bottomless. Just to get moving you must point your skis straight downhill (and it was quite steep too – varying between thirty and forty degrees). Once you start moving and get up to plaining speed you must keep the turns tight in the fall line in order not to bog down. Keeping the hands almost above our heads in attempt to keep the pole baskets above the snow, porpoising through the white stuff we were coming up where our ski tips just broke the surface and sinking down waist deep. At that moment the motion created a wave of snow billowing chest high, sometimes higher – then a white curtain temporarily blinded us for a couple of turns – as we continued our flight on what felt like a cloud of powder, spitting out the cold crystals that we breathed in with our open mouths. I’ve heard the term "snorkeling conditions" applied to skiing, but could not believe it until that day. We literally could use a snorkel! That was called "poor man’s helicopter skiing", as Joe informed us, and we gleefully concurred. All this was taking place among tremendous snow-laden firs and spruces, adding the excitement of tree slalom to already extraordinary run. At the bottom, after a quick bite in the middle of a clearing, we attached our skins to climb again for an encore.

Drive home was subdued, so overwhelmed we were by this awesome experience. According to Joe, not every day here is like this – most of the time it is better. The only thing that could’ve improved that day would be visibility. In bluebird conditions, we were told, the view is so stupendous – it alone is worth the climb. I guess we have something to come back for.

I think we just might do that, eh!