Skiing Jumbo Pass on Mother Nature’s terms

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/01/2006 (7430 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

INVERMERE, B.C. — I’d just taken over trail-breaking duties from Dirk at the top of Jumbo Pass. The white stuff was dumping and we’d been skinning uphill for six hours.

It was well past sunset and our view was confined to the glow of our headlamps reflected in the falling snow. Our five other friends were strung out over several kilometres behind us — we didn’t know if they’d make it up this far or if we’d even find the cabin.

A snowmobile ride that would have cut our approach in half had fallen through, doubling our ski distance and putting us in a world of hurt. It didn’t matter though — we were on a mission.

Forever altered

The Jumbo Pass area, near Invermere, is on the verge of being forever altered by a mega-resort if a proposal gets pushed through this year. We wanted to experience the splendour of this part of the Purcell Mountains in its pristine state.

No small matter of a snowstorm or being lost in the dark was going to deny us that opportunity.

In the film Deliverance, Burt Reynolds and his pals were bent on running the Cahulawassee River while it still ran free and wild. A dam was going in and they wanted a final, primal journey in the valley before it was gone.

We lusted for a similar experience, but of the frozen water variety — we wanted to ski Jumbo on Mother Nature’s terms. Of course, we hoped we’d end up better than Reynolds’s gang since one of them drowned, Reynolds broke his leg and Ned Beatty was told to “squeal like a pig.”

I took three more very slow, tired strides and glanced to my left through a break in a cluster of stunted firs. On a ridge 100 metres away, the Jumbo Pass cabin appeared like an oasis in a desert of snow.

One of our crew ended up sleeping out overnight on the trail, but he made it up by the crack of dawn, joining us for a week of some of the best backcountry skiing available in the world.

Accommodations are basic. The hut sleeps eight and is equipped with a wood stove and propane-powered Coleman double-burner (you have to bring in your own fuel). A crawl space below the floor is stocked with enough wood to last the entire winter.

The magic of the cabin is its location. Situated just above tree line at 2,350 metres, it allows visitors easy access to premiere B.C. skiing.

If you want long day tours, massive ridgelines with bus-sized cornices run endlessly from the hut in all directions. If you like it steep, less than an hour of skinning will bring you to the lip of any number of gut-wrenching, adrenaline-pumping, drop-away couloirs.

If soul-sliding is your thing, there are tons of huge open slopes where you can cruise to your heart’s content in light, fluffy, resistance-free powder. Don’t forget to bring your snorkel, because the snow is deep.

We lucked out with bluebird days and a stable snowpack, but if the weather craps out and avalanche conditions are unfavourable, no worries. Fifty metres away from the cabin is some incredible tree-skiing in moderate terrain that you can lap all day. Just behind the cabin, there’s a great run on an open slope accessible via a 15-minute skin.

At the end of the day, you come into the heated warmth of the hut, sit around, chat, eat food, sip whiskey and look forward to more fresh tracks the next morning.

Savour your time at the hut — enjoy the fact that you and your friends are earning your turns and have the place to yourself. Take a moment to look down in the valley and envision ski lifts crawling up the sides of the hills, hotels where there was once a gladed run, parking lots full of cars and thousands of people tearing up the once-pristine slopes.

Unlike Reynolds and the boys, you won’t run into hillbillies, and a great time is all but guaranteed at Jumbo. But it could be your last chance this season.

— CanWest News Service

* The hut costs $60 per night. Reservations are done through Columbia Cycle in Invermere at 250-342-6164. The topographic map for the area is NTS Duncan Lake 82/K7 (1:50,000 scale).