This was another amazing BC Canada ski touring lodge week I took about 10 BackCountry staff and a few more friends on. Snowfall Lodge was built in 2020 and is part of IFMGA Guide Larry Dolecki’s Icefall Lodge group. I have been to one other lodge of his called Alexandra Cabin, but I am also going to his first lodge called Icefall Lodge this March 15-22 built in 2006.. I have some spots to fill, call me! This post is about my Snowfall Lodge unguided week from March 30 to April 6 of 2024. We got the last bit of winterish conditions before it went full on spring and got too warm. The staging area is in a very remote and beautiful little area called Beaton, in-between Revelstoke and Nelson. We rented his staging area cabin for a place to crash for $400. It’s like a big shed with wood stove and can sleep about 8. A few of us stayed at a bed and breakfast 10 minutes away and two of us in our truck campers. You need to be at the staging area ready to go at 8am with ski clothes and boots on. Our week was catered by Julie, and there was a young charger hut custodian named Julien, who was starting the guiding training. These two crushed it. They communicated well with us and taught us how to take care of the place. We did the dishes after every meal. And we did a deep clean before flying out. There was plenty of lounging around time. They take care of the sauna and wood stove in both buildings. There are 2 twin beds in each room, and inside pee toilet, a couch and large dining area. I bring a foam mat to make sure I don’t have to sit on a hard wood bench all week. The outside bathroom has 3 walls and is all you need. Drop a stick sideways to say “occupied”. The shower stall is in the Sauna room, where you hang a flower can from a carabiner above your head. Works fine for a week! But basic. Afterall you are deep in the wilderness, flown in by a beautiful 20-minute heli flight and dropped off on a tiny perch where the lodge just barely fits. You are nestled in the forest and right at the base of a very large and mellow 2000′ vert playground to ski. I forget the terrain names as I write this 10 months later, maybe I’ll edit this. We climbed a major peak, we dropped off the back of the terrain some in the opposite direction, and we tried to ski the forest behind the cabin. No one else skis your terrain at a BC lodge week like this, you get to learn it all. I love that part of piecing it all together. it’s rare to get a week booked without guides, I love that challenge. We had safe conditions other than some wet slide debris and crust. My specialty coming from the Sierra! We scored some shallow powder the first few days too, and some corny like substance towards the end. The Canada snowpack never gets solid and totally trustworthy like at home, you really need to watch the temperatures. A surface crust might ski like corn snow but it’s never that consolidated underneath. We got to play in an ice cave at the toe of the glacier too!
During our week we had mostly nice weather and got to tour pretty far from the lodge, but the season had low snow. Just barely enough coverage to get on the glaciers. You want at least 8′ of widespread snowpack to sufficiently bridge the crevasses. Some of the available terrain is fairly inaccessible this late in the year due to wet slides and steep crusty and punchy slopes above the cabin. On our last day I forced it and got up there to see the “other side” of the venue. I totally recommend Snowfall Lodge and Larry’s operation as long as you can rough it for a week with the ultra-basic outhouse and sauna shower situation. that’s all you can build way out there unless the owners actually live there like at Sorcerer or SME.
Looking for awesome ski and splitboard tours in the Sierras? We’ve got write ups on many common and uncommon tours curated by the owner of the BackCountry, Mike Schwartz.
