Powder skiing a dream come true in northern B.C.
DOC POW
NEW HAZELTON, B.C. - Chances are you've seen the beer commercials in which contest winners are flown into a magical land near a frosty mountain range for a game of hockey.
Learn more about #SkiNorthBC 2.0
Instead of hockey, think skiing or snowboarding via helicopter in a pow-topia, accessible to anyone via Skeena Cat Skiing Inc. or Skeena Heliskiing Inc.
Heaven on earth exists. It's also named Skeena Cat Skiing.
Plan your adventure...
In the New Hazelton chapter of our #SkiNorthBC Expedition, my videographer, @ApresWheeler, and I got the scoop on a unique experience.
"We have really only explored 25 per cent of our tenure", says Jevon Zyp, an experienced engineer in the Kitimat-Stikine region and founder of Skeena Cat Skiing Inc.
New Hazelton sits along the Yellowhead Highway, about 45 minutes outside of Smithers, and is home to around 600 people.
Zyp basically turned his house into a cat ski operation.
A former freestyle snowboarder, Zyp has been mining the white gold for around 12 years. One day, he took a sled tour through this region and was sold.
"Look south (in B.C.), there is no tenure up for grabs anymore", he said. Here in the Hazeltons', tenure is available.
"This is the land of cold smoke, blower POW" as Zyp calls it. He has about 100 square kilometres to tour guests around, about the size of 1,100 football fields.
Every season they explore terrain that no one has skied before. Guests can name these virgin runs, leaving a legacy.
Around here, you are pretty much on your own; it's the Wild West of skiing. Zyp has been an innovator, building one of the world's only cat-accessed backcountry camps. At this base camp to pow-topia you pick out your lines over breakfast. By après, you can revel in the days adventures.
The Hazelton Mountain Range has features that make them unique from the Rockies or the Coastal Mountain Range.
Cat skiing allows lots of time to socialize. And you can saddle up for a chopper ride to get you and the crew back to the top. That's where Jake Frei and his team at Skeena Heliskiing can show you the way.
It's the wilds of B.C. around here, and we get to we host skiers and snowboarders looking for a wilderness vacation.
Frei knows this area is rugged because he grew up here. Building a heli-ski business allows him to construct an experience that allows for plenty of exploring opportunities.
It's people like Zyp, that can get the mind blue-skying about the possibilities up here. To start his business, Zyp sold the $80,000 house he purchased in 2005 (Yes, here in northern B.C. you can still buy houses that wont take you 60 years to pay off).
If you go
For more on Skeena Cat Skiing & Boarding click in here. For Skeena Heliskiing go here.
Call Skeena Cat Skiing and Boarding at 250-842-3333
Adventure into the wilds to the rest of the region of Kitimat-Stikine check out the regions website at http://www.rdks.bc.ca/.
Learn more about what BC has in store for you this winter, search #ExploreBC
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