#VALHALLA HILLS MOUNTAIN MODE SKIN#
Like many ski guides, Caton is as strong in will as she is on the skin track. She’s got that kind of following: devoted skiers who return year after year, but in this case they double as longtime friends-some knew her as a teen when her dad, Dale, was running the place. With this, I head up the next morning via my beater snowmobile, while guests rode up in style in a cozy snowcat.Īs special as I feel about the exclusive powder getaway, I arrive at Valhalla Mountain Touring to find it chock-full of paying clients who’ve known Caton much longer than I have. “It’s dumping at the lodge-get up here!” is the personalized snow report I receive. The mood always sways to giddiness-the kind fueled by a long-awaited Kootenay homecoming.Īfter years of waiting for an invite to the Caton estate at VMT, last winter I finally got the call. These days, she might gripe for half a minute about the work required as the sole owner of a backcountry lodge, but it doesn’t last for long. It took another five years-last winter to be exact-before I finally made tracks at her family ski lodge, Valhalla Mountain Touring (VMT).Ĭaton, at a spritely 37, had recently moved from the rock climbing mecca of Squamish, B.C., where she lived for a good part of her adulthood, back to the snowy hub of Nelson, an hour and a half south of her hometown of Hills. During that decade, the Kootenay gal became certified as a ski and rock guide. I didn’t re-meet their eldest daughter for another 10 years after that encounter.
I remember their beaming smiles, in contrast to the icy grimaces amongst our crew. It was a big day trip to the Slocan Valley, so my group got an early start, yet at the halfway point, we were lapped by a group of locals from the aptly named nearby hamlet of Hills, B.C., already on their way down during a late-morning jaunt. The first time I met Jasmin Caton was on a peak in British Columbia’s snowy Kootenay region, where I had recently hung my own hat in Nelson.
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