It's going to get a lot easier to reach BC's backcountry

With less than three weeks to go until its May 16 opening, dozens of construction workers are digging, drilling and hammering final touches into place.

Just off the Sea to Sky Highway in Squamish, B.C. – the self-proclaimed Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada – the 2,135-metre-long lift climbs the Sky Pilot massif in spectacular fashion. There will be wining and dining in its Summit Lodge; a tidy network of alpine walking trails and a 90-metre-long suspension footbridge are already in place at the top.

From the enormous sunset-facing patio, one of three panoramic viewing platforms, I gaze up at Sky Pilot Mountain’s horn-shaped peak as it tears clouds to shreds, while Howe Sound glitters in the forested fjord nearly a kilometre below. It’s enough to make even Tyroleans envious.

That’s two Austrian references already, and for good reason: The $22-million facility was inspired by the gondola stations common in the Alps, says general manager and founding partner Jayson Faulkner. These were built “not for skiing, but for access,” he says. “That’s very rare in Canada, which is kind of crazy. We have all this amazing wilderness, and we have first-world infrastructure – highways, roads and the rest of it – yet access is fairly limited.”

First proposed in 2011, the gondola required approval from four different sources, as it occupies municipal, Crown and First Nations land, and runs through Shannon Falls Provincial Park. After much local consulting over the nature and purpose of the project – and considerable controversy over mistaken perceptions that it would run up the Stawamus Chief, the iconic granite dome that looms over Squamish – construction began last March...

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Story written by Adam Bisby