Fresh powder in a haunting location beneath the Fortress
Cat-skiing promises novices and experts open fields, tight trees and no lineups
KANANASKIS COUNTRY, ALTA.— When I arrive, the mercury has plunged to -26 C. I ignore the cold and reacquaint myself with the impressive 3,000-metre peak fittingly named the Fortress towering above. Down below, the base of the old ski resort looks like a ghost town. The 1960s-era ski lodge, abandoned condos and other derelict buildings are shuttered with plywood. Remnants of old ski lifts stand idle, the chairs removed.
Other than a group of backcountry enthusiasts taking avalanche training, there are14 of us here to ski and ride on an early-season layer of windswept powder. It’s an eerie, mesmerizing feeling.
During my career as an aspiring ski bum, I’ve been lucky enough to rip some of the best terrain and deepest powder in the world.
I’ve followed in the tracks of heli-ski legend Mike Wiegele in Blue River, B.C., widely considered the powder Mecca of the sport. I’ve even taken a helicopter to the top of a B.C. glacier in the middle of summer only to hop in a snowcat, a ski hill grooming machine modified to ferry adventurers up the mountain, to make some turns on a swath of snow hanging on in the heat.
The opportunity to enjoy fresh turns without the lift lines (or the need for deep pockets) is an exciting prospect. And, last month, I had my chance in an unexpected place: Fortress Mountain.
While the runs here are short compared with major ski resorts, or stan- dard heli-ski laps, I can never get bored of the open fields, tight trees and natural half-pipes that bless Fortress.
I haven’t been to Fortress in the Rocky Mountains of Kananaskis Country, about 75 minutes west of Calgary, in almost a decade. But I’ve spent every winter since craving the eight- to-11 metres of snow that falls there annually.
The much-loved, money-losing resort, closed in 2005. Attempts to revive it failed. The provincial government pulled permits and leases. Lawsuits followed.
In 2012, KPOW, a fledgling cat-ski operation that opened promising everyone from novices to experts a satisfying taste of the fresh powder addiction, started up in Fortress. Rob Stevens, one of the operation’s investors and my tour leader, calls this place a “gateway drug” to the world of hardcore cat- and heli-skiing.
We climb into a massive 20,000pound cat called a PistenBully, worth more than $300,000, and dubbed “Big Red” by staff. As we ride up the mountain, Joey O’Brien, president of Fortress Mountain Holdings, who scooped up the leases a few years ago, is quick to swap stories about movie stars and his wildlife encounters (with everything from bears to wolves and cougars) as he familiarizes the oldtimers, and newcomers, with the place.
Credit for the mountain’s revival goes to Leonardo DiCaprio. In order for Inception, his psychological thriller based in a dream world, to shoot here, the province forced the film company to rebuild a crumbling bridge over the access road. Sadly for cineophiles, the ominous tower erected for the movie’s climax is long gone, blown to bits in a staged explosion, but KPOW named the run that sat under it “Inception.”
Other commercials, television shows and movies followed, including another Hollywood hit, The Bourne Legacy, featuring actor Jeremy Renner’s frenzied race over a frozen mountain range.
O’Brien is the one dreaming big to turn this place into a booming ski resort attracting up to 6,000 people a day. (There’s been a delay; last June’s floods in southern Alberta caused $800,000 in damage, and washed out part of the road. Restarting lift access is now bumped to the 2014-15 season.)
Today, we enjoy a fortress of solitude. Avalanches are not our concern. We play on a fraction of the annual snowpack. Baby evergreens poke out above the snow. Rocks, stumps and other early-season hazards calls for cautious skiing. With temperatures this cold, the snow sticks to our wax.
Stevens, who worked here in the resort’s heyday in the 1980s, says he was drawn back by his memories.
“Everyone who’s been here has special stories about this place,” he says. “I feel like I’m 18 again.”
I agree. For powder-hounds, riding here in April, when springtime routinely brings epic dumps and long, warm days, is one of the region’s greatest pleasures.
Today, my board bobs along without me fighting for first tracks. I look over at the craggy mountaintops under a blue sky and I remember exactly why I missed this place. I zip down nine runs — KPOW guests average 2,438 to 3,048 vertical metres — each time surfing atop untouched snow and oblivious to the bone-chilling cold.
I don’t know whether O’Brien’s master plan will pay off; the ski business is tough.
But this ranks as my best first day of any ski season. It’s a homecoming I could only dream of. Dawn Walton’s trip was paid for by Travel Alberta.