The Chatter News is a Year Old

A year ago this month, the Chatter News was born as an unofficial newsletter about powder skiing at Chatter Creek. Our first photo was a shot of Mullet Bowl (we called it Vertebrae glacier, at the time). Now we have an entire photo gallery about glacier skiing at Chatter Creek.

We've grown to about 40 Weblogs about different aspects of cat skiing at Chatter Creek and about the construction of the two enormous mountain lodges. Find them using the links at the top of each Weblog. There is not much about Chatter Creek and cat skiing that cannot be found in the Chatter News and it's associated Weblogs.

Our "Cat Skiing Articles" Weblog tells all about snowcat skiing and links to a number of written articles about cat skiing. Our three Weblogs devoted to Dan Hudson, Mark Gallup and John Dougall contain high quality ski photos by these professional ski photographers.

We'd like to acknowledge Luke of "Snowgo" fame, who was one of our first correspondents, who gave us encouragement and advice and who provided our first backlinks. Luke is one of the snowboarding world's great bloggers. Thanks, Luke!

Chatter Creek Snowcat Skiing

Chatter Creek Snowcat Skiing is located about 90 km north of Golden BC, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, just east of Kinbasket Lake in the Columbia River Trench. Overlaid on this ©"Google Earth " image is the TransCanada Highway which passes through Golden BC from Lake Louise and Banff, in the east to Revelstoke, in the west. Provincial Hwy 95 runs south from Golden to Cranbrook and Spokane WA. Here is the Google Road Map for the area. Drill down to show Golden.

Chatter Creek cat skiing guests are transferred by helicopter from Golden to Chatter Creek's Vertebrae Lodge for 3-day and 4-day cat skiing tours.... powder skiing and "fresh tracks" every run is the norm.

For more information locating Chatter Creek, look at "Where is Chatter Creek?"

Chatter Creek's Cat Skiing Terrain in 3D

This image was generated using Google's new ©"Google Earth " downloadable program. The accuracy of this image of Chatter Creek's remote cat skiing terrain is quite amazing.

The viewpoint is over Bush Arm, looking WNW, across the Kitchen Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Chatter Creek valley runs NW, from Bush Arm to a point just right of center in the image. Vertebrae Ridge is to the right of the valley and the Kitchen Range is to the left, between the valley and Kinbasket Lake. Below the south end of the East Ridge (the Nose), Chatter Creek veers to the west (left). At this point, East Creek drains into Chatter Creek from the east of East Ridge and Stovepipe Mountain, beyond. Vertebrae Glacier is visible on the east slope of Stovepipe Mountain.

The Chatter Creek cat skiing tenure lies between Vertebrae Ridge, on the east, and Kinbasket Lake, on the west. The tenure extends east of Stovepipe Mountain to include Vertebrae glacier and other regions. The tenure extends from just above Bush arm, in the south, to a point north of Stovepipe Mountain.

Click on the image to enlarge it, to make Lodge Ridge visible, beyond lower East Ridge. Click the browser's "Back" button to return to the Chatter News.

Kinbasket Lake, at the left of the image, lies in the Columbia River trench, about 90 km north of Golden BC. The Chatter Creek cat skiing terrain is on the western flank of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

Fish On!

One more photo from our fishing trip in central BC, before the Chatter News gets back to the joys of powder skiing at Chatter Creek Snowcat skiing. In the next few weeks, look for more information about the expanded cat skiing terrain at Chatter Creek and an announcement of a week or two of heli-skiing at Chatter Creek next spring.

Summer Alternative to Cat Skiing

We're back in the saddle to report a good fishing trip. The trout fishing in central BC is in pretty good shape. The weather was lousy, but the fishing was excellent. The best ever! Water level was much higher than usual and many of the usual fords were too deep to cross in hip waders. We enjoyed a great fish camp with good company, great wine and many trout dinners. The only sad note was the Mountain Pine Beetle kill in the area. Many of the larger trees around our usual bush camp had been killed. However, none of the young trees have been affected, and the spruce in the area remains healthy.

Not much to report in wildlife sightings, except more deer than we've seen before. Field mice had a great time with a roll of toilet paper one night and the mosquitoes were particularly active. Also, the track to our campsite was muddier than we've ever encountered before. FWD was very helpfull and it was easy to "bottom out" the F150.

Stay tuned for more cat skiing news. We'll have more soon on expanded snowcat skiing at Chatter Creek.

Gone Fishing

Things will be quiet around the Chatter News for a week or so because we're going fishing in central BC. The siren call of the wee trouties summon us to our forest hideaway, far from the din of civilization and the glare of computer monitors.

One year we were visted here by a Kermode Bear , who was far from home. I wonder what surprises await us this year. Have a good week, all. We're going to. Cheers.

The summer construction season at Chatter Creek is about to warm up. There is no heavy construction planned this year and we expect mostly interior finishing on the two lodges. This shot shows Dale, in 2003, extending the roof overhang on Vertebrae Lodge. Since then, the Solitude Lodge sleeping annex has been completed. Click either image to enlarge. Use the "Back" button to return to the Chatter News.

For a look at both lodges in action, see our "Lodge Life at Chatter Creek" photo gallery.

Chatter News and its related photo galleries (the links that appear at the top of the page) now contain over 600 photos and over 34,000 words of text about powder skiing at Chatter Creek , in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

To view our photos of Chatter Creek, scroll to the bottom of this page, use the photo gallery links at the top of the page and look at the monthly archives listed in the right hand column. For information on powder skiing tours, click this Chatter Creek Snowcat Skiing link.

After viewing an Archive or any of the photo galleries, return to the current display by clicking the Chatter News link at the top of the page (first link under the title).

Our favorite galleries are: Ski Photography by Mark Gallup, Ski Photography by John Dougall and Cat Skiing Terrain with it's aerial photograpy.


Favorites among our Chatter News viewers are Happy Campers at Chatter Creek and Glacier Skiing at Chatter Creek.

Readers who have experienced Chatter Creek cat skiing are invited to pass on their photos and comments, expecially their tales of misdeeds relating to the "Pink Purse Award"

Our "Lodge Life at Chatter Creek" gallery has been updated to show the effect of the Solitude Lodge expansion.

We hope you enjoy the Chatter News! Please leave a comment!
The Chatter News is the personal Weblog (blog) of a Chatter Creek client. All views expressed are his own. all for the love of powder skiing!

End of the July Cat Skiing Posts.
Click here to see all of June 2005.
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