British Colombia - Terrace & the Kitimat backcountry
A back-country camping trip that didn’t go according to plan…
It certainly sounded like a great idea - take a heli from Terrace, BC, into a remote mountain range, set up a camp and explore the area from there for a week. It didn’t cross any of our minds that being not so far from an area called the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary might have some influence on the trip...
The Plan
Late March, 2017 - A crew of six of us from the UK would get ourselves to Terrace, BC, in the Coastal Range of mountains and just a couple of hundred kilometres south of that bit of Alaska that hogs half the coast on the Canadian western seaboard.
From Terrace, we’d meed our friend Owen - a guide for Summit Ski Tours - who would get us heli’d 20 mins or so into the backcountry north-west of Terrace, in the Kitimat-Stikine region, where we’d build a base-camp, stay there for 5-6 days, day-tour from there with options for heli-drops in the area if the weather held out. At the end, we could heli out or tour out, depending on weather and knackeredness.
Then to wrap up, we’d have a day to ski the local hill, Shames Mountain, relax or find some other local adventure.
You can see why we were excited…
Getting there
Two of us would actually already be in Canada, having been on a road trip around the Nelson area, a bit further inland (“a bit”, like 17 hours driving). The rest of us flew from the UK, via Toronto or Vancouver, then got a second flight up to Terrace.
Terrace airport is tiny. Not a lot more than an outsized portacabin, so we already have the feeling of being pretty out there. It was re-assuringly cold but not very snowy at it’s lofty altitude of 217m. We knew the snow was out there though, and up there . Owen picked us up, got us to our basic but plenty comfortable motel, Mumford’s Lodge, which had the benefit of being right opposite Mumford’s Beerhouse and Grill - oh yes. Game on.
Terrace itself feels very much like a working town, a new arrival wouldn’t guess that logging has declined since it’s heyday. It has a no-nonsense feel to it, wide roads, surrounded by hills, and the presence of the part-frozen Skeena river dominating most approaches to the town.
We met the two other lads, along with another two that we didn’t know, but who were repeat client’s of Owen, and both experienced ski tourers. Add in Owen himself, Marcella our camp chef, and second guide, and we were eleven for the trip. The plan was to split into two groups for each day on the hill.
A shock to the system
The next morning, the team, a lot of camping gear, food and even 5 day’s worth of firewood, were lifted in several trips by two helicopters up to a remote flank of valley in the region of Mt Treston, at about 1000m, just on the lower edge of a protective patch of full-growth forest. There was a LOT of snow here, something like 3m of base, If the sky cleared, we’d have nice sunsets over a dramatic set of mountains and the big river valley below us.
But, talk of sunsets had to wait until we’d got the camp set up. We had zero expectation of just how much work it was going to take, and It was a shock, honestly. Our campsite was on a slight incline up to the forest and levelling the snow for each tent pitch meant moving a LOT of snow from the uphill side of each pitch to the downhill side, followed by a lot of stamping - with skis on - to made a decent floor. We learnt to dig a kind of trench by the front door of each tent, to allow you to sit on the lip of the tent, with feet in the trench, to put on and off your shoes and avoid getting snow in the tent.
Then we had to dig a snow cave to store all the food - wolverines apparently being the most likely local bandits. The cave door would be closed up with snow every night and dug open each morning. The cooking tent setup was spectacular - steps were dug down into the snowpack and benches and storage holes carved out, with just a simple pitched fly sheet roof over it all, with an open skirt for ventilation and to give the cooks a view. Cubic metres of snow had to come out to make that kitchen but having been told the menu, we all thought it was going to be worth it.
And the loo! 100m or so away from the camp we dug a deep shaft right down to the ground then used some cleaned up fir branches and a toilet seat we’d brought to construct a loo with an incredible view down over the river valley (and a carved-out loo-roll holder).
On top of all this, another team had to go find us as source of fresh water. One shaft they dug into a nearby slope ended up being a slot nearly 12ft deep, down to the ground and about 2m side-ways into the slope… but hit no water. In the end we had to get water from a nearby stream that had still not been totally snowed over and which we’d initially avoided because getting to it was dangerous with the amount of snow on it’s banks.
Eight hours of solid work to set up the camp - hot, sweaty work - but hugely satisfying. We settled down to beers in the dinner tent, heated by a wood-burning stove. With the backdrop of meaty smells from our dinner cooking next door and the falling snow getting heavier, we were super excited about the days to come.
Meeting the locals
None of us a got a great night sleep - excitement, one too many beers maybe, getting used to the sound of heavy dry snow sliding down the tent sides, meant most of us availed ourselves of that spectacularly-placed loo early in the pre-dawn dark. It was spooky on that loo, I don’t mind saying, out of sight of the camp, with a view of falling snow lit by our torches, backed by impenetrable darkness. And it was to get even spookier later on that day.
A hearty bacon-based breakfast later, with the clouds breaking up a bit and patches of blue showing, we skinned up through the forest for a warm up run, down to the river in the valley below. We transitioned at about 1350m, above the tree line. Incredibly, the first 100m of vert down to the top of the forest was kind of sticky snow, hard to build up speed, but from the forest down, the next 450m vert was amazing - light, fluffy, deep and fast. Man, this was just the warm up run, we had vast swathes of mountain we could explore from our camp. Actually, none of the mountains around us were super high, topping out around only 2000m, but if there was more snow like this, well, bring it on!
We hiked back up, past the camp and through the forest again. But at some point in there, one of our groups noticed an extra member tagging along, an extremely unwelcome new member at that - a grizzly bear - and only about 15m behind the back person on the trail. So yeah, this bear did look a bit sleepy, as well it might, waking up from hibernation quite a bit earlier than would normally be expected. (Later, we surmised that if its den was nearby, then landing a couple of heli’s near it, then rubbing that in by cooking a meaty dinner and breakfast, might explain it’s early awakening), but it was big, the top of it’s shoulder blades at about waist height - my waist that is, and I’m 6’2”…
Those of us at the front of the group started to make what noise we could, shouting, banging poles together, but it pretty much ignored all that and continued to come, following our skin track. There was only one option - run for it. Well, ski-tour very fast, at least. Still it kept coming, closing the distance slightly no matter how fast we went. For sure, it was interested in us at least, and we didn’t fancy it getting even more interested. At one point, one of the groups skis came off, prompting the fastest re-clip-in ever recorded. Then it started to cut the corners off our skin track, gaining even more. Our Strava recording shows us doubling our skinning speed, a speed we kept up for about 20 mins, with no idea of any sort of plan B, until at some point, near the top of the forest, we turned one corner on the skin track… and the bear just didn’t appear around it.
We had no idea what it had done, gone on it’s way somewhere or decided easier pickings were back in the camp, or maybe it was smart enough to know we’d need to come down and was cutting through the forest, licking it’s lips in anticipation. We didn’t even know if it was alone. As you can imagine, this made for an extremely nervous ride back down through the forest to the camp, constantly stopping behind what we imagined was ‘cover’ and scanning for movement. Luckily, we didn’t run in to it again, or any others, and got back to the camp to tell the others.
High-tailing it
Owen, our guide, didn’t take long to reach a decision - we had to go. Not knowing where the bear was, and if it was the only one, and having no bear defences with us (being in an area not known for bears, and it being out of season), meant that evacuation was the only sensible option. And evacuation meant tearing down the camp and getting the heli’s back in to lift us and our gear out.
“There was only one problem” - that would have been nice, but no, there were three problems: One, the weather was coming in fast, visibility shutting down as the clouds and snow came in again; Two, at short notice, only one heli was available to get us, eleven people, out; and Three, that heli was the smallest one they had so unless the weather opened up, we’d get just two trips and all our gear would need to stay behind.
Heli confirmed, we had one hour to take down the camp it’d taken us eight hours to set up. Tents were packed, firewood all thrown in the kitchen pit and covered over, food cave emptied and food packed in boxes on the make-shift heli-pad. I was in the group that had to stay behind to wait for the second lift. That was nerve-wracking, I can tell you, feeling super exposed and just puny compared to the local fella we’d seen on our trail - and him apparently only a juvenile (so everyone reckoned later). While we waited, we discovered that the bear prints were all around our campsite, including to within a few metres of the loo, and within a foot or so of one of the tents.
Even worse, we watched out companions fly off down the valley only to see their heli come back up past us some minutes later - weather had closed that exit. They had to try another route. Now we were left wondering what that meant for that heli even getting back to us - staying out here another night was not something we were looking forward to!
Lucky for us though, the heli did make it back, and we were all delivered to the bar of the Summit Ski Tours headquarters to calm our nerves.
Plan B
In all the rush, we realised that all us had forgotten to get our wallets, passports or anything out of the backpacks, which were still up on the mountain, probably being rummaged through by wolverines, squirrels, mink, maybe even our friend, or whatever the hell else was up there and liked toothpaste and chocolates. So we found ourselves back at Mumford’s with only our ski gear to our name.
It was going to be 2-3 days before the weather cleared enough for any heli’s to get back for our gear. Owen and Summit Ski Tours were magnificent - a plan B was hatched to provide us with rental gear so that we could ride the local hill, Shames Mountain, they found us spare slippers so we didn’t have to wear snowboard boots all the time, ferried us around as needed - and got us counselling. How the counselling came about will need to wait for another article, but Shames Mountain is certainly worth a mention right now. The ski operation is run as “My Mountain Co-op”, Canada’s first non-profit co-operative. One chair and a t-bar, it ain’t big on lifts, but it’s a fantastic mountain - 5 black diamond runs, great tree runs, with some great steeps options, there’s even superb touring off the back of the mountain, which, once we got our kit back a few days later, we spent a few days exploring. We’d all go back to Shames at a drop of a hat, and the community feel there really shines through. We never even got tired of the lifties gags, like, “Oh, you’re the guys who can ‘bearly’ ski, right?”.
Getting to hang out in Terrace in the evenings was great too, there are some great craft beer places like the Sherwood Mountain Brewhouse, and some good restaurants - try the Bavarian Inn (though the massacre of the local fauna hanging on the walls watching you eat might be off-putting for some).
So we didn’t get to do plan A, but in the mountains you need to be adaptable, and this trip was super memorable for us all. We heartily recommend the area.
Heading off to the back-country behind Shames Mountain.
How to do it
Travel - Those of us who flew did so with Air Canada for about £800 return, London to Terrace, including ski gear.
Camping - Summit Ski Tours put on the camping trip for about £1450pp, incl guiding, camping gear, food, two nights in Terrace, heli in & out, for a 5-6 day trip.
Local knowledge -
Shames Mountain - a non-profit community ski hill. Give the community some love and go ski there, it’ll love you back.
Mumford’s Motel, Beerhouse and Grill.
… and of course, if you need a good counselling service, just ask!