A snowcat outfitted with a camper? How’s that for the off-piste dream? Plow up any old snow-covered logging road in the middle of nowhere, scope out the nearest peak (taking avy conditions into consideration, of course) and use the snowcat as a basecamp/gear hauler, removing the need for a yurt or backcountry hut. The possibilities are endless.
Canada’s Head-Line Mountain Holidays has made this dream a reality. The company does all sorts of trips from snowcamping snowmobile trips to yes, snowboard and ski expeditions in the heart of the British Columbia backcountry. According to Truck Camper magazine, Head-Line Mountain Holidays CEO Doug Washer mounted a 2018 Cirrus 820 truck camper with a 2006 PistenBully Edge Snowcat. The results are pretty awesome.
Washer told the magazine that he flies in clients to meet the snowcat and that he had to have a way to remove the camper in case of an emergency. So he customized the camper jacks to accommodate the wide tread of a snowcat to make it happen. And how did he attach the camper to the cat? It was eerily similar to the way one would be attached to a vehicle: “The Cirrus is anchored to the snowcat like it is on my truck; with a Torklift tie-down and turnbuckle system,” he said.
Head-Line runs high-end trips, outfitting groups on Canada’s Pemberton Ice Cap just outside of Whistler. The trips start at $40,000 per night (you read that right), because of fly-in logistics, food and such. It’s a high-end clientele. Head-Line also organizes research missions. “We provide luxury adventure holidays to our guests,” he said. “The snowcat and Cirrus will be where our guests stay who go out on the largest southern latitude temperate ice cap. It will also support our Ice Cap Research Initiative which requires overnight observations and data collection in partnership with Simon Fraser University.”
You can read more about Head-Line’s snowcat, here.
