Make tracks on your snowmobiling adventure
by Amanda Follett
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
I'm straddling two cylinders of growling, snow-shredding power. Our guide, Steve Andruski, leads the pack. I'm bringing up the rear. Between us are six Dutch tourists who answer the question of whether they've been snowmobiling before with a look that says I should've known better. Inching my monster-green Ski-doo Rotax 380 out of the staging area and onto the trail, I'm quickly gaining speeds dangerously close to 20 kilometres (12 miles) an hour. Suddenly, I look ahead and wonder where the rest of my group is. Fifteen minutes earlier, as I bumped along the rutted road leading to White and Wild Adventures' staging area just outside Golden, B.C., business owner Brad McLaren told me about the drainage we'd be following: Hospital Creek. The name stuck with me as I signed my waiver and as I donned my helmet. I'm thinking of it now, as I inch the speedometer above the 20-km mark.
Guide Steve Andruski gives some last-minute instruction as the group heads out on the trail.
We're following an old logging road that takes us around hairpin switchbacks offering increasingly breathtaking views. As Rotax 380 and I climb higher, the road narrows to a trail traversing steep slopes and our group stops for photos at Whitetooth Lookout, which gazes back across the valley to Golden's Kicking Horse ski resort.
With all the ways there are to get into the backcountry these days, snowmobiling remains one of the fastest and the easiest ways to see the mountains from a heightened perspective. It's also the most Canadian, I muse, thinking about the quintessential one-piece snowmobile suits on hand for unprepared guests and regretting the decision to dress so sensibly in my hoity-toity snowboarding gear. Snowmobiling truly is Canadiana at its finest.
The concept of building a machine that would travel on snow may have been pursued by many, but it was Canadian Joseph Armand Bombardier who patented a design that would evolve to the snowmobile of today. In 1959, Bombardier invented a machine he named "Ski-dog", anticipating it would one day replace the dog sled teams of the Great White North. The name was later changed to the catchier "Ski-doo."
Ignoring one of many "slow" signs along our ascent, I take a turn too wide and, reflexively taking my thumb off the throttle, find myself teetering precariously on a steep bank. Remembering Andruski's instructions, I throw my left butt cheek out as a counter balance, hit the gas and soon find myself back on even ground. Lesson learned: when you see a "caution" sign on the Autobahn, you darn well better slow down.
So, I later ask Andruski with a self-conscious laugh, some of those tourists must do some pretty crazy things, huh? "Oh sure," he says, looking quizzically up the trail and wondering if the Dutch group has taken a wrong turn. "Just people not paying attention." One guest recently lost control and wedged his machine between two trees. Another tipped his off the side of a narrow bridge. But for the most part, snowmobiling is a safe and easy sport and White and Wild welcomes sledders from ages eight to 80. Just mind those "slow" signs.
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The gang, who like to be known as the "Snow Angels", stops to take in the view from Whitetooth Lookout
The company, which becomes Wet and Wild raft tours in summer, has been running snowmobile tours for 11 years. Located less than two hours west of Canmore, the area attracts guided and recreational snowmobilers from all over, including the Bow Valley where Banff National Park prohibits motorized vehicles in the backcountry.
After stopping next to an old trapper's cabin for a bite to eat, our tour continues up a bobsled-like single-track trail that winds to the apex of our climb. At close to 2,200 metres (7,000 feet) of elevation, the valley stretches out behind us. This is where we turn back, although it's hard to leave the untouched peaks that beckon above, as we sit just below tree line.
The descent is fast and uninterrupted. While I ease around those corners (you don't have to tell me twice), I let it full out along the open stretches, enduring thigh-pumping, quad-rubberizing shock absorption from the rutted spring trail that will find me walking cowboy-style for days to come. How fast am I going? Don't know. Don't care. Too busy keeping my eyes plastered to the trail ahead. And before I know it I'm pulling into the staging area, unharmed and unhospitalized.
The Jamaican bobsled team had nothin' on this: winding up a narrow single-track near the top of the climb.
If you go:
- White and Wild is located in Golden, B.C., about two hours west of Canmore
- Full and half-day trips are available, as well as a "starlight ride."
- Daily shuttles are available from Canmore, Banff and Lake Louise.
- Bring goggles - even on mild days, winds can be cold and eyes will water.
- Helmets and boots are provided. Additional outwear is also available.
- Visit White and Wild Adventures' website at www.wetnwild.bc.ca
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