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Featured Trips
Mountaineering and Adventuring, for over 25 years.
In the winter season we specialize in high end ski touring trips to BC’s finest Backcountry lodges as well as exotic international destinations like Svalbard, Greenland, Antarctica and Europe. In 2021 we added a new array of trips in our own magnificent backyard to appeal to the growing demand for local trips close to home. Trips we haven’t done for years, such as our Wapta, Bow Yoho, Northern Selkirks and Bugaboos Traverses, are world class and have a strong appeal to Canadians especially early in the pandemic when we couldn’t travel internationally. After a long wait our international border is open again, and we are excited to share with our visitors, once again, what we believe to be the Best Skiing on Earth.
Town-based ski touring out of Revelstoke and Golden, BC
These ski towns are perfectly situated in the middle of the Canada’s best mountain ranges for ski touring. Take advantage of the many excellent accommodation opportunities and enjoy day trips into the Selkirks, Pucells and Canadian Rocky Mountains.
Now booking Winter 2023
One of Canada’s very best ski touring lodges, Burnie is surrounded by towering glaciated peaks with epic 1500 m runs, and 700 m tree skiing behind the hut!
Kootenay Hut to Hut Skiing
The Rockies are known for the great glaciated hut-to-hut traverses: the Wapta Traverse and the Yoho Traverse (or the “Bow-Yoho” Traverse as it’s also known). Deep in the Kootenays is a completely different kind of trip, the Bonnington Traverse. This is a 3-day (with heli-drop) or 4-day traverse that links alpine and sub-alpine ridges from Ymir all the way to Porto Rico, just a few minutes drive south of Nelson
Mountains as awesome as their mythical namesakes
“Rows of glaciers on either side of the valley are lined up one beside the other at varying degrees of steepness, all perfect for skiing. The peaks are towering and rugged. I’ve been to most of the best backcountry ski lodges in the world … Nirvana tops them all for terrain.”
Intermediate level decision making in avalanche terrain
This course expands on the AST 1 program with more advanced weather and snow evaluation and, a lot more time in the mountains with our professional guides observing and moving in and around avalanche terrain.
Local guided backcountry skiing adventures at a great price point
Join us on a guided backcountry splitboarding/skiing tour in the Canadian Rockies. An ideal way to get out and see/experience more committing terrain under the guidance and leadership of our fully certified ACMG ski/board guides.
More About Us
Sawback was founded by Tom Wolfe in 1995, running mountain hiking trips for groups. Since then we have expanded programming to offer just about any mountaineering adventure you could imagine. Tom is a trained and internationally certified Mountain Guide and a member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG) and the International Federation of Mountain Guides (IFMGA).
We work with a variety of other certified guides. See our Guides and Partners Page for some photos and brief bios.
For existing trips, simply use our Book Now link to fire off a quick booking request. We will follow up quickly with you to confirm the booking with you.
If you are looking for a custom trip – e.g. a day of ski touring or ice climbing or a multi-day trip that we don’t offer – email or phone us or use our contact form. We will offer suggestions and personally help you organize the best possible trip for you .
Sawback is primarily a small one-man operation. While there are guides who work with large operations in Western Canada there is also a small, co-operative community of independent guides who pass work they can’t do on to others who can. If Tom can’t join you in your mountain adventure we will refer you to another independent mountain guide who will.
Sawback’s guides are members of the following associations: