Trophies, Turns, and Tartiflette
Our backcountry ski trip to Discovery Hut in Winter 2022 lead Mary to fall in love with the area and the experience, and so plans were immediately put in place to run our own trip with a Squamish contingent the following year. She was able to secure a slot over the Christmas holidays at the alternate “Trophy Hut”, managed under the same operator, Wells Gray Adventure.
Trophy has a similar character to Discovery, with a cozy, well equipped cabin including a small sauna for post ski rehabilitation. The ski terrain is similar to Discovery, with fantastic abundant and varied tree skiing. Trophy has the advantage of having a lot of easy skiing descending essentially from the cabin itself. Lower angle open glades also presented plenty of options for the group’s varied powder skiing skill levels on this trip.
Another advantage of Trophy Hut is the fact that it is fairly easily accessible without the need of a helicopter for access, unlike Discovery. A fun snowcat ride deep up a valley driven by the legendary owner/operator of Wells Gray Adventures, Ian Eakins, drops you at a short 1 hour skin up to the cabin itself. Ideally, you have a single helicopter flight bring in your food and drink for the week, and then the skin is an easy one with a daypack only. It also ends up being quite economical compared to multiple helicopter flights, and you are not dependent on flying conditions to access the hut, like what happened to us at Discovery previously, ending up stuck in the town of “often-not-Clearwater”.
In this instance, we had no issues getting in ourselves, but our supply heli flight was grounded, and so we were forced to make the agonizing choice about how much booze and snacks we would need to carry in with us for an indeterminate amount of time while we waited for a suitable weather window for the pilot to fly in.
I’m honestly not sure if you can get much more “first world problem” then that…
In the end, pilot Ken was able to fly our food and bagged wine in the next day, thus avoiding the chaos and cannibalism that otherwise would have certainly ensued.
It was a stellar trip. The snow was great and stable, everyone brought their A-game for cooking fantastic group meals, and celebrating the start of 2023 on the side of a mountain in a cozy hut was a blast. Champions were made and crowned in the Wells Gray classic dice game.
All the meals were terrific, but extra credit is due to Joe and Beth for their absolutely insane tartiflette they put together on their dinner night. It may have not finished until around 930, but everyone agreed it was worth the wait for the litre(s?) of heavy cream and 3 large wheels of brie that contributed to the overtly rich French carb fest.
As a new experience for a number of the crew, the stoke level was very high. The terrain is pretty much ideal for the more beginner backcountry skiers, with simple terrain surrounding the hut on all aspects. Though there are some fun pillows and steeper trees in the area as well for more advanced runs.
Will definitely be back!
