Not everyone can afford heli-skiing’s price tag—even in Canadian dollars. So if your bucket list dream of doing it in British Columbia (its birthplace) is a little too dreamy this year, there’s a far more affordable option that still includes a helicopter ride deep into the same world-class terrain. The only catch: You’ll have to earn your turns by slapping skins on your skis or splitboard and hiking. You see, the best heli-skiing in Canada to save some cash is by booking a backcountry lodge.
Taking the heli to the lodge and letting your legs do the rest (instead of dipping into your portfolio) is becoming a booming trend—and for good reason. First, it’s a less expensive ski trip of a lifetime, coming in at around $2,000 per person. It’s also better on the environment, by not burning fossil fuels every lap. It’s great exercise, quieter, and lets you book an entire-12-person hut to fill with friends and compatible skiers. You can add a cook to the package (it’s worth it) as well as a guide (ditto, unless you have the necessary backcountry skills and know the terrain). Plus, it warrants stuffing your face back at a cozy lodge after etching your powder tracks in Western Canada’s prime alpine outback.
Sage Vogt
After that heli commute to the lodge—and grabbing that bird’s-eye view of the pristine terrain—you’ll settle into your routine. This includes waking to fresh coffee, breakfast, and provisions for your bag lunch, poring over maps and checking avalanche conditions to decide where to go, then schralping freshies all day. After laying tracks until alpenglow crests the surrounding ridgelines, you’ll return to the lodge, hang your skins, prop your boot bladders by the stove, slip into your hut clothes, crack a beer (most likely a Kokanee), and fall into your après-ski groove. Then it’s onto appetizers, soups and main courses, and maybe even a sauna and guitar session before turning in to start it all over again.
Most trips fly in and out either Saturday to Saturday or Sunday to Sunday, giving you seven days to shred while leaving your other life behind. Sold? Here are some of our favorite BC backcountry lodges to consider for next season.
Après ski at Mount Carlyle Backcountry Lodge.Sage Vogt
1. Mount Carlyle Backcountry Lodge
If ever a Canadian backcountry lodge benefited from 30-plus years of hut-keeping experience, it’s owner Brian “The Bald Bomber” Cross’s Mount Carlyle in British Columbia’s Selkirks. Cross bought it from founder Jeff Gfroerer in 2010, and he hasn’t looked back since—except to see his tracks. “It’s a true skier’s lodge,” says Cross. “It has the best terrain I’ve found yet.”
Situated at the “magic powder window” of 7,200 feet, the lodge, resting on a sunny shelf and surrounded by fluttering Tibetan prayer flags, is within day-touring access of 10 different basins, serving up everything from alpine steeps to old-growth trees. Hooks are hung in all the right places, boot-warming tubes rise off the chimney, and a family-style dining table seats 12 exhausted skiers perfectly. Wood skis cross the living room wall, dried flowers protrude from vases, and the ski poster-lined commode serves up views of Mount Carlyle out the window. A motto hanging on the wall reads: “If you choose not to find joy in snow, you’ll have less joy in life but the same amount of snow.”
The lodge’s living room is replete with couches, yoga mats, and a guitar. A wine glass rack hangs over the cedar-walled kitchen. The sauna—with pine, eucalyptus, and other scented oils—has signs telling you where to hang your headlamp for the hot gravity-fed shower.
Good times at the Carlyle after a hard day of shredding.Sage Vogt
As for the skiing, combine its 10 basins with more than 500 inches of annual snowfall, and you’ll be lucky to have the energy to even make it to the sauna during seven straight days of shredding. But you can always hit the Ainsworth Hot Springs (a snowball’s throw from the heli landing zone) on your last day.
Know Before You Go
Mount Carlyle books its hut Sunday to Sunday, so those are the days you’ll fly. The lodge takes care of the helicopter logistics, which picks you up in Kaslo, BC, about a four-hour drive from Spokane. Tip: En route, stop in beautiful Nelson, BC, to experience one of the quaintest BC ski towns and a Leafs Junior B hockey game.
I need to check the altimeter twice back at the hut. After climbing up to Friendship Col, traversing an Antarctic-like icefield, lunching on Sentinel Peak, and skiing back down, it reads: VERTICAL FEET—5,250; NUMBER OF RUNS—one.
The stats speak volumes about the terrain surrounding the Bill Putnam (aka Fairy Meadow) hut in the Adamant Range of the Selkirks. “These mountains are about as big as they get,” says my Canadian friend Paul, a veteran of more than 30 such fly-in hut trips.
The book Summits and Icefields spells it out further: “This is big country—you should be able to navigate on glaciers, perform crevasse rescues, and deal with other hazards of backcountry travel.” Out comes the topo map, bringing the area’s ruggedness to life in spaghetti-close contour lines. Glaciers ooze here like spilt milk. Peaks bear such names as Gargoyle, The Gothics, Unicorn, Houdini Needles, and Turret.
Many call Fairy Meadows the premier backcountry ski destination in North America—and it’s easy to see why. Located in the heart of the Selkirks, its peaks are straight out of Whoville, harboring every type of skiing imaginable: bowls, trees, glacier tours, peaks, and big mountain extreme lines. Couple this with 30 feet of annual snowfall and you get Alaska-type terrain just a four-hour car ride (and 20-minute helicopter flight) from Calgary.
Know Before You Go
To reserve the hut, you have to be an Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) member (for CN$48). You can book half (10 spots) or the entire hut (20 spots). Just do so long in advance during the lodge’s most popular windows in March and early April. Guides and/or cooks can be arranged through ACC. Arrange helicopter flights through Alpine Helicopters in Golden, BC.
Atop Sol Mountain in British Columbia’s Monashees, our skins are a tangled, flapping mess in 40-mph winds—sticking to pants, jackets, poles, and each other. Hopes for neat folds long gone, we wad them into our packs and click in. If our skins are unsightly, our ski line down Sol Mountain is anything but. Silhouetted against a backdrop of spires you’d find in a ski movie, we rip tracks down a bowl off the summit into the tight chutes of Tunnel Vision—a mushroom-filled gully that leads us back to the valley floor and Sol Mountain Lodge, where a dinner by Chef Bernie of homemade pulled pork with gnocchi and butternut squash awaits.
Ski-wise, you’ll explore such lines as Mission Ridge, the north-facing slopes of Twilight Zone, and such wine-themed runs as Chardonnay, Merlot, Malbec, and Premium Red—all offering the variety of terrain that former forestry consultant Aaron Cooperman was looking for when he brainstormed the lodge while stuck in a tent on a ski tour. Reconnoitering the region by helicopter, his search ended here, where he built something with “the amenities of a cat-skiing lodge, but for the backcountry crowd.”
“It’s a great location,” he says, touting the area’s 60 feet of annual snowfall, endless north-facing glades and high alpine terrain. “You can tour seven different summits and five different drainages right from the lodge.”
The lodge’s permit area encompasses 30,000 acres, including 18,000 in Monashee Provincial Park (where heli operations are prohibited and Cooperman is the only concessionaire) and 12,000 outside the park. The region’s easier terrain lures families, while harder terrain feeds the lodge’s bread and butter—guided and non-guided bookings for experienced backcountry skiers, augmented by special avalanche courses and split-board weeks.
The 3,800-square-foot lodge is reason enough to make the journey. With beds for 18 and another seven staff, it has full plumbing, including three showers (two heated by a woodstove and one on-demand), and five bathrooms—a luxury usually reserved for higher-end lodges. A foosball table bookends a ski bench in the mud room downstairs, while electricity comes from a hydro system piped from a nearby creek, powering Wi-Fi.
Know Before You Go
Unlike most other BC huts requiring longer stays, Sol Mountain offers four-, five- and seven-day options. The helicopter landing zone is about an hour’s drive north of Kelowna, which offers direct flights from most major airports, or a seven-hour drive from Seattle. Bring your own gear or choose from their rental packages.
Located at 6,900 feet just below Mt. Woden in the West Kootenays just outside Nelson, BC, Valhalla (of which Mount Carlyle’s Brian Cross is a co-owner) offers skin-to access to 10 different alpine basins out its front door. It offers guided and self-guided options, but you find your own way to the sauna.
Built in honor of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s son, Michel, who was killed in an avalanche nearby in 1998, the Kokanee Glacier Cabin resides on the shores of Kaslo lake in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. The area is a ski touring paradise, located north of Nelson, in southeastern British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains. A bit on the fancy side, it sleeps 15, with flush toilets, electric lights, electric heat, and gas fireplace. Choose between short slopes just outside the door to peaks, long tours, and experts-only chutes.
As with any backcountry trip, bring all necessary safety equipment, including avalanche beacons, shovel, and probe pole. Other important gear includes avalanche airbags, radios, water hydration systems, first aid and repair kits, and more. If your hut offers glacier touring, add a harness, rope, and prusik system to the list.
Dress as if you’re skiing when you board the helicopter and pack your clothes and other gear in small bags for easy loading. You’ll have to weigh everything, so consider booze over beer.
Forget protocol—and do whatever you can to snag the front seat of the helicopter.
Hang and dry your gear every night, including skins and gloves, and pull your ski boot bladders out as well.
Bring eucalyptus oil to add to the sauna water, and slippers and sweatpants for inside the lodge.
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There’s no doubt when the weather turns colder as we settle into winter, stouts take center stage. And while we enjoy all its iterations: standard stout, imperial stout, and robust barrel-aged stouts, we think this malty, chocolate-filled beer’s close cousin deserves a little respect as well. Of course, we’re talking about the oft-overlooked porter. And the best porters, oh buddy, they’ll have you rethinking your seasonal bevvie of choice.
For those uninitiated, the porter style had its genesis in England like many other iconic beer styles. It first appeared in the 1700s and is (you guessed it) named after porters—individuals tasked with transporting luggage.
A confusing origin story
“Stout is the direct descendant of porter. In the 1700s, it was common to use the word ‘stout’ to refer to a bolder, higher-alcohol version of any beer style, much in the same way we use the word ‘imperial’ today,” says Zach Fowle, advanced cicerone and head of marketing for Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. in Phoenix, AZ. “Porter was the most popular beer of the day, and over time, “stout porter” became a popular variant. But by the late 1800s, demand for regular porters evaporated, and stout porter shortened simply to stout.”
But more has changed between the 1800s and today than just our penchant for wearing top hats. “Today, most brewers seem to market beers as either stout or porter based on vibes, rather than on any notable stylistic differences,” he says.
Specifically, porters are known for their dark, almost pitch-black color and rich, sweet flavor profile. If you were to drink a porter and a stout side by side, you might even have difficulty discerning the differences between the two.
Stout versus porter is an enduring topic of discussion in the brewing industry. “While there’s no debating the porter came first—and stout used to be called stout porter, so it was a stronger version of a porter—the lines have become very blurred over the years,” says Rob Lightner, co-founder of East Brother Brewing in Richmond, CA.
“I would venture that even among professionals, a blind taste test would often yield inconclusive results,” says Lightner.
The difference between porters and stouts
Porters tend to be on the milder, more chocolatey end of the spectrum, Lightner says, whereas stouts are typically a little stronger and more roasty. Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule
Fowle agrees, “Porters tend to be fruitier, sweeter, and less bitter than stouts, with cocoa and caramel flavors in balance with dark malt bitterness. And stouts are usually hoppier, drier, maltier, and more coffee-forward—and may even have a touch of acidity.”
Whether or not they fit neatly into boxes, one thing’s for sure: both make for incredible cold-weather brews.
“As the nights grow longer, drinking a light, summery beer just doesn’t seem right,” says Fowle. “Porter is the perfect style for the transition to winter: warming and toasty yet not too heavy, with flavors of coffee, chocolate, and pie crust that correspond with autumn weather and holidays.”
It’s the perfect time to broaden your repretoire. Sweet, robust, warming, and well-suited to the season, here are the best porters to drink now.
Courtesy image
1. Deschutes Black Butte Porter
There are few porters more well-respected than Deschutes’ iconic Black Butte Porter. It’s brewed with Cascade and Tettnang hops as well as 2-row, Chocolate, Crystal, and Carapils malts as well as wheat. This 5.5% ABV year-round offering is great for cold-weather drinking because of its mix of roasted malts, coffee, and chocolate. It’s a robust, subtly sweet beer perfect for imbibing on a crisp fall night.
The key to 360-degree muscle: 90-degree eccentric isometrics. It might seem like we’re throwing a lot of geometry at you, but the concept behind time under tension (TUT) is simple, says Joel Seedman, PhD, owner of Advanced Human Performance: “Perform the lowering phase of a movement in a slow, controlled fashion, usually 3 to 5 seconds; pause in the stretched position, typically around 90 degrees; then perform the lifting phase in a powerful yet controlled fashion.” Believe us, a time-under-tension workout can humble even seasoned lifters…Eccentric isometrics are like the pressure cooker of training.
“Rather than mindlessly performing slow-tempo reps, you’re using the increased time under tension as a means to fine-tune your body mechanics and alignment, which requires more mental engagement and focus,” Seedman adds.
If you want to forge functional muscle mass and strength while simultaneously bulletproofing the joints and connective tissue, give this 10-move, full-body eccentric isometrics workout a go.
Directions
Perform the following moves as 90-degree eccentric isometrics following the above protocol. Use heavy weight, but not at the detriment of proper form. Rest 60 to 90 seconds between sets and 2 minutes between circuits. Perform once every 2 to 4 days for optimal results.
Best Time-Under-Tension Workout for Total-Body Strength
Circuit 1
Marius Bugge
A. Barbell Back Squat
Set a squat rack up with heavy weight, then grasp bar and step under it. Squeeze shoulder blades together, then stand to unrack bar and step back with feet shoulder-width apart. Inhale, hinge at hips and slowly bend knees to 90 degrees. Pause, keeping natural arch in low back, then extend through hips to powerfully stand. 3 x 4-6 reps
Marius Bugge
B. Renegade Row
Start in the top position of a pushup with hands shoulder-width apart on moderate-to-heavy dumbbells (shown). Explosively drive right elbow back to row dumbbell toward ribs while balancing on opposite hand and feet. Pause, then slowly lower weight, stopping a few inches above floor. Switch sides after all reps are done. 3 x 5 reps each side
Circuit 2
Marius Bugge
A. Dumbbell Bentover Row
Stand with feet hip-width apart, holding two moderate-to-heavy dumbbells in front of thighs, palms facing you. Push hips back and hinge torso forward so it’s nearly parallel to floor, soft bend in knees. Dumbbells should be near shins. Drive elbows back to row weights toward ribs. Pause, then slowly lower down for 3 to 5 seconds. 3 x 4-5 reps
Marius Bugge
B. Incline Dumbbell Chest Press with Legs Raised
Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree angle and lie back with dumbbells in either hand. Engage core and lift legs off floor, flexing feet. Press weights overhead, palms in. Slowly lower to 90 degrees, staying tight and compact. Pause, then drive weights up directly over chest. 3 x 4-5 reps
Circuit 3
Marius Bugge
A. Dumbbell Bulgarian Squat
Stand lunge-length in front of a flat bench, holding heavy dumbbells in each hand by your sides, palms facing in. Rest the ball on top (shoe’s laces) of your right foot behind you on the bench. Slowly lower your body until your front thigh is parallel to the floor. Pause, then drive through your heel to stand. Switch sides after all reps are complete. 2 x 3-4 reps each side
Marius Bugge
B. Single-leg Romanian Deadlift
Stand with feet hip-width apart holding dumbbells or kettlebells. Drive right leg up, foot flexed, knee aligned with hip, making a 90-degree angle. Hinge at hips as you slowly lever your torso toward floor, lowering weights and driving right leg back for counterbalance. Hold, then squeeze glutes to reverse. 2 x 3-4 reps each side
Circuit 4
Marius Bugge
A. Pullup
Hang from a pullup bar using an overhand grip with legs extended and feet flexed. Engage lats and draw shoulders down your back, then pull yourself up until chin is higher than hands. Pause at the top, then slowly lower. Pause at bottom, then reset before your next rep. 2-3 x 4-5 reps
Marius Bugge
B. Kneeling Overhead Barbell Press
Hold a bar with moderate-to-heavy load at shoulder level with forearms perpendicular to floor. Kneel at end of bench with feet flexed to grip edge for support. Inhale, engage your core and glutes, then press the bar overhead, pushing your head forward so it passes your face, exhaling at the top. Slowly lower until elbows are at 90 degrees, then hold to maintain tension. Begin your next rep from here. 2-3 x 4-5 reps
Circuit 5
A. Dumbbell Pushup
Place hands on dumbbells (this provides greater range of motion) at shoulder width and feet wider than shoulder width with just toes touching the ground. Keep head neutral and hips high to increase tension on core, chest and tris and reduce stress on spine. Slowly lower to the floor. Stop once elbows hit 90 degrees, pause, then push up to start. 1-2 x 6-8 reps
B. Biceps Curl
Stand with feet hip-width apart with moderate-to-heavy dumbbells in each hand hanging by sides. Engage biceps to curl the weights up, keeping upper arms still. Pause at the top, then lower slowly. Don’t let arms drop all the way down to keep greater time under tension on biceps. 1-2 x 6-8 reps
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If you haven’t picked up a jump rope since elementary school, you’re missing out on a fantastic cardio workout. Not only will you burn a ton of calories in a short amount of time—200 to 300 calories in 15 minutes—but jump ropes can also improve your coordination and agility. Better yet, jumping rope doesn’t require much space, so it’s easy to do at home, and it’s often more mentally stimulating than jogging or swimming.
Choosing a Jump Rope
When deciding which jump rope is best for you, it’s important to determine what your goals are. While lightweight speed ropes are popular for cardio-focused training, weighted or drag ropes will be best for those focused on strength training.
No matter what your training goals are, we’ve got you covered with this roundup of 10 jump ropes from top brands including Crossrope, TRX, Rogue, and more.
The Best Jump Ropes of 2022
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