Snowcat Skiing

—Larry Olmsted

When your fantasy is to ski your own private powder, making run after run in unbroken knee-high to waist-deep snow, you have to go where chairlifts don’t. The ultra rich may splurge on a helicopter to the top, but the “poor man’s heliskiing” is snowcat skiing. Even at half the price, it’s still not exactly slumming, but it does come with a number of other advantages over riding in a chopper. Snowcats—the vehicles that groom trails—become buses on treads when cat-skiers hitch a ride on the back. Unlike helicopters, they can run in any weather and are inherently safer because they take the peril of winter-mountain flying completely out of the equation. While you won’t ascend as high as helicopters, you typically unload in tree-sheltered areas, instead of barren mountain ridges.…

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Cigar Aficionado (Digital) - 1 Issue, January/February 2023

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