White Grizzly Cat Skiing

Just wanted to give a short review of my weekend with White Grizzly. This was my first time doing a cat ski trip.

Previously (last year) I had done a day of Heli-skiing with RK Heli-ski out of Panorama, which was OK but not great. There were two reasons why I wasn't blown away... a)The guides were extremely cautious about taking us into anything that was a potential avalanche slope (I know that's a good thing, but it would have been nice to get off the 20 degree slopes occasionally), and b) The clientel was a real mixed bag of those who said they were experts, and those who were forcing the guides to keep us away from any tight trees and having us stop frequently to make sure we were skiing as a group. Needless to say, heli-skiing wasn't the epic adventure I was hoping it would be, and the terrain wasn't much of a challenge.

Move to 2008, I wanted something that was going to give me a challenge and provide me with some GREAT SKIING. A friend of mine did some surfing and we stumbled upon www.whitegrizzly.com. They advertised big terrain that wasn't for the timid. Their prices were also pretty cheap (~$650/day if I recall). We booked in Nov and managed to get a spot mid march.

I'm told the ideal time to go is Jan/Feb when the snow is super dry and there tends to be steady dumps, but there's something about skiing in -5 to -10 degree weather that makes me giggle, so I was delighted to have perfect temps and some fresh snow to experience my first cat ski operation. To sum it up... it was the best ski experience I've ever had. 3 days of knee to shoulder deep powder, 7 meters of base, steeps up to 50 or 60 degrees, pillow drops, big hucks, and some of the best glading I've ever seen allowing you to rip through the trees carefree. We were in the cat each morning by 9 and our last run was always started between 4:30 and 5:00 (daylight savings helped). That gave us ~17000ft/day

The group we skiied with consisted of 5-10 guests and 4 guides. There's only ever a max of 12 guests in the lodge. The guides were great, they were just as into the skiing as we were leading us to the to good spots for drops and hucks whenever we wanted. and the guests were all solid skiers. The lodge was very relaxing, and the food was top notch and overflowing (I think I gained a few pounds in 3 days).

I highly recommend it.
Darren