As the silvery mist thinned, shapes detached themselves from the pure whiteness surrounding us. Round here they call these figures 'snow ghosts': pine trees, bowed down into sinister, hunched forms by the weight of snow that obscures bark and needles alike. 'Listen!' someone whispered, and we all stopped. We strained our ears, and there it was: muffled, cushioned by the lightest powdery snow, the purest, most complete and enveloping silence.
Such an experience is rare on a ski holiday. You may make the pilgrimage to some of the most spectacular mountain scenery in the Alps or Rockies, but often enough the entire trip runs to a soundtrack of the clank and clatter of chairlifts and cable cars, the tinny blare of piped pop frothing out of mountain cafes and bars, and the bleeping of mobile phones on every piste. This was different, for we were catskiing. It may sound suspiciously like a feline version of dogsledding, but having moggies tow you along on skis isn't part of the deal. Catskiing - little publicised in the UK - is like an earthbound version of heliskiing. In each case you're skiing pure, fresh powder - rather than the compacted, heavy or icy snow you face in the vast majority of ski resorts. But instead of getting to the powder by helicopter, you ride on the back of a converted piste-grooming machine - or snowmobile as they call these caterpillar-tracked vehicles in Canada.
The slopes around the small resort of Fernie, in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, are empty compared with the Alps. Fernie Wilderness Adventures, which organised our catskiing, has a permit covering a forested massif area 10 miles long by four deep - enough, they say, to take two separate groups out catskiing all day, every day, for two weeks without once crossing paths.
We couldn't see any tracks, footprints or other blemishes on the pure sheet of snow that stretched below us that morning. We set off down the glade, spread out so that each of us was skiing pure powder. The glade narrowed, and soon we were among the trees, skirting each one, skis gliding silently, the stillness punctuated only by the odd shout of pleasure. When we reached the forestry track at the foot of the run where the snowcat was waiting for us, everyone was sporting huge grins. 'That run is called Cloud Nine,' said Dave Richards, one of the two guides. I laughed out loud: I couldn't have thought of a better description.
Our day had begun at the catski base at the foot of the mountain, where we climbed on board the cat - just like a piste-basher, really, but with a specially built passenger cabin that winches straight onto the back. For about 45 minutes the cat climbed slowly along forest trails up the mountain until we reached an open glade, where Dave handed out yellow transceivers, used to locate buried skiers in the event of an avalanche. We practised using them, before each strapping one on. Dave, who was previously an avalanche forecaster in Fernie, gave us the latest snow report: 12cm of fresh snow in 12 hours. 'Great stuff today,' he said.
'We call it right-side-up snow - heavier below, light and fluffy on top. As you make a turn, you sink deeper to the heavier snow, which acts like a spring and sends you to the surface again.'
Skiing the powder was easier than I had expected - in fact we were told that to enjoy the day you only had to be a strong intermediate skier, rather than expert. I had hired short, fat, powder skis, and found that if I leant back slightly, the skis simply floated to the surface of the light and fluffy snow, especially among the trees. Dave explained that where the wind hadn't driven the snow, the flakes remained bigger and the snow lighter.
Those runs among the trees were my favourite: gliding through that powder, in and out of the still pines, felt more like dancing than sport.
Other descents took us through open glades, or down meadows scattered with shrubs, or, thrillingly, into steep-sided gullies, and everywhere we went the powder had a different feel. On a typical day's catskiing you do eight or nine runs - about 11,000-13,000 vertical feet of descent in all. By the end of the day I couldn't believe I'd succeeded in skiing that much powder in one day.
Crawling laboriously up a mountain in the back of a snowmobile isn't as dramatic as flying in a helicopter - but then the experience does come a lot cheaper. A day's catskiing here, booked through Inghams, costs £115; a day's heliskiing near Banff or Lake Louise, with just three descents, costs nearly £350.
Some of my companions had tried both, and reckoned that catskiing certainly compared favourably. Robert Redford lookalike 'DW' Porto from Middleton, New York State, said that since helicopters serve more than one group of skiers at once, lifting one party to the top of the mountain while others ski down, there's a lot of pressure to stick to a schedule.
'Heliskiing was great, but quite stressful,' he said. 'You have to keep going, otherwise you hold people up and they get mad at you. Then if things go smoothly you're done by early afternoon - you've done all the vertical feet you paid for - they say you can buy more if you want to, so it's time to whip out the plastic again. Catskiing is different; dollar-for-dollar, I reckon it's better value.'
But then so is Canada as a whole at the moment - far cheaper than the US. Back at the resort of Fernie, for example, a full cooked breakfast at the day lodge near the foot of the slopes costs £3; a coffee, 60p. Meanwhile, Sunday brunch at the top property on the mountain, the five-star Lizard Creek Lodge, a vast, eat-all-you-can buffet, including all the breakfast usuals plus roasts, omelettes, piles of oysters and shellfish, and mountains of cakes, cheeses and fruits, came to just £9. Prices in Fernie itself - an old mining town four miles away in the valley - are cheaper still.
The skiing area is vast, too, and with an average of nearly nine metres of snowfall a year, snow cover is usually excellent. Even without booking a day's catskiing, there's a huge choice of uncrowded tree, glade and gully skiing within the resort's 2,500 acres, and in between the 106 marked pistes. A couple of winters ago, the addition of two high-speed chairlifts opened up a whole new sector of the mountain, doubling the ski area.
The news hasn't really sunk in yet outside British Columbia. For the time being, Fernie remains relatively little known, and the prices great value. Make the most of it while it lasts.
Factfile
James Bedding travelled to Fernie with Inghams (020 8780 4433). Seven nights at the Cornerstone Lodge, near the foot of the slopes, costs from £467 per person in January, based on four sharing a two-room apartment, self-catering. Price includes return flights Heathrow-Calgary and transfers (three and a half hours from Calgary to Fernie).
Catskiing is available January-March. A day's excursion with Fernie Wilderness Adventures, booked through Inghams, costs about £115, including pick-up from the hotel, guides, lunch, and hire of avalanche transceivers but not ski equipment. Further information on www.fernieadventures.com.
