my working vacation in a flyin bush camp

New North Blue River Yurt in the Cariboo Mountains of BC

Snowy Mountain Alpine Tours is now  booking for the 2010/2011 season.  Be the first to experience this rustic luxury and have a run named after you!
The newest and largest  backcountry skiing venue and the first guided backcountry ski operation on crown land in the Cariboo Mountains sits on the eastern edge of Well Gray Provincial Park and is over 100 square kilometers of tenure. This summer I was invited to cook for the crew for the first phase of developement.

Blue River BC is a destination for some of the best heli skiing in the world.  For over thirty years Mike Wiegele has made these mountains a mecca for powder hounds. My history with Blue River goes back to a youth of ski racing and again when I took up backcountry skiing in the late 80's. It has hosted  the Powder 8 World Championships and it is because of the deep and dry powder.  Love of powder skiing and cooking was the inspiration in naming my food blog ...  Powderate.

This type of cooking has some challenges and one of the important requirements that makes the task smoother is to have most of the main entrees prepared and frozen ahead.  This helps keep the food during transport and in this case was done by helicopter.  Here is a photo story of the event. 

 Flying in the camp and equipment including one five year old and three dogs.  This was mid July and the weather is about to get extremely hot and dry for the duration and fortunately the forest fire smoke hadn't hit yet. 

The wall tent was brought in and erected by snowmobile in January of this year.  The heavy snow fall and the bears had taken a toll on it but an afternoon of needle work helped keep the pesky insects to a minimum.  Crew accomadation for the duration of construction.

The Alpha tent in the background, erected early in the summer became my domain and the cook house.  In this photo is Steve Ludwig and Raven the black lab that I was fortunate to have keep me company at night. 

Thanks to this sweet little machine we had some extra luxuries to keep us happy.  Like beer!

The beer garden.  Nothing like a cold beer from the creek on a hot summer day!

The hard work of master builder Dave Volmer soon has the yurt deck inshape.  He took time to install a floor in the cook tent and build a little girls dream swing.

Dave Volmer and Astrid taking a test ride on the swing. 

These are savory meat pies that I made ahead and froze.  The fillings are fresh sockeye salmon and roast moose meat and curry sweet potato. 

Trail building was an ongoing task and the accomplishment of this was done by Dana Ludwig and Brenda who made sure the trail was complete for the hike out. 

Bushwacking was the only way get around and until the girls built the trail out we'd be following the cariboo trails. 

The trail out has some of the biggest patches of fern I've seen anywhere.

Dana,  Astrid and puppy Oscar  on the hike out.  Extensive trail building and bridges were required to access the base camp.