SkiMag_Timeless

A WINDING, TWO-LANE HIGHWAY SKIRTS A RIVER LINED BY
MAJESTIC LODGEPOLE PINE AS I MAKE MY WAY NORTHEAST
FROM KAMLOOPS, BRITISH COLUMBIA. AFTER A BEAUTIFUL
TWO-AND-A-HALF HOUR DRIVE DEEP INTO THE INTERIOR OF
THE PROVINCE, I ARRIVE AT THE SMALL, SINGLE-BREWPUB
COMMUNITY OF BLUE RIVER—HOME OF WIEGELE WORLD,
A SKIER’S DREAM. AT LEAST IT’S THIS SKIER’S DREAM.
There are no other heli-skiing operations in the world quite like Mike
Wiegele Heli-Skiing (MWHS). With 50 years of operation under its belt,
this luxurious resort makes it its core mission to embrace the pure love
for powder skiing that drove Austrian–born Mike Wiegele to start this
operation in 1970.
As the story goes, after nearly 10 years of ski touring and exploring the
Monashee and Cariboo mountain ranges in interior B.C., Wiegele took a
chance at running his own helicopter guiding service. Garry Forman, heli
pilot and owner of Yellowhead Helicopters Ltd., would fly the helis and
Wiegele would guide. But with no guests signing up for trips initially,
Wiegele wrote to Warren Miller, extending an invite to come up and give
his operation a go, free of charge, so long as Miller would include Wiegele’s
fledgling operation in one of his films. Today, Wiegele laughs as he admits
he wrote other filmmakers, but Warren was the only one to take advantage.
“I just wanted people to come up here to ski,” he says.
Fifty years and a whopping 26 Warren Miller film inclusions later,
Wiegele World is considered a bucket list ski destination for people all
over the world, and at 80 years old, Wiegele himself is still the key stakeholder,
opting to attend all of the guide meetings that take place every
single morning before skiing and every afternoon after skiing. With a
unique approach to snow safety and having spearheaded and facilitated
the creation of the Canadian Ski Guide Association in the late 1980s to
help grow the field of educated and capable guides available in Canada,
the Wiegele experience is as much about world-class guiding and snow
safety as it is about world-class skiing.
Wiegele’s “5 Step Checklist” for terrain risk management differs from
other avalanche-forecasting methods. Wiegele factors in “Cosmic Solar
Radiation” (CMR) as Step 2 in checking snow stability. While it has not
been adopted across the entire ski industry, the idea is that “radiation enters
the snowpack, melting tiny particles of snow and emitting water vapor
in the process,” Wiegele describes. This step factors in humidity, temperature,
and load into a graph with relation to tidal times and has been used by
Wiegele and his guides since 1987.
“I’ve always looked for a sense of character and humility,” he says
when asked what sort of person makes a strong guide. “Aggression is bad
and so is ego.”
With 43 years and counting, Senior Lead Heli-Ski Guide Erich
Schadinger is the most-veteran guide on staff at Wiegele’s. Born in Canada
to Austrian parents, Schadinger went to Austria for Mountaineering
School in the early ’70s and found his way to Wiegele’s by 1978. At that
time, there were a total of six guides. Today there are 35.
“How our boss has raised us and the facility, and how he’s passed on
his mountain awareness and knowledge are all what make this operation
unique,” says Schadinger, who answers the question while simultaneously
completing his hour-long workout routine that he does every day—after
a full day of guiding and skiing. “I like to be calmer and slower when
I’m out with guests,” he says. “Things can happen really quick and so I
like to give explanations.”
Schadinger, 64, guides every day of the season, which runs from December
to the first week of April. He’s an admirable leader, whose quiet yet
friendly approach has lent itself to mentorship for multiple guides who
have come after him. One of those guides is Ryan Bush, a 26-year-old local
from Kamloops. Bush is a prime example of the development efforts at the
grassroots level that MWHS has invested in its local community.
At the age of 19, Bush completed his Level 1 certification through the
Canadian Ski Guide Association. “When it was time to complete my Level
2, Mike told me he’d reimburse me a good portion of the course if I passed
it,” Bush says. “And if I didn’t, I’d have to pay for it in full.” Luckily, he
passed—and has been guiding at Wiegele’s for the last eight years.
“With this job, there isn’t a day I ever want to take off,” says Bush.
Around 1,300 guests come to MWHS between December and early April,
and if the weather allows, every day is a potential ski day.
White, jagged peaks draped with snow poke out of dispersed clouds
and long, even-pitched cascading ski lines beg to be explored from
every direction. Between the Monashees, the Cariboos, and a recently added
Rocky Mountain tenure, there are 1.5 million acres of skiable terrain and
over 1,000 named runs, such as “Warren’s Way” and “BooBoo Juice.”
Working hard comes easy when it feels like play. Case in point: 30-year
veteran guide Bob Rankin. “It’s like the mice have been put in charge
of the cheese,” he laughs. Like Wiegele’s wife Bonnie has said, people
thought her husband was a little cuckoo. And he probably was, Rankin
jokes when discussing the risks Wiegele took when starting this operation
50 years ago. “But you know, he’s built up this amazing place and I’m
pretty happy he did.”
WARRENMILLER.COM TIMELESS SPECIAL ISSUE SKI MAGAZINE 49