Knee deep in dreams (and history) at Wiegele World.
words :: Feet Banks
For anyone with real, blazing passion—for anything—there are almost always hallowed grounds. Fenway Park, the Louvre, Everest, Pipeline, Wimbledon, Cannes, the Montreal Forum or the Craig Kelly Memorial at Baldface. But for me, for any skier really, the holiest of holy lands is Blue River, BC and Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing.
The first thing that strikes me are the pens. Nice, branded Mike Wiegele pens—silver and black, classy. Signing the waivers, I marvel at the smooth flow and grippy, balanced feel.
“You can keep it,” says the lovely young woman with the slightly European accent behind the desk as I scrawled my name and info across the waivers. “Would you like another one?”
Right after that, I was issued avalanche transceiver and safety gear pack #69 and it immediately became clear I was on the right path and about to enjoy some of the best ski days of my life. Welcome to Wiegele World. Welcome to paradise. Welcome to history.
Born in southern Austria, Mike Wiegele was 14 years old when his father gave him the nod to chop down the only ash tree in the family yard and haul it over to the local carpenter to handmake Mike’s first pair of skis. After high school he fled to Canada in search of bigger and snowier mountains and, after a couple of tangents (Ontario was not the mountain wonderland he expected Canada to be) ended up in Banff, Alberta in the late 1960s. There he married a young stunner named Bonnie, who admits, in a 2019 documentary, to thinking, “he was pretty good looking and maybe I can learn to ski.”
Bonnie did learn to ski, and together the Wiegeles started off on the path that would revolutionize how people dreamed about skiing, and how they made those dreams come true—with a helicopter and some of the best snow in BC.
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The sound hits you first, each morning in Blue River the whumph-whump of rotors spinning as a veritable fleet—up to nine on busy days—of Bell 212 helicopters crest the treeline almost like a surreal scene from some frozen, snowy Vietnam movie. Our group loads and, once airborne, we fly east. “We’re heading into the Rockies,” our pilot announces over the headphones. “They got fresh snow.” Someone else, maybe the guide, chimes in with a phrase made famous by Mike Wiegele himself: “Let’s go skiing.”
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Mike Wiegele officially got in the heli-skiing game in 1970. Not the first in the world, that would be his ski touring buddy (and best man at his wedding) Hans Gmoser, who started the world’s first operation in 1963. Running on wild ambition and unflinching determination, Mike began taking guests into the mountains around Valemont, BC. However, after noticing larger piles of snow on the roofs of vehicles further south, Mike and Bonnie began taking a hard look at the tiny town of Blue River, set in an abundant snowbelt and surrounded by the Monashee, Cariboo and Rocky Mountain ranges.
In a sign of either good fortune or divine pretermination of the powder gods, Mike connected with “Grandma” Molly Nelson, an amateur meteorologist who had meticulously recorded precipitation, wind, snowfall and sunshine data for Blue River for over 30 years. The numbers didn’t lie and in 1974 Mike began building in Blue River—ground zero for what would become the greatest heli-ski operation the world has ever seen.
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Good snow can’t be guaranteed, especially in the longer days of warmer sunshine in late March. How an operation fares in inclement weather patterns is testament to the vision and hard work of its staff. With over 1.5 million acres (6070 sq.km.) of tenured terrain across three mountain ranges, the Wiegele base in Blue River is as versatile as anywhere on the planet when it comes to finding the goods.
And we do. The Rocky Mountains deliver smooth, buttery, boot deep powder under blue skies with perfect light. Do I bang my left big toe into the front of my new-that-season ski boots launching a five-foot spread eagle to flat? Yes. Does it matter? Nope—perfect pow turns are a great natural painkiller. So is a gourmet roast beef dinner with a table of new friends who just shared an all-time dream pow day together and think it’s awesome if you want to crush four Yorkshire puddings in one sitting. Sleep comes easy, with dreams of pow pillows ahead.
Perfect pow turns are a great natural painkiller.
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Institutions are never built in a day. Mike, Hans and the early heli pioneers had to essentially create their industry as they went, including an avalanche research program in conjunction with the University of Calgary and safety standards still used today. Wiegele was the first operation to use the Pieps avalanche beacons when they were introduced in 1972. Mike first invited famed ski filmmaker Warren Miller up to shred in 1972 and Wiegele World has been featured in Warren’s films dozens of times since.
In the late 1980s Mike led a group of BC heli and snowcat operators in establishing the Canadian Ski Guides Association to create standardized training for heli and cat ski guides. In the early ’90s, Atomic worked with Mike and his teams to test and develop the Fatboys, the world’s first fat skis.
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Fat skis are the standard now, and if you don’t have any, they’ll more than take care of you in the Wiegele ski shop (you need to go there anyhow to get your kickass branded, old-school water bottle with your name on it. Don’t forget to drink water while you are crushing lap after lap of perfect pow).
Day two finds us poking around on north-facing slopes in the Cariboo range west of Blue River. We drop (small) cornices and rip (huge) bowls under clear skies and plow into deeper-than-expected pow stashes in the trees. For late March in British Columbia in the age of global warming, the skiing overshoots everyone’s expectations. Laughs and photos are shared over lunch in a warm sunny basin, with more than a few skiers plotting out their massage/après schedules.
My buddy Jon and I opt out of the massage to focus more on the après—our last of the trip—in the legendary Silver Buckle Lounge. Built in the 1980s as part of the expanded main lodge, the Silver Buckle has seen some stuff. Over the years, Wiegele World has hosted every major ski and snowboard film crew (including Warren Miller a record 26 times). Even John Denver was known to stop in and strum a few tunes in the lounge and even penned a tune there: “Downhill Stuff (Blue River Blues).”
Like any bar, especially early in the evening, we find some of the best times saddled up to the actual bar. Wiegele staff hail from all over the globe and carry tales of adventures in every pocket. We meet cattle ranchers from southeastern BC and entertainment agents from Hollywood; a family from Vermont on a dream vacation; and a millwright from Kamloops who won a trip here for him and a friend at his local ski hill. Members of The North Face ski team discuss their day with Mike Wiegele’s daughter Michelle, who’s here with her son and some of his friends for spring break.
And as après blends into dinner and then into post-dinner apertifs, a younger dude, Wyatt, grabs the house guitar and strums out a tune only those who have spent serious time in the area would ever know—”Give’r in Blue River.” Where the song came from remains a mystery but after a couple days of hammering out pow turns, huge meals and extended apres sessions, it’s absolutely perfect. Nothing accelerates the process of making new friends like heli skiing together in one of the best spots on the planet. And we still have tomorrow. Or, as Mr. Wiegele would say— Let’s Go Skiing!
Find your powder paradise at www.wiegele.com
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