Selkirk Mountain Experience
This past winter Backcountry Magazine held a random email drawing and Edward Arriola, a long time Powderwhore and good friend was the winner. The Grand Prize was some skis, outerwear and a trip for one to Selkirk Mountain Experience (SME). Since one is the loneliest number, Ed’s girlfriend Amy signed on for the “Experience”. Apparently three is not a crowd, and I was invited to tag along as well. I brought a video camera to capture the outing for Powderwhore and Ed and Amy shot the following pics.
We flew from SLC to Spokane and drove to Revelstoke. “Are we there yet”? Amy caught me napping.
From Revelstoke it’s a short flight into the Chalet. Amy is ready.
Edward buckled up for the stormy ride.
Our lovely accommodations for the week. Perched in the upper reaches of the pine forest it’s a perfect launch pad for day tours.
This is the legendary Ruedi Beglinger and myself; we look stoned as can be.
Can you pick out my skis? I’ll give you a hint; I’m not European or a rando racer.
A quick introduction to the rules of the lodge and we were off skinning. Our first day was just a half-day tour, but we got the idea that full days were going to be long.
Chillin out and refueling on the glacier. Amy was all smiles (super strong gal), while Ed and I were hurting from climbing nearly 7K each day of the trip.
Our first few days were stormy and we stayed to the lower elevation tree skiing. Once it cleared we hit the upper alpine slopes, but stayed to mellow terrain due to avy conditions. Ed and I catching our breath, that many turns require a lot of effort.
The food deserves it’s own report, but we ate it all before we could get any photo’s. Seriously the food itself was worth the money (even at the current exchange rate). Met some great folks from all over, even some cool Canadians.
The lovely couple! I suggested they use this pic for the wedding announcement, so don’t be surprised if you get one in the mail any day now. Right guys?
The view from the top of Tumbledown Mountain. The terrain was endless and it reminded me of being on the Classic Haute Route in Europe. The arrow is pointing out the location of the lodge. Fun descent.
I must admit that I am a really good third wheel. Thanks for letting me tag along guys.
Dan was our guide and he was great. I’ve never been guided before and it was really tough to just shut up and follow the group. It would be a very difficult job to safely steer that many powder hungry folks through huge terrain. Keep up the good work.
This is the beautiful view from the back porch where we watched the sunset each night. Everything was really nicely done and you can see Ruedi and his family truly loves what they are doing and appreciate how lucky they are to work and live where they do.
SME was very gracious and let us film at the lodge, but they don’t want to be associated with Powderwhore Productions (we’ve been getting that a lot lately, maybe we should change the name). So we will have to get creative and possibly just blur/edit out anything pertaining to SME in order to have a segment from this trip in the upcoming film, stay tuned.
Reported by
Noah Howell
