-El Dorado – (This story was written by Riley McIntosh in Summer 2009 and published in the 09/10 winter edition of Kootenay Mountain Culture Magazine.)

In this snow caked forest I am coming to a halt in a sideways blur of snow, to pause and listen for the other skiers. My ski tips punch upward and surface, buoyant amidst vast powder. Huge trees dwarf me, soaring up into the sky. Snowflakes drift downwards like lazy messengers. I’m searching for something. This is a place I’ve been before, in autumn, before the snow began to fall.

In October, the larches and aspens already turning yellow, I shut off my chainsaw. Five other saws whine like strange animals through the trees.

We move steadily upward, 20 meters apart, falling snags, leaning trees, tight groupings.

We are working in a tiny patch of the 57,000 acres of ski terrain licensed to Selkirk Wilderness Cat Skiing, in Meadow Creek, BC.

Our mission is simple: Use our chainsaws to sacrifice trees for the purpose of even better powder runs.
For this small group of people, cutting tree runs at Selkirk is an annual autumn job. We stop for lunch and huddle together around a crackling fire. It has begun to sleet, and as we dry our gloves our conversation anticipates serious snow accumulation.

After a few more minutes we spread back out onto the hillside. Across the valley the Purcell Mountains stand like dead kings, stoic and massive.

I stop to sharpen my saw, look over and see Lee waving, beckoning me over. I make my way towards him through a swath of fallen trees.

He is pointing to a monstrosity of geology. My eyes follow his outstretched arm to huge mushrooms of rock protruding from the hillside. Instantly my mind envisions them covered in limitless powder, the airtime inherent. Mother nature has provided for our passion. We have found in these granite outcroppings our El Dorado.

We began cutting, possessed with anticipation. We clear out a landing zone and move to the outcrops themselves. Lee cuts, and I stack the logs into a perfect curve, like an Evel Knievel launch ramp. The snow will work it’s magic.

A voice from the woods breaks our spell. “What have the two young guns been up to?” our leader Jay calls. “You’ve been making noise in the same place for quite awhile.”

Jay’s irritation subsides as he breaks into the clearing, his jaw drops as he stares at our creation. “You guys are going to ski off that?”

Winter claimed the mountains like a white flag of surrender. Snow fell every day.

I am halfway down Lightning Ridge, skiing deep, cold powder. I take my bearings, catch my breath, hunting our colossal jump. I scan the slope and begin descending, expecting at any minute to see our big launch extending from this white slant like a freak of nature.

I don’t recognize anything and am losing elevation fast. The trees clear and I shoot onto the cat road. I turn sharply and slide to a stop, perturbed.

Later in the evening, I am telling a guest, a lawyer from Chicago, about clearing out the runs in the fall, and the construction of our jump. His eyes light up. “The run after lunch, the big trees? I saw the most bizarre thing, like an Olympic ski jump, it looked like you guys brought the snowcat in there…”

I sit back, relax into the couch. Our jump is there. Two more months of skiing lies ahead. The snow is falling. We will ski Lightning Ridge many times to come. I will find the jump eventually. El Dorado.