It was bluebird in Whistler but Jonaven was lagging and Newsome was late. Ten minutes south of Whistler’s spectacle our sleds were revving with splits racked, duffels packed and Crown safely stashed for the ride. Three cold February feet had settled in a gated touring reserve 22 clicks up the trail, but this morning start was a bit rough. We were reworking logistics at the staging area with Brad Sills, the heart and soul of Callaghan Lodge. And right now Brad was a bit gripped at our professional disorder.
Delicate cash-and-trade negotiations convinced Callaghan Lodge to let a crew more comfortable with floor space than featherbeds occupy their Norwegian lodge for four days. The trip had nearly fallen apart at every stage, and a delayed start meant we were burning blue as Jonaven Moore was finding a dog-sitter and Scott Newsome was stuck in morning rush hour after an all-night drive from the interior. So we tacked a note on the gate and hit the road in caravan hoping this trip would turn smooth by noon.
The disadvantage of solitude is also a fresh meter with not one track, which makes uphill progress glacial. The snow is Utah cold and Baker deep, which we learn that night is not unusual for this super-cooled catch basin. Receiving 50 percent more pow than Whistler is no Snow Belt myth, and the reason is a track that forces storms to crest the cold 7,000-foot ceiling of Powder Mountain’s Ice Cap before being sucked downslope into Callaghan.
Even in the chronically moist coast range, a rain crust in Callaghan snowpit is rare. During our late-February trip, Callaghan Loge’s snow stake reads 567 cms at 5,000 feet, while Whistler’s base depth sits at 380 cms 1,800 feet higher. Coverage lasts late into May, and this prized and abundant natural resource puts Callaghan on both paid and poaching hit lists, which we realize when a heli breaks our silence before we level off on the first bench.
A Bell 212 is not a welcome sight when breaking trail. Watching 10 paid guests with a grand to burn snake your line is painful. It gets no easier the second or third time. We learn later that Whistler Heli holds a section of overlapping tenure, but boundaries are a gray area in the backcountry. A gentlemen’s agreement normally keeps paying guests in separate corners but today looked too good to miss. Our consolation prize is thousands of untracked acres, but an hour in and only halfway up, mechanized envy is starting to show.
The pending three-year closure in Callaghan is officially due to Olympic construction, but here the story gets complicated. Sills recommended Callaghan as a Nordic venue to the bid committee in 1998 and championed the location throughout the process. The Callaghan Valley Master Plan process, dictated by George McKay, laboriously evaluated the vested-interest issues from 1999 to 2003. When the bid went official in 2003, the Vancouver Organizing Committee and the BC Ministry of Tourism, Sport and Arts started throwing their government-backed weight into the valley.
But the Callaghan master plan was also a byproduct of the ongoing Sea to Sky Land Resource Management Plan, which aims to section off the Whistler Backcountry for specific winter use. A Sea to Sky Backcountry Forum hammered out access between local user groups, but regulation did not follow recommendations. As part of a new government mandate, shutdowns are pending in areas such as Rainbow, Phelix Creek, Face Mountain and Upper Lilooet River. Callaghan now sits at the center of this contentious LRMP map.
They saved the salmon for the boss, and the last meal is the best of the trip. Sills—who walked in with a case to break the ice—keeps us entertained with old-school stories of the twofer night at the Boot (RIP), guiding angry women at the old critter-infested cabin and being stalked by a cougar while grooming in the cat. He has guided change though process even with swirling forces of Olympic development, tenure politics and government mandates. But he fought tirelessly for a vision that will keep this one perfect patch, for now, as it once was.
“To see the Games here now its’s kind of what we longed for—that in this particular valley it would be seen that the best use for it would be skiing. And certainly the upper areas of Powder Mountain, Cayley and Brandywine and all those places are still open for sled-skiing,” Sills says. “I think it is a good accommodation myself.”
Not everyone is happy and high-level decisions will create winners and losers in the Whistler Backcountry, yet regulation has one entirely positive outcome for Callaghan. Neighboring Brandywine will feel enormous pressure and sled-access is getting the shaft, but a new touring reserve will now be within skinning distance. With a character more approachable than the Garibaldi Neve of Spearhead Traverse, ancillary effect from an Olympic movement will reclaim a special place for those who shred with a different approach.
As we crack the second bottle and savor our last night in paradise, it’s clear the story is not simply black, white and green. Like the divided community’s stance, our crew shares the same clashing attitudes about the personal effect of the 2010 train. Olympic ambition is trailing a huge wake, yet after seeing the 30-year view, a tradeoff between development and conservation seems the rational calculation in a Sea to Sky of relentless transformation.
We finish her off with an unauthorized mission and get a few short-stack seconds in the morning. A pillow-field sluff takes Jonaven for a ride and calls time on the trip. By afternoon we are doubling out the gate and reclaiming shuttled gear from the staging area. In the lot, we are back among the local trucks that will get the boot next season. Balancing access, protection and progress while the world tunes in is no easy task. But our loyalties are now conflicted, since, in Callaghan, we have been shown a privileged glimpse of the future.
