MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Winter Spring 2019

WINTER/SPRING 2019 MLCM 19 words :: Taylor Godber photography :: Michael Overbeck Home away from home. The small Hughes 500 helicopter buzzes over the frosted pines that stand proud and tall, stretching almost in ovation to the sky. Wide eyed with amazement the two tykes, six-year-old Lars Andrews and his slightly older sister Megan, sit on the front bench seat peering through the windows of the chopper, imagining the snow jumps they will build and the exploring they will do at their “winter home.” • • • Four decades later, faces pressed against the windows of an A-star chopper, we feel almost the same way. Then the cabin comes into sight—Whitecap Alpine Adventures Lodge, nestled in the bosom of the magnificent peaks and curves of the MacGillvary Pass, held by the surrounding nature like the jewel it has always been. Inside, vintage glass insulators from the telegraph line in the 1900s (the reason the Pass was staged) decorate the pine walls along with an old Swiss bell and a large vinyl collection of the greatest hits of the 70s, 80s and today. Whitecap is recorded as one of the earliest backcountry lodges in British Columbia—only those in Assiniboine and Yoho national parks pre-date it. To help get into the history, we’ve packed throwback ski outfits. Considered ironic on contemporary slopes, here at Whitecap they immediately feel perfectly placed in some sort of time warp continuum. Each waft of the wood burning fire emanates the sensation of cozy and the poetic essence of being home. Everyone gathers in the early morning, eager to get out into the endless terrain options slowly coming into focus with the glow of the rising sun. But first a “strong coffee,” that’s how Ron Andrews (Lars and Megan’s father) likes to kick off the day, along with a hearty home-cooked breakfast from the motherly kitchen of chef Gail Morrison. Only one day in and it’s already impossible to separate the conglomerate of new friends created under this roof. It feels nothing less than extended family. These walls are habituated to this, having been erected in 1972 for exactly such purposes. It was Helmet and Christa Weinhold, an adventurous Austrian couple working in the booming town of Bralorne, who first saw potential for a commercial ski area up the yawning valley. From our spot outside the lodge, surrounded by pristine slopes and walls of powder-caked potential, their vision makes perfect sense. It’s easy to imagine two-seater chairlifts braced up to the slopes, whisking guests up, up and away into the myriad of terrain potentials. But the resort never came to fruition, and guests in this era are grateful to escape the mechanical assistance and onslaught of humans that ski area life can incubate. After getting an “all clear” from our guides we skin off into silence, each stride bringing us deeper into the meditative flow of putting one foot in front of the other. Yesterday’s uptrack lends ease into the long day of vertical ahead of us. Quarter-sized paw prints dot the path, suggesting that resident pine marten, “BBQ Doug”, also saw functionality in our route. A WINTER HOME Whitecap Lodge hasn’t changed much since it was built in the 1970s. And that’s a good thing. COURTESY ANDREWS FAMILY BACK YARD