Selkirk Mountain Experience

If you could pick a zone on a map to build a ski touring empire and you could choose any zone in the world…you might actually choose the very location of Selkirk Mountain Experience and the Durrand Glacier Chalet. Reudi Begliner, love or hate him, followed in the footsteps of the earlier Swiss Mountain Guides in Canada and put full service lodge based ski touring on the map in BC. Sure, other lodges were here first, and had some good things on offer, but no one was offering the full guided/catered package and advertising like he was. 3 huts total means you can explore a massive amount of terrain in most conditions with a long season. Just be prepared to be in line with the SME program…there is not a ton of room for free thinking and casual schedules! SME gets the rare 5 stars x 3 for me on lodge, terrain and snow…but you have to be ready to be 100% on board with the Swiss machine program.

Website: https://www.selkirkexperience.com/

Lodge *****

Terrain *****

Snow *****

Strengths

Terrain is the best of any lodge, no questions asked. Trees, burns, glaciers, steeps, chutes, tours, summits, other huts. #1 of all the lodges for terrain.
How does it snow so much here? Deepest snowpack in the selkirks?
Organized, and comfy, private rooms, power, now flush toilets, hot showers, everything you could ever want is here.
Certified and professional guides. Super well run, fully staffed.

Weaknesses

For 99% of people the tight program is not a problem and people ski more than they can anywhere else. For me it is a weakness. Not much room for deviation. You are home at 3pm no matter what time of year, how good the skiing is, or if you want more. If you’ve skied with me, you know I love to go dawn til dusk, and if there is someone who is keen to shred, I’m right there with them until the bitter end. You will always get your 1800m of vertical in every single day…but if its good I want to ski 3000m until dark!
No self sufficient option at all.

When and why to ski at SME? Dec through April. It’s always good, there’s always something to ski! It gets early deep snow, and it sticks around on the glaciers longer than most other lodges. You want to ski with the legend himself Reudi and hit some of the best skiing in North America with everything running like clockwork.