Back from the brink - via ferrata part 1

• Posted on September 13, 2008 at 5:37 PM
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The via ferrata up Nimbus Tower at CMH's Bobbie Burns Lodge on a fine day. Picture from CMH.

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I'm back on Vancouver Island after a 10 day trip through the Purcell Mountains, Banff National Park and Sprawlgary (Calgary). Variety was the name of the game as we did everything from mountain climbing to hiking with my daughter to visiting babies and mall shopping. But the highlight, by far, was the climb up Nimbus Tower in the Purcell Mountains. In the next few blogs I'll give you the dirt on the trip. Here's part of day 1.

My wife Josie and I went to Bobbie Burns Lodge run by Canadian Mountain Holidays, the godfather's of heli-skiing and heli-hiking, to check out a via ferrata set up the craggy peak nearby. We flew to Bobbie Burns from a one shop town in the Columbia Valley between Radium and Golden named Parsons. The 10 minute flight went by fast and soon we were coming down to earth (literally and figuratively).

I was surprised to see the lodge was just off a logging road in the Vowell Valley. I was expecting it to be off in a high alpine valley, but once the helicopter lifted off the reason for its less than totally remote feel became obvious. The lodge was huge and with 30 odd guests and almost as many staff the logging road was needed for supplying the operation with everything from fuel to food. In the winter the lodge is totally isolated: an hour snowmobile ride or the same 10 minute flight I had just stepped off. During the summer our luggage, staff and food all come in by vehicle. And in the fall several truck and tanker loads are ferried in to stock the lodge for winter. Only the fresh produce comes in by helicopter during the winter.

We had to wait about an hour for our bags to catch up to us at the lodge, so we were given an introduction and then tucked into the first of many amazing meals. The lodge is set up with simple, but nice rooms down one side and all the communal facilities ( a stretching room, sauna, hot tub, pool table, lounge, bar, dining area, bouldering wall, drying room) on the other end. Everyone, staff and guests, eats together at big communal tables. Food is served family style and since the rooms are simple and devoid of TV everyone hangs out afterwards for a few drinks. It's a very social atmosphere.

You don't get to know everyone but we quickly developed a friendship with a few of the guests who we spent most of our hiking and drinking time with. There was a CBC journalist filming a TV spot (more on this later), an actuary from Virginia, three loud and fun brothers, a father-daughter combo, a mother-son combo, some CMH head office staff, a couple from Calgary, and a couple from Colorado.

After lunch our bags arrived and we had time to move in before our first heli-lift to our first adventure. I'm still downloading footage, so I'll leave my story here for now. Check back soon for more. Shoot over any questions you have about heli-hiking or via ferrata. I'm almost an expert now.