‘Heli-Hiking’ in Canada Mountains

SPILLIMACHEEN, Canada —  Way out in the middle of a rolling pasture, everyone seemed filled with nervous anticipation almost as strong as the helicopter’s whipping blade. Even the nonchalant cows ran for cover.

With a thunderous roar making it almost impossible to hear and a ferocious wind attempting to suck up all that was within its range, the first of our group of 10 broke out of a tightly knit formation and scurried aboard the copter. The anxious waiting seemed to stretch into eternity as the rest of us attempted to talk off our fright.

I had arrived at this scenic meadow after a friend told me about the weeklong trip, put together by Westport, Conn.-based Tauck Tours. The idea of leaving the sizzling sidewalks of an urban summer to hike amid cool, spectacular granite pinacles was quite appealing. Flying into Calgary to start the tour was simple, as was the motor-coach ride from Calgary to Spillimacheen, British Columbia. But journeying through the mountain skies in a small craft was an issue my stomach had to contend with.

Even with the summer sun blazing the day into brightness, clouds still napped on the rugged Purcell Mountains. In a place with the intimidating name of Spillimacheen, I was about to step into the world of “heli-hiking.” My group was called to board. We hurriedly grabbed our bags and bolted onto the waiting helicopter.

As we hovered a few feet above the ground, our more terrestrial mode of transport, the 40-seat motor coach now sitting off to the side, looked like a blot on nature’s canvas. Seeing the valley’s crenelated contours and the lace patterns of brilliant turquoise rivers from our flying machine, I remembered why I decided to forgo the safety of wheels and try my luck beneath a revolving propeller.

We were now heading into the heart of the Purcells, an imposing chain of stony grandeur in the Canadian Rockies. Located in the province of British Columbia, about 185 miles west of Calgary--where we had flown into the day before--the Purcells seemed like a lonely outpost. This wilderness has not seen the tourist development or the hiking traffic of more famous national parks and resort regions in the area.

After about 10 minutes, we neared a man-made structure hidden neatly within the mountain’s folds--Bobbie Burns Lodge, which would serve as our home base for the next five days--and made a perfect landing on a helicopter pad as big as a driveway. A guide opened the chopper door, ushered us into a room that looked like a shop for serious mountaineers and issued hiking boots, rain pants, parkas and a sky-blue Bobbie Burns-Tauck Tours backpack. We checked into comfortable rooms aptly named for the area’s diverse geology.

“Such a land is good for an energetic man. It is also not so bad for the loafer,” wrote Rudyard Kipling about the area in 1908. The people on our trip fell precisely within that range. We were separated into four small “heli-groups” of about 10 each.

An active hiking clan included me and my photographer husband, a dermatologist, a housewife, an investment banker, a young college professor and some lawyers. The easy hiking group had mostly participants over age 60, and the other two clusters fell somewhere in between. The guides formed the groups from questionnaires we had filled out on the bus ride from Calgary.

Each of the four groups was given a number since the helicopter could take only one group at a time. The rotation system is as efficient as a Swiss clock, with every group departing with a new guide at a different designated time each day. Once airborne, the helicopter’s stops are called “drops”--not very reassuring. There are four such 1 1/2-hour stops daily, al within the Purcell Mountains. All groups cover the same areas, but at differing times and paces. The crucial lunch cargo is also transported via chopper.

“See you on top of Elk,” our guide Jane Girvan said cheerily as she closed the craft’s door and hopped into the front seat before our first drop. This time my trepidation was much less fierce.

At 8,000 feet, this mountain doesn’t get much traffic. Jane’s specialty was finding the sublime in what seemed ordinary. From her we learned that an undistinguished long, green stalk called mountain sorrel tastes exactly like a Granny Smith apple, and that the high-pitched squeal in the distance was a small squirrel-like animal called a pica--his way of saying, “I know you’re coming.”

At our next drop, we walked in silence. The sound of streams flowing over rocky hills made for serene background music. Occasionally, nature’s concert would be interrupted by the sound of Jane’s walkie-talkie, which is used to communicate with the helicopter pilot as well as the other three guides. As the terrain changed, so did the melody. The echo of breaking crystal hung in the air while we were hiking over fields of slate. The distant clicking of the engine became audible, and we all sensed it was nearing time to go.

Arriving back at the lodge about 4 p.m., we compared notes, anxious to see if anybody missed a special moment. My next stop was to the large, inviting Jacuzzi downstairs, where I tried to massage out the day’s aches. Others relied on a professional masseuse to do the job for them.

At exactly 6:30, a triangle bell was rung and to everyone’s surprise, the meals served were gourmet-level, though we were deeply isolated in the midst of a snow-carpeted sierra. I slept well that night.

Appropriately enough, a Swiss-born mountaineer was our guide on day 2. Colani Bezzola looked as if he had spent his whole life in the Alps, dressed in his lederhosen, boots, and cap, and carrying a well-used walking stick. He was determined to give us a good workout at Bear Valley. We slipped and slid our way to the top of a steep slate hill while Colani strode along with the ease of a mountain goat, whistling the entire way. All of us were out of breath as we reached the top, but Colani hadn’t even broken a sweat.

Around Anemone Lakes, granite shafts competed with lush green ground cover. Water danced between vivid lavender wildflowers and soaked among streams of red and yellow Indian paintbrush. My husband and a compatriot were so overwhelmed with the beauty of an Aim toothpaste-colored pool that they stripped down to their undershorts and dove right in. I don’t remember whose scream was louder, but I believed them when they confirmed the frigid temperature of this glacial runoff.

On a desolate, windy mountaintop known as Grizzly, we were given the time to do as we pleased. After eating, I opted for “heli-napping” in the shelter of a boulder cove. Some people wandered, others meditated, and my husband went crazy with his camera.

Next stop was another mountaintop, dubbed Witch, where Colani showed us one of his favorite spots. Here the land made its most impressive sketch.

An emerald-green pool glistened in the sunshine, dead center. The awe was so overwhelming that nobody could speak.

Colani broke the spell to describe how moose travel through the snow, eating off tall trees, while some smaller animals survive from stunted vegetation found on the ridges. My day’s highlight was when Colani began yodeling for goats.

Day 3, drop one, was at International Basin with a jolly, enthusiastic guide named Jeff Skillman. In this region, the glacial formations looked like snowy jigsaw puzzle pieces strutting their pink, gray, blue and black colors. Not far away, I saw the first hummingbirds of my life and a fat marmot scurrying in and out of the scree. Jeff laughed as he pointed out a marking in the ground; it turned out to be the place where a grizzly bear had dug looking for a pica. Just how fresh was that hole, anyway, I wondered.

What sounded like an exploding bomb at Carbonate Lake gave me more concern than the potential of an advancing bear. This rumbling was nature’s own timpani crescendo, a mammoth wall of snow avalanching from one of those beautiful, pastel-hued glaciers. Such crashes are commonplace in the summer when the snow thaws.

After a fireside chat back at the lodge, a few of us meandered onto the porch to watch the sky. Perseus showers filled the night with silvery streaks of shooting stars. A chorus of ooos and aahs answered back. Mysterious blinking lights flying among the stars were identified by Colani as satellites.

I began to enjoy seeing the world of the Purcells through different eyes each day. The guides all had their own special vision of the landscape.

Our soft-spoken, gentle leader on day 4, Jori Guetg, let me sit in the front of the helicopter on the way to Snowman’s Pass. Seeing the craggy facades of mighty mountains through a 360-degree Rocky Mountain view was an un The occasional presence of helicopters apparently does minimal harm to the fragile ecosystem of the area. We were all carefully instructed on how to reduce ecological interference, and those places hiked are visited only about 10 times a year to keep human presence to a minimum.

As we were deposited at Iceberg Lake on our last day, mist sprayed us when the chopper’s aftermath caused mini-whirlpools to form. There was plenty more of that slippery substance at Conrad Glacier, our final drop of the trip. While it seemed that nature was balancing tenuously everywhere we had ventured before, now we had to do the same. We literally held onto Jane while peering into mill pools, which are gaping holes caused by spinning rocks eroding the glacier.

Straddling two slithery, 150-foot fissures in the earth, and trying not to slide into its clutches, I turned to the man behind me and quietly said, “I’m getting slightly terrified now.” He assured me that I was doing fine, and I thought it was essential at the time to believe him.

Not to worry. We made it safely back to the helicopter and returned to the lodge.

As we left Bobbie Burns and returned to Spillimacheen on our final helicopter ride the next day, I was almost overwhelmed with sadness. Descending onto the meadow for our landing, we saw a new group anxiously waiting to take our place.

I wondered if, upon their departure, they would be filled with the same heightened awareness and appreciation of nature’s splendor that our group seemed to share.

While we watched the helicopter and the new group disappear, I began to realize that my perspective had changed and that in the future I might always look at the environment in a totally different way. That thought kept my spirits in the sky.

GUIDEBOOK

Canada ‘Heli-Hiking’

Getting there: Delta and Air Canada fly direct from Los Angeles to Calgary, where the tour begins. The round-trip fare, with 21-day advance purchase, is about $260.

The tours: Tauck Tours runs heli-hiking trips to the Canadian Rockies all summer long. Rates are $1,895 per person, double occupancy, not including air fare. For reservations and information, contact Tauck Tours, 11 Wilton Road, Westport, Conn. 06880, (8OO) 468-2825.

Nights are spent at Bobbie Burns Lodge, 35 miles west of Parsons, British Columbia, with the exception of the first night at Emerald Lake Lodge (604-343-6321) in Field, B.C., and the last night at the Calgary Westin (403-266-1611). Bobbie Burns Lodge is secluded in the wilderness of the Purcell Mountains, and can be contacted only via radio transmission through Canadian Mountain Holidays.

For more information: For more intensive hiking and heli-hiking trips, contact Canadian Mountain Holidays, P.O. Box 1660, Banff, Alberta, Canada, (403) 762-4531.