Ski Touring Fairy Meadow, BC.
Away with the fairies-An impulsive decision pays off.
From ISSUE 105 2023
Words Ben Hume| Images Cooper Stankovich.
After a few summers cooped up in New Zealand, my time had come to head back to the northern hemisphere. I put work on hold for the month of January (like anyone in New Zealand works in January, anyway) and swapped Wanaka for Revelstoke, a Canadian mecca of freeride and powder skiing. After three years of skiing classic low-tide Kiwi snowpacks, I arrived to “the worst season for snowfall” (by 100cms) in Revelstoke Mountain Resort’s history. Even so, the conditions were some of the best I’ve had in my short, somewhat sheltered skiing life.
At the same time, in the back of my mind I couldn’t help but wonder what the full Canadian breakfast would taste like—a foot of fresh every morning for a week… that’s what I signed up for! A few weeks into my stay, and in the middle of two (soon-to-be-cancelled) freeride comps, I bumped into some new Aussie mates, Coen Bennie-Fall and Murray Elliot. They had just booked spots on a week-long hut trip to a place called Fairy Meadow.
After I was given a brief explanation of the spot, the conversation flowed along the lines of, “we fly in on Saturday for a week”, and, “you should come—it’ll be sick”. As I was only moments away from hucking my carcass in the Revelstoke 4-star event, I was in no position to do the research required to sign myself up for seven nights in the Selkirk Mountains.
But I had been warned that spots were limited and wouldn’t hang around for long, as they only became available when a booking was cancelled.On the way to my run, I saw my good mate and fellow Kiwi, Ollie Hunt, I quickly gave him the brief rundown I was privy to, and said, “look into it. If you think it’ll be sick, book us in.” It looked epic, so he booked us in.
With the comp out of the way, I thought my nerves would subside, but I couldn’t make my mind up about this trip. Seven nights in a BC hut with one old mate, three new ones and 15 complete strangers. What if I got injured? What if the snow was bad? What if my gear broke and I was hut-bound?
"Could I hack seven days? And with a -30°C weather forecast..."
I kept thinking back to my time at Pioneer Hut during the last NZ season; that trip was only four days’ long, and boy did it put some hairs on my chest. Could I hack seven days? Not to mention the -30°C weather forecast, which was more than 40 degrees colder than my last multi-day touring trip. Background research on the hut started to put my mind at ease.
It turned out that the Bill Putnam (Fairy Meadow) Hut isn’t quite like the huts we have back home. It boasts a spacious living area, 20 beds in the upstairs area, a fully-stocked kitchen with propane-powered stoves, ovens and lighting, a fireplace for heating and a wood-fired sauna to boot. The place also usually books out months in advance through a lottery system, due to high popularity. I quickly realised this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and jumped into admin mode.
On day one of the trip, we jumped into a helicopter in Rogers Pass and flew 15 minutes over the Selkirk Mountains into the Fairy Meadow. Spirits were high, but slightly tempered after the forecasted 20cm only resulted in 5cm of new snow.
"We had struck magic at Fairy Meadow."
We set out on a mellow reconnaissance tour to get our bearings and assess the conditions. It was -27 °C that day, something I had never experience and probably wasn’t prepared for. A few of our crew had struggled with the cold and were dealing with frost-nipped toes. Having dealt with it a few years earlier, I dished out some advice and felt quietly stoked that my feet hadn’t got the better of me.
After 40 minutes or so out of the boots, my toes started to burn. I realised that they hadn’t been feeling cold because I couldn’t feel them at all. By the next morning, big, white patches on each big toe had blown up into bulging blisters. It was only day two and I was already hut-bound. This was exactly what I’d been worried about.
On day three we awoke to about 10cm of new snow and more on the way. I was able to squeeze my tender little piggies into a pair of ski boots and spent most of the day finding new zones and becoming familiar with our surroundings.
We hit the jackpot on day four: roughly 30cm of new on the ground and good enough bearings to make use of it. That’s when things started to get silly. After starting the day with an hour or so on the skin track, we ducked into the trees for pow turns and pillow lines.
Up until that point we were just ski touring, which is something I have long associated with type two fun more than actual good skiing. But now I was getting some of the best turns of my life and they were getting better by the hour. We had struck magic at Fairy Meadow.
The remainder of the trip is hard to put into words. Life couldn’t have been simpler: wake up, eat, skins on, a couple of kick-turns, skins off, ski powder then put the skins on again. Repeat this process until it got dark, have some dinner, maybe a sauna, a spot of backgammon over couple of beers, then off to bed. Bliss.
We were skiing over 50cm of blower Selkirk powder, and there was only 20 of us to track out an area the size of a resort. We ventured further from the hut with each lap, thereby adding more vertical metres to our descent. As our transition points got lower and lower down the moraine wall, we were able to scope fresh lines even further afield.
Maybe the “tastes better when you’ve earnt it” mentality was at work to enhance the experience, but I’m fairly confident this was the deepest and highest quality snow I have ever skied. After five weeks in Canada being told, “it’s usually way better than this’” I had finally found what I was looking for and boy, did it taste good.
Ski Touring Fairy Meadow BC.
Bill Putnam (Fairy Meadow Hut)