Canada high

THEY say there are no friends on a powder day. That might be the case at your average ski hill where, at the first hint of fresh snow, hundreds of skiers and boarders start racing around like lunatics, trying to ride as much untouched white stuff as they can before it all gets carved up.

But at Mustang Powder, things are different. Here everybody's friends on a powder day. Best "I love you man!" buddies. That's because there's usually more than enough powder to go around.

In the heart of the Monashee Mountains in British Columbia, Canada, and owned by husband-and-wife team Nick and Ali Holmes-Smith, Mustang is one of several cat-skiing operations to have sprung up in the province in recent years. There are no chairlifts, no T-bars and no button tows. All the terrain is accessed by brand new, state-of-the-art Piston Bully snowcats. These gravity-defying machines, with 330 horsepower Mercedes engines, beefy tank tracks and a comfy cab on the back with seating for 15, can clamber up ludicrously steep slopes, deposit you at the top of the best run of your life and then race down in time to pick you up at the bottom. And they can do it over and over again, all day long.

A comparison with Whistler – BC's best-known conventional ski resort – gives you some idea of the quality of the experience on offer. In total, Whistler offers 8,171 acres of skiable terrain, making it the largest resort in North America. But that's nothing compared to the 30,000 acres within the vast Mustang tenure. In spite of its size, Whistler can get crowded, with an overall lift capacity of 61,400 skiers per hour and more than two million visitors per year. At Mustang, there are usually just two snow cats operating on any given day, typically with 12 skiers in each. Crunch the numbers: 30,000 divided by 24 means 1,250 acres of untracked powder per skier per day. In Scottish terms, that's roughly equivalent to having the whole of the Cairngorm ski area to yourself.

Oh, and let's not forget the snow conditions. The Monashees have a ridiculous snow record, with approximately 60 feet of snowfall per year. Unless you're very unlucky, a stay at Mustang will result in some of the most spectacular skiing you've ever had.

Everything about the Mustang experience feels like an adventure – even the journey to the lodge. Guests are asked to rendezvous at a truckstop between Sicamous and Revelstoke on the Trans-Canada Highway no later than 3pm on the day of arrival. Once there, you load all your gear into a school bus fitted with snowchains for a bumpy, one-hour drive along a logging trail. At the designated drop-off point, at around 600m (1,968 feet) elevation, bags and bodies are transferred on to two snowcats for the final 45-minute ascent to the lodge – an elegant, three-storey timber-frame building that sits on a small plateau at 1,750m (5,741 feet), with staggering views to the south and east.

In spite of its remote location, the accommodation is as luxurious as anything you'd find in a more accessible resort. There's a hot tub, a games room, an in-house massage therapist (highly recommended) and a well-stocked bar manned by Dominic Baker, one of the most clued-up barmen in Canada. As soon as Dominic found out I was from Scotland, the Canadian whiskeys came out; later in the trip, he hosted an extremely knowledgeable wine tasting to about 15 guests, comparing some of British Columbia's local wines to their Old World equivalents. If you can tear yourself away from the bar, the food's first class as well, served in a beautiful, high-ceilinged dining room.

This is first and foremost a ski lodge, however, and all the basics are done well. Ample drying and changing area? Check. Well-equipped ski and snowboard-tuning room? Check. Plenty of spare gear to rent or buy in case you lose yours out on the hill? Check. There are even "motivational" pictures in the bedrooms, featuring skiers blasting through armpit-deep powder, just in case you forget why you're here.

The Holmes-Smiths are big believers in packing as much skiing as possible into each day, so even though it's within the Pacific time zone, Mustang Lodge runs on Mountain time – one hour ahead. Day One starts at 7am Mountain time (6am Pacific) with a cup of coffee in bed. Then, after a hearty cooked breakfast, there's a thorough safety briefing, which includes transceiver practice and guidance on how the group should respond in the case of an avalanche. It's a sobering way to start the day, but any hints of trepidation quickly evaporate as the sun bursts over the horizon in a blaze of orange, turning the snowy peaks behind the lodge an otherworldly shade of pink.

With good visibility and a moderately stable snowpack, our guide, Garret Boyd, heads straight for the wide open spaces of the alpine. After a couple of short-but-sweet warm-up runs through evenly-spaced trees, we arrive at a dramatic ridge just below Cloud Nine Peak (2,500m/8,202ft). Dropping off to the east would take us into a super-steep run called Love You Longtime, but Boyd opts to go easy on us, and we take the mellow, rolling Cloud Nine route instead. From the bottom, though, we're just a short snowcat ride away from the Roman-themed area of the tenure. Names such as Gladiator, Christians and Lions, Caligula and Coliseum imply more challenging terrain, and they more than live up to their promise.

The runs in this zone are the stuff dreams are made of. The skiers are grinning from ear to ear when we reach the steep drop at the start of Coliseum, but for me and Geoffrey Hacking, the only snowboarders in our cat, this is even more of a treat. Ducking in and out of trees is all well and good, but aggressively-tilted blank canvasses like this are what most boarders fantasise about in their quieter moments. Boyd skis down first to test the conditions and then radios back to Nick, who's tail-guiding, to give the all-clear.

In order to avoid collisions, and to lessen the avalanche risk, we're asked to descend one at a time with a generous gap between skiers, but there's no jockeying to go first. Everyone's full of "after you" politeness. As with all the runs at Mustang, there's more than enough fresh snow to go around. When my turn comes I traverse as far to the right as I can, well away from everyone else's tracks, then turn hard to my left and drop into the run of a lifetime.

Experienced backcountry skiers in Canada talk a lot about "face-shots". Sample conversation: "Man, there's a lot of snow today!" "I know! We're gonna get some sick face-shots." To begin with, I was a little mystified by this term, but at Coliseum the penny finally dropped. A face-shot is when a skier or boarder turns in deep, light powder snow and is blasted in the face by the resulting explosion of spray. At Mustang, in January, it's a very, very common occurrence.

My first run on Coliseum feels like one big, continuous face-shot. Every time I turn, I'm blinded by a huge wave of feather-light fluff. It's hard to breathe too. The Mustang brochure jokes that the powder here gets so deep that "guests should remember to bring a snorkel". At least I thought it was a joke. Half-way down Coliseum's main fun zone, as it doglegs to the right, I realise it's been four or five turns since I last took a breath. I slow down for a second, grab a quick gulp of air, and then accelerate away again. At the bottom, grown men – veterans of countless cat and heli-ski trips – are giggling like children.

Unbelievably, things get even better in the afternoon. According to Boyd, Carnivale, just a stone's throw from the lodge, is one of the "guaranteed crowd-pleasers" in the tenure. When we get there, it isn't hard to see why. A fantastic steep start, a short traverse and then more of the same. It certainly pleases the crowd. Due to popular demand, we do Carnivale twice in a row early on day two, and revisit it again on subsequent days. Each time a slightly different approach; each time taking facefulls of perfect, virgin snow all the way down.

For the last three days of the trip it snows almost continuously. By the final day some of the skiers, tongues firmly in their cheeks, are complaining that there's actually too much snow. As the avalanche risk increases, we retreat from the alpine and spend more time in the trees. These runs get shorter, but we pack more of them in. The Holmes-Smiths estimate most groups will ski between 14,000 and 20,000 vertical feet per day, but based on our group's calculations that seems a little on the conservative side, whether you're in the trees or not.

On the final afternoon, one of the strongest skiers in our group slams face-first into a tree. His lip splits, his nose bursts and before long there's a lump on his forehead the size of a cricket ball. For a few minutes he doesn't know where he is or who any of us are. A doctor in our group checks him out and deems him fit to go on skiing "if he's feeling up to it". Without hesitation, he says he wants to carry on. To the uninitiated, that might seem like a crazy thing to do, but everyone in our cat is in total agreement: with only a few hours left before the journey back to the real world, it's the only sensible decision he could have made.

Factfile

How to get there

Zoom offers flights from Glasgow to Vancouver, departing every Saturday from November to April and on Thursdays and Saturdays throughout the summer. One-way tickets from £199 including taxes; a premium class upgrade is available from £79 extra. Once in Vancouver, you can either drive direct to the pick-up point or take an internal flight to Kelowna and drive from there. To book, tel: [phone] or visit www.flyzoom.com

Where to stay

There is only one place to stay and that's at the Mustang Lodge. Prices per day from CAN500 (£255) in low season to CAN800 (£406) in high season. Price includes accommodation, meals, transportation from the pick-up point to the lodge and back and a full day of guided cat skiing. Minimum booking is for two days. Visit www.mustangpowder.com

And there's more

Break your journey with a stay at the Fairmont Hotel at Vancouver International Airport. Rates start at CAN369 (£187) per night including breakfast. Tel: [phone], or visit www.fairmont.com

For more information on the area visit www.BritishColumbia.travel

Scotsman Reader Holidays has a seven night skiing trip to Whistler, British Columbia, on 12 April, from £899. Tel: [phone] or visit our www.holidays.scotsman.com