A ski guide’s long slide from luxury lodging to increasingly questionable sleeping arrangements.
words :: Kevin Hjertaas
Mike has never been particularly good at ski guiding. But he’s also never been very picky—and has always been broke—so over the years he’s worked at a wide variety of backcountry operations. And he’s seen a shocking array of staff quarters. Now a grumpy old guide, he looks back on his career as a steady descent of living arrangements.
Mike’s first full-time guiding gig was with Canadian Mountain Holidays, commonly shortened to CMH, and then affectionately expanded to Cheese & Meat Holidays. It’s one of the few places a guide can work in the backcountry for a year and gain weight. There’s a reason skiers call it a heli-belly, and it has less to do with the helicopter’s help and more to do with the gluttonous amounts of fine food offered to you throughout the day. For a poor young ski guide, living at a CMH lodge was a revelation. Beyond the food and endless powder, Mike also grew accustomed to the spacious, comfortable private room, cleaned by someone else. His only previous experience had been as a practicum tail guide at a ski touring lodge called Blanket Glacier Chalet. Blanket was nothing like CMH, and not just because you had to walk uphill.
The first day at a remote hut is always hectic: a blur of new guests, luggage, food and logistics as you rush out the door to cram in some skiing before dark. By the time Mike lugged his own bags up to bed on that first night at Blanket, it was dark. The cook and custodian were already asleep, so he crept up the ladder into the communal staff loft and silently searched for a place to lay his head.
The main chalet had been modernized, but the staff quarters remained a collection of six single mattresses in a loft above the sauna. The roof was slanted, and Mike’s head smacked it immediately. His eyes slowly adjusted, and he took in the scene: Curtains hung everywhere, like a bazaar or Persian market, in an attempt to create privacy for an unknown number of people. He listened, trying to decipher which curtains had someone sleeping behind them and which might have a vacant bed. After standing there like an idiot for a time, he pulled back the curtain on his left, whispering, “Oops. Sorry!” A sleepy guide squinted up at him, then thrust a pointed finger at the bunk furthest from the lone window.
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Mike found a rhythm as the days went on, and he came to understand why clients are so dedicated to skiing at The Blanket. He particularly loved the morning commute—simply descend the ladder into the tiny guide’s office for the 6 a.m. meeting. Unfortunately, coffee is over in the main lodge, and if there is new snow (there’s always new snow at The Blanket), you need to shovel your way to and from. On the bright side, if you are shovelling, it means there’s fresh powder and you’ll soon be skiing it. Combine the shovelling with trail-breaking all day, and you’ll be tired enough to sleep anywhere.
Lucky for Mike, sleep has never been a problem. His ability to drift off anywhere is his superpower. That, and his total lack of self-awareness. On his third day at The Blanket, he mentioned how well he’d been sleeping and added how happy he was that no one snored.
Combine the shovelling with trail-breaking all day, and you’ll be tired enough to sleep anywhere.
The big table fell dead silent. The staff put down their forks and stared at him with bloodshot eyes. Mike, engrossed in his pancakes, was oblivious to the tension.
This is a good time to remind anyone going on a backcountry trip to always, always, pack earplugs. Mike learned that lesson himself, like so many before him, at an Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) hut. The Blanket may be rustic in some ways, but its kitchen and guest rooms are nicely upgraded, and the sauna provides a relaxing end to the day and a warm shower always follows. The ACC’s Bow Hut, on the Wapta Icefields, offers no such luxury.
At Bow Hut, Mike slept with a small community of 30 exhausted, unclean strangers. The bunks each sleep five or more, shoulder to shoulder, on thin, durable mats. Roll either direction and you’re close enough to kiss your neighbour. You’re guaranteed most of them will be bumbling to the outhouse all night, too.
When he couldn’t sleep, Mike lay awake, silently watching uncomfortable people with tight hips and skied-out legs try to extricate themselves from sleeping bags and crawl on all fours around other sleepers. One by one, they would find hilarious choreographies to make their way to, then down, the ladder. He watched one middle-aged man, who’d probably never done yoga in his life, silently invent the oddest contortions to progress around the other sleepers. Then, with a twitch and a short squeal, his hamstring spasmed and he toppled onto a young woman who woke in a thrashing panic. Mike lay there shaking his head, thinking about colleagues who’d taken work in the remote North, where they made considerably more money and didn’t have to sleep with anyone they didn’t want to. Mike dreamed of that gold-level luxury.
Then, with a twitch and a short squeal, his hamstring spasmed and he toppled onto a young woman who woke in a thrashing panic.
It was an almost fabled land, something only whispered about in tight quarters: In northern BC, 300 kilometres from nowhere, sits a gold mine surrounded by glaciers. It’s an audacious place to build a small village of portables, but that’s what gold money can do. Up there, avalanche safety workers have private rooms with their own bathroom and shower, like Mike had at CMH. And, like at CMH, there’s a gym (because honestly, you don’t work that hard heli-skiing). But the gold mine also provides a music room equipped with guitars, drums, microphones, a bass guitar and a keyboard. Though he has no musical talent, Mike lay in the sardine-packed bunk, dreaming of working at the mine, recording an album throughout the winter. It might be a darker album, as half of the shifts at the mine happen at night. And during the dead of winter, you can work an 82-hour week without ever seeing the sun breach the horizon.
In hindsight, Mike realizes he had it good that first year at CMH. Instead of working alone and living amongst the unshowered masses at Bow Hut, he could be back in comfort with a bartender who knows his order, an on-call massage therapist and a patisserie chef who made his favourite cookies for him. Heck, the maintenance staff even did all the shovelling around the lodge. Mike’s biggest challenge at CMH had been after his pre-dinner nap, when he would have to pull himself out from under his down duvet and put on a collared shirt. Mike had soon learned to enjoy a sauna or hot tub instead of a nap. Then he would arrive at dinner just as fresh as if he were on vacation. That is, if he could have afforded to vacation in a place with pitchers of cucumber water in every room, white robes with matching slippers and a wine cellar bigger than the van he lived in.
Mike had soon learned to enjoy a sauna or hot tub instead of a nap. Then he would arrive at dinner just as fresh as if he were on vacation. That is, if he could have afforded to vacation…
But, instead of returning to heli-skiing after the Bow Hut, Mike decided to try a more rootsy ski experience. Golden Alpine Holidays (GAH) was hiring, and Mike was broke (again), so he signed up to work at their four remote lodges. His first lesson at GAH came from the crusty old lead guide Isaac Kamink, who would tell everyone, “If you’re not doing anything, you’re doing something wrong!” This came as a shock to Mike. He wasn’t being lazy per se; he was just waiting for his cappuccino to arrive. He never complained that his empty beer can hadn’t been taken away, but he was surprised no one offered to pour it into a frosted mug for him.
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His first week at GAH, Mike was startled to find the guide’s room had only one double bed. He was expected to share it with a respected mountain guide who was absolutely his superior. It was their first time working together, so Mike suggested they sleep head-to-toe. Is that better, he wondered? Or was it awkward even mentioning it? Mike took the far side of the bed so the senior guide wouldn’t have to climb over him to reach the outhouse in the middle of the night. But that meant Mike couldn’t sneak out if he woke up early. So the next morning, there he lay—staring at the gnarled feet poking out beside his face.
Why is it more intimate sharing a bed than a tent? he wondered. Because there’s less clothing? Dirty long underwear hung on a hook just past those grotesque feet. That week, in that bed, even Mike slept lightly, worried he might roll onto his boss or utter some incriminating nonsense in his sleep.
Luckily, the other GAH huts have bunk beds. Of course the roof is never quite high enough for adult bunk beds. Mike is not an early riser by nature, and he would typically only wake when the custodian, cook or guide sleeping below bumped their head on the wooden slats beneath his bunk. He would giggle while falling back to sleep, then wake in a panic later, realizing he was now late for work. Jolting up he’d smack his own head off the roof.
You might be thinking Mike sounds like a fictitious, more well-adjusted version of me—and I won’t argue with you. I will say that I no longer have the bump on my head, but those gnarly feet will haunt the rest of my days. I’ve gone on to sleep in trucks, snow caves and even a sea can at backcountry jobs. Crammed amongst my co-workers or guests at night, I still dream of the beds at CMH. And the cookies.
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