After four hours of driving through the interior of British Columbia we arrived at our destination: the Ymir Motel, in the forgotten gold mining town of the same name. This place is the staging area for most trips into the Ymir backcountry–and, it’s cheap, $12 per person per night cheap–by sharing rooms. Turns out the owner of the hotel is an art collector and purchased the 18 room hotel for his prized possessions, thousands of painting of all styles, covering every wall. Imagine a museum crossed with a nineteenth century brothel. We slept well under the smug smell of oil paint while dreams of pillow lines ran through our heads.
Back in November a group of us decided to plan a trip to a backcountry cabin or yurt in Canada. The beauty of the Ymir Yurts is its blend of cat skiing and your more standard backcountry self propulsion. The terrain and deep access was hard to beat. Using both snowmobiles and a snowcat, you’re dropped roughly 32 K from the nearest road.
Overnight the area had received much more snow than predicted–about two feet, and the next morning it was still nuking. One of the snowcat guides wore a … READ MORE >
