Photo: Damian Cromwell Punter: Mike Berard
The map doesn’t lie. The laminated 11×17-inch piece of paper is just one of many belonging to guide Paul Bernsten. Bernsten sits in the passenger seat of a Bell 212 helicopter loaded up with clients and flying through the imposing peaks of the Waddington Range. In every direction, the blank spots on the map stretch out around us. On the map itself, a small amount of peaks and glacial runs have names written in Magic Marker. Most sit empty, unmarked by neither pen nor P-Tex. But some feature the telltale sign of what fuels men like Paul and heliskiing companies like Pantheon; big, red question marks.
Bernsten, Pantheon Heliskiing’s lead guide became ACMG certified in 1987, and has since been working as a heliskiing guide in mountain ranges around the world since, including Greenland, Chile, and the Indian Himalaya. Tall, quiet and friendly to a fault, he exudes neither the intensity nor the arrogance that plagues some in the high-pressure guiding community. Rather, he comes across as more grateful than most skiers, and he should be. Pantheon’s tenure is impressive; 1,250,000 acres of Coast Range territory that looks like it belongs in an epic fantasy blockbuster, and barely populated with those who seek to ski it. Still, it doesn’t explain the modesty. If I were in his position, I know I’d be bragging. Hell, I’d be screaming from the peaks. Then again, I am but a mere mortal skiing in the temple of the Gods. My humanity betrays me.
Photo: Damian Cromwell Happy Man: Mike Berard
Building Heaven
In 1983, a Swiss-born, B.C.-raised skier named Beat Steiner was squatting in a backcountry cabin in the then barely-developed town of Whistler. Through the occasional stint as a ski model, and as a burgeoning cinematographer, Steiner’s influence in the ski world was growing as he started producing and shooting films such as the Imax Extreme series and features for NBC and Warren Miller. He soon met fellow cinematographer Christian Begin, one of the first Quebecers to make the move from the French Canadian province to the future ski Mecca. Together, the duo became a powerhouse team working on a host of television commercials and feature films. During this period, they worked closely with a now-legendary, loud-and-proud Swedish guide.
At the time, Pete “The Swede” Mattsson often worked with a couple of unknown skiers named Trevor Petersen and Eric Pehota, while producing and guiding the same expeditions Steiner and Begin were shooting. In the constant search for new big mountain territory, the trio found themselves deep in the Coast Range of British Columbia. The combination of steep, deep and unexplored terrain allowed them to film landmark segments for almost every film company of the era, including MSP, TGR and Warren Miller. It was here—near the tiny fishing town of Bella Coola—that they founded Bella Coola Helisports in 2003.
For years, Bella Coola played host to the best skiers and film companies in the world. Seth Morrison threw his now-legendary 80-foot, 720 rodeo attempt here. Shane McConkey brought his infamous pair of waterskis to Bella Coola first, in what would be the origins of the reverse camber ski revolution. The Swede, the Swiss and the Quebecer were quickly garnering a reputation for being able to deliver unexplored, unskied burly terrain on command. And the Bella Coola name was growing. But the boys had their eyes elsewhere.
Photo: Damian Cromwell Lucky Sonofabitch: Mike Berard
The House of Worship
Heliski tenure consultant Eric Ringdahl had founded Pantheon Heliskiing in 2004—pantheon meaning “house of worship.” With the Waddington Range beckoning, he saw the opportunity to deliver guests to the foot of B.C.’s highest peak, the alluring and dangerous Mt. Waddington. With a vertical relief comparable to the Himalayas, the dramatic mountain possesses the unique quality that originally brought Alfred Waddington to its reaches in search of his own gold treasures. Centuries later, Ringdahl would attempt to get in on a gold rush of his own, offering heliskiing in the area. Like the mountain’s namesake, he would succumb to challenges as well, and Pantheon soon found itself in financial trouble. Steiner, Mattsson and Begin saw an opportunity to expand their mini big-mountain empire, and decided that they could make a go of it where Ringdahl had failed, by using their tried-and-tested Bella Coola formula; less people, bigger mountains, even bigger personality.
While Bella Coola’s film projects had thrived on using the smaller A-star helicopters to ensure access to trickier terrain, Pantheon would use a larger Bell 212 to bring powder hungry skiers to higher altitudes. On massive glaciers in the shadow of Waddington, only a few select groups of skiers lay tracks of cold smoke where few men, and even fewer skiers, have gone. With only eight spots available each week in the luxurious-but-rustically-styled lodge at White Saddle Ranch. Since Pantheon was purchased by Bella Cool Helisports, only 150 souls have flown in the area. Some of those have names like McConkey and Morrison. Most are just like you and I
Photo: Damian Cromwell
Waddington Proper
On our third day at Pantheon, the previously overcast weather breaks and the winds go virtually still. This allows our pilot, Dan Chase–a hulking, friendly giant of a man who spends most of his time fighting fires in the B.C. interior–to drop our group on a peak overlooking Waddington proper. As Bernsten tells the story of mountaineers Don and Phyllis Munday, the photographer and I peer over the mountain’s edge. Below us sits 5,000 vertical feet of virgin slope, calf-deep and light enough to hang in the air long after a skier passes. Bernsten notices our short attention spans, laughs and cuts his speech brief, allowing us to ski what is one of the highlights of the week. Giddy and impatient, Cromwell drops in first and I soon follow, schmearing countless turns at high-speed. In every direction, the glacier stretchs outward far enough that it could provide days worth of lines. Of course it doesn’t have to. There’s another glacier just like it just over there… and over there… and over there.
It’s strange how being immersed in an endless supply can make you want to soak up every single bit of it for an eternity. Like incredible cuisine, each bite should be savored, and I try to let the flavor of each turn linger as long as possible before making another. The snow is cold, and when I purposefully spray it overhead it becomes frozen in place on my face. The sting lasts just long enough until the next turn.
Photo: Damian Cromwell Winner: Mike Berard
When we arrive at the bottom of the run, deep in one of the valleys used as a film set for Seven Years in Tibet, Paul is waiting for us. Our ruddy faces and melting snow broken only by gleaming smiles, he looks through his omnipresent sunglasses and states in the understated, easygoing manner we would soon know as his primary characteristic, “Pretty good, eh?” Everyone laughs at the modesty.
“Pretty good?! That was f—ing incredible.” I reply.
“Yeah,” he chuckles “Pretty good.”
On the return flight to White Saddle Ranch, the peaceful vista of peaks pours in through the scratched and stained plexiglass windows. In the deafening roar of the helicopter we sit, exhausted and exuberant from 20,000 feet of vertical in blower snow. I crane my neck to see Bernsten in the front, map in hand, peering out at a million unnamed runs waiting for his mark. Suddenly, I understand heliskiing—and people like Bernsten—a little better. When a world of undiscovered Coast Range terrain sits beneath you, and a fuelled-up machine awaits your direction, there really is no advantage in bragging about your position. The part of the human heart that deals in ugly jealousy swells with angry blood when confronted with tales of rotor-fueled vertical. It’s the human condition, or at least the skier’s curse—if you can’t have it, you sure as hell don’t want to hear about it. Soak it up. Enjoy it. But be grateful and be modest. Otherwise, hubris only brings us down from the lofty position we’ve achieved, high in the temple of the Gods. – Mike Berard
