Great Canadian Heli Skiing
Great Canadian Heli Skiing in British Columbia is a boutique heli ski operator that was founded in 1986, but why does it deserve the status of being called great?! Great Canadian Heli-Skiing has been a leader in the heli ski industry that others have that others have tried to emulate.
GCH was the first of the Canada heli ski outfits to introduce small group heli skiing (max 4 guests per guide), which provides immense advantages of skiing and riding more varied, challenging and interesting terrain, more freshies, better safety and optimal efficiency. The A Star B2 helicopters are powerful and agile and can access some epic LZs. Great Canadian Heli Skiing was also an industry leader and the first to introduce unlimited vertical in all packages.
Other elements that make Great Canadian Heli-Skiing aptly named include flexible length packages (e.g. 2 days to 10 days in duration, with start date any day of the week) and the gorgeous well spaced trees that complement the alpine terrain.
And Great Canadian is located near Rogers Pass between Golden and Revelstoke, a region that is renowned for being a high quality snow magnet. The front door of the Great Canadian heli ski lodge is easily accessible by car and is only a 4 hour drive from the Calgary International Airport.
Where is Great Canadian Heli Skiing?
Great Canadian Heli Skiing is located near Rogers Pass in British Columbia, just off the Trans Canada Highway 1 between Golden (with
Kicking Horse Mountain Resort nearby) and
Revelstoke. As to be expected, Great Canadian Heli Skiing is part of the famed BC Powder Highway.
The heli ski lodge (Heather Mountain Lodge) is 92 km east of Revelstoke, 55 km west of Golden, 191km west of
Banff Alberta, 333km west of the Calgary International Airport.
The heli skiing terrain sits along the north and east borders of the Glacier National Park, not far from Yoho and the Banff National Park. The terrain is across two mountain ranges that are renowned for receiving an abundance of snow, the Selkirk and Purcell Mountains.
Great Canadian Heli is reasonably close to
Chatter Creek Cat Skiing, which is about 30km to the east.
Getting There
If you’re flying into Calgary Airport, the most common way to get to Heather Mountain Lodge is to
rent a car and self-drive. The entire trip should take approximately 3.5 to 4 hours and the drive is absolutely spectacular. You may choose to stop for a warm-up ski at
Banff,
Lake Louise or
Kicking Horse.
Or Great Canadian Heli Skiing is 278km northeast of Kelowna Airport, if you want to drive and hit up the ski resorts of
Silver Star,
Big White and/or
Revelstoke en-route.
Alternatively it’s possible to book a car with driver via Ridebooker.com.
You can look at
flight options here into Calgary or Kelowna.
Snow
The heli ski zones in the British Columiba Interior are renowned for being blessed with light powder snow that’s deep because the tenure scores 46ft/550 inches (1,400cm) of snow on average each winter!
Terrain
Great Canadian Heli Skiing has vast terrain to choose from, with tens of thousands of square kilometers of wilderness. The area is 14 times larger than Whistler-Blackcomb!
Some of the terrain is really close to the lodge, which is ideal for inclement weather days and contributes to a very low number of no-fly days. Typically there are only two down days each winter.
The Great Canadian Heli Ski terrain includes the full gamut of options from steep challenging terrain (not quite in the Alaska realm but close), open bowls, mellow glaciers, glades, and even some optional mushrooms and pillow lines.
Most of the runs average 1,500-2,500 vertical feet (460 to 760 m) in length and the longest run is 6,232 ft (1900 m). Skiing elevations are usually between 9,000 and 5,500 ft (3,000 and 1,833 m) with the highest peak reaching 10,100ft (3,078 m).
The heli ski packages offer a generous amount of vertical (e.g. 30,500m/100,000ft for a week long trip), yet because there is unlimited vertical, historic data shows that the average skier on a week long trip skied 43,000 vertical meters (141,000ft). A big day would be over 10,000 vm (33,000ft).