Last Monday we finally left home after a week of preparing for our trip to Purcell Mountain Lodge. Our trip started with a 6 hour drive to Golden BC, where we would fly from the next morning to the lodge. The drive was in perfect weather and good roads, so we made good time. We stayed overnight at Trev's cousins house, unpacked our fully packed car for a one night stay. Come morning it was overcast and snowing and it wasn't looking too good for flying that day. We went to the heliport, unloaded all our stuff, and got it all weighed. For 4 adults and 3 toddlers for 2 weeks at a backcountry lodge, self catered, we had 1000 lbs of stuff.
That meant flying in two 407's, although it was pretty unsure as to whether it would happen on Tuesday at all. The satellite image showed that it might clear enough by the afternoon to fly in. So we hung around Golden having breakfast and playing at a friends house. We sledded to school and by 2 pm we got the call to come back to the heliport to give it a try.
The first flight in was Rachel and all our gear, followed by us and the kids. Worst case scenario Rachel would get in and we wouldn't, and she'd be at the lodge with all our stuff until the next day.
Luck had it that it was good for both flights, going in the shortest route, and therefore costing us the least amount of money in heli time. Rachel got in no problem, followed by the 3 kids and 3 adults. I thought the boys were going to loose it and cry hysterically like they did when we flew in a small plane, but we had prepped them well enough I guess that there wasn't a tear in fact barely an expression the whole ride. Soothers were probably not even necessary.
There was so much luggage that most of it was still at the heli pad in the snow when we landed. The guys who were at the lodge flew out after passing off their care taking job and we were left at 2200m in the quiet, beautiful alpine of the Purcell Mountains. The lodge is a great, a 3 storey timber frame building. The first floor is the staff quarters where we stay, second floor the main living space, kitchen, dining room. The 3rd floor is the guest quarters, which are closed down when there aren't any guests. The boys are set up in the guides room and Trev and I are sleeping in a very small guides room attached to it.
