Evan Stevens is an IFMGA guide and one of the examiners for the American Mountain Guides Association.
Evan, I understand you just blew up your knee, so I figured you’d have the time to talk about skiing, ski mountaineering, and life in general. First, though, how’s the knee? What’d you do to it and when will you be back in the game?
Yes, I am two weeks out from surgery now. I had my ACL reconstructed with a piece of my hamstring tendon and 20 percent of my medial meniscus removed. I took a pretty good high-speed tumble out in the backcountry while skiing near my lodge. It is almost always bottomless powder at my place and we had a strange wind event in the Selkirks that left a lot of wind-jacked snow. Of course it snowed again not too long after the wind event, and with a fresh 30cms of cold smoke I was skiing like it was bottomless. Alas, I hit bottom, and after 26 years of skiing hard I ended up with my first real ski injury!
Tell us a bit about your schedule guiding. You and your wife own Valhalla Mountain Touring in Canada, yes? What’s the terrain like?
Yes, we own Valhalla Mountain Touring in the Selkirk Mountains of BC. Our guiding schedule is co-mingled with running/operating a backcountry lodge, and the duties of both are equally consuming. In early December we head up to the lodge for season set-up and prep. Basically, shoveling, turning on the water, stoking the fire places, firing up the snowcat and snowmobiles, etc.
And of course skiing. November is the wettest month in BC, so you need to keep tabs on how the season has been developing, i.e. what are the early season snowpack layers. By Christmas we are in full swing with a full house of guests non-stop until the beginning of April. About 65- to 70-percent of these weeks are guided by us, and we usually stick around to hut-keep the self-guided weeks.
I also usually guide about four or five weeks in other places as well such as the coast range near Whistler and Rogers Pass just north of us. A few of those work gigs are also training and certifying guides for the AMGA (the American Mountain Guides Association—Ed.). So winter is basically one non-stop massive ski-touring trip. I usually have about five days where I do not put on my ski boots between Dec 15 and April 15, and the rest of my days are ski touring.
Typical guiding days at the lodge start at 5:45am for morning weather and guide’s meeting and end at 6pm with another weather report and guide’s meeting. It’s a busy life!
The terrain around the lodge is classic Kootenays. One-third below treeline, one-third at treeline and one-third alpine, so quite a good mix. Lots of people just want to go to the alpine and ski nothing else but there is a cold hard truth to skiing in the alpine: the visibility can suck and the snow quality is never as good as lower down the mountain! That being said, nothing tops an epic powder run in the alpine from a summit, but we have those bases covered.
Let’s face it, in BC it snows A LOT, the last two winters I think I recorded 75-80 days of the 90 winter days as having measurable precip. Treeline and below treeline terrain means less wind effect, visibility and safer avalanche terrain in storms. Regardless, you can find an epic alpine couloir and shred through old growth spruce forests all in the same day.
When you’re not drowning in powder, do you guide in Europe? You spend summers in Squamish, right?
I have not guided in Europe–only gone there for fun and play. I am fortunate that the Canadian guiding industry is well respected and well paid, meaning the work and pay in Canada is really good. Lots of guides love to go to Europe for the higher wages and chances to easily work in cool terrain with minimal hassle (huts and lifts). I guess in the end our access and terrain in Canada is mind blowing and it isn’t overcrowded!
We own a place in Squamish and since my wife is a rock guide as well we do a bit of summer guiding. Jasmin, my wife, is a rock star and she loves to guide in the summer, especially other ladies, so she tends to work more than me in the summer. I usually have 10 to 14 weeks of ski guiding in the winter so between that and the summer lodge maintenance (read: firewood!) I try not to work a lot in the summer and just rock and alpine climb as much as possible. Last summer I managed to do three multi-pitch 5.12 first ascents, so you can’t work too much if you want to play like that!
What does the average Colorado skier need to do to come to Canada and tackle bigger, more complicated terrain?
It all depends on where folks want to go and when. I remember guiding part of a group at the Fairy Meadows Hut, north of Rogers Pass in BC. I had three clients and the other 16 people in the hut were self guided, a few from Colorado. The terrain in Fairy Meadows is huge and 95 percent alpine. No trees really at all. Lots of big glaciers and icefalls as well.
What this means is that you need to know what you are doing. Do you have a crevasse rescue kit and know how to really use it? Do you have a GPS, map and compass and know how to use them? Do you have a rescue sled and know how to use it? Do you have a radio and/or sat phone and know how to use them? If the answer to any of those questions is no then you should not be in a place with terrain like that. So, either hire a guide to take you there and or teach you how to do it all!
Basically what happened that week at the hut was I would go out on some rad adventure tour in huge terrain weaving my way through passes and crevasses and the other self-guided people in the group would either start 45 minutes right after me on my track or do my same tour the next day. But, Canada isn’t all big glaciers and crazy summits. Like my place with a good mix of terrain, it is easier to get a grasp on than the hard-core alpine like Fairy Meadows.
Your other option for a trip is to choose a lodge or location with a more accessible variety of terrain. At the end of the day unless you are a great map reader/navigator, or super avid backcountry ski tourer, I almost always recommend hiring a guide. Their skills and local knowledge mean you will find the best snow in the best terrain you could conceive of, do so safely, and ski way more than you would have on our own. After watching groups come to the lodge for 10 years, I have only seen one self-guided group do more vertical and better vertical than a guided group of skiers.
What’s your role at the AMGA? Describe your experience going through the programs? Did you fail any exams? What was your toughest discipline?
I was on the board of directors for five years and the executive committee for two. I unfortunately had to suddenly step down last fall after life got too busy. Lodge renovations and ankle surgery meant missing one too many meetings. Now I am part of the instructor team, teaching and examining in the ski and alpine disciplines.
I enjoyed going through the AMGA. I was lucky in that I was a strong candidate in all three disciplines. I think some folks have difficulty in the fact that they are climbers not skiers or vice versa, but luckily I ski, rock and alpine climb equally well. My first exam was the rock exam and I did not pass. I needed to do a two-day make-up exam. My rock exam was the one and only run in Yosemite in 10 years or so and even though I have climbed there a ton, we spent time on some random routes. Regardless I made mistakes, and despite everyone telling me I would cruise it, I didn’t. I took that exam in June, then had my alpine exam in September. I passed that, so I think I am one of the only people to ever be Alpine certified before Rock!
A month later I took my two make up days for the rock exam, and after having trained and passed my alpine exam, those two days felt like a beach vacation. The next May I finished up with my ski exam, and after having spent two full winters following around IFMGA guides in Canada, it felt like second nature. Real world practice and preparation are the best things you can ever do for an exam, that way you can go into the exam stress free and on cruise control. My other piece of advice for guiding, mountain travel and exams is to find your balance between confidence and humility. Without confidence you will never get anything done, but with out humility you won’t come home every day.
Nightmare guiding stories? Best days ever in the mountains? Tell all!
Luckily my nightmare guiding stories are almost non-existent. I was just reliving my first trip alpine guiding ever in the summer of 2003 with a trip up Mount Baker for the American Alpine Institute. Two guys up the Coleman-Demming, pretty standard. Except on night number one a full-force coastal storm blew in, and I spent the night literally with my feet pressed up against the wall of the Bibler (tent) so it didn’t collapse! Next morning was a foot of snow, we walked up the glacier a bit, but no summit in those conditions! I think it was good to not be successful on my first guided trip ever–humility right off the bat.
Best days ever in the mountains? Any day with smiles and good people, there are so many in my life, that it is hard to top. The most recent best day was probably topping out on Freerider on El Cap with my wife after we both sent it, lifelong dream of free climbing El Cap was realized and with the best partner ever! What could be better…it was also one of the hardest days ever too!
Finally, tell us where you’ll be in 10 and 20 years, ideally.
If it’s the winter, still getting barrelled in the cold smoke of the Valhallas, and summer, still seeking out perfect granite splitters. Both of course with my wife!
