Hans Gmoser, 1932-2006

Hans Gmoser died this week at 73, the result of injuries sustained in a bicycling fall. The following link to a tribute by Chic Scott on the CMH website was posted over on cascadeclimbers.com:

www.canadianmountainholidays.com/cgi-bin...29&manager=StoryPage

My favorite quote from the CMH tribute is this:

“In the end, to ski is to travel fast and free - free over the untouched snow covered country. To be bound to one slope, even to one mountain, by a lift may be convenient but it robs us of the greatest pleasure that skiing can give, that is, to travel through the wide wintry country; to follow the lure of the peaks which tempt on the horizon and to be alone for a few days or even a few hours in, clear, mysterious surroundings.”

--Hans Gmoser

He was truly a giant in North American skiing and mountaineering.

He certainly was a giant in skiing/backcountry skiing. Sorry to hear of Gmoser's passing. He started heli-skiing in North America in the mid 60's and fathered Canadian Mountain Holidays, in a large way creating an environment for guiding itself in Canada. Were it not for CMH and the prospects for seasonal employment for guides and associated client interest, it is likely guiding in Canada would be an unviable career. With Gmoser's influence many experienced ski guides from Europe came to BC to heli-ski guide for CMH. A large number of them went on to set up there own operations and lodges. So you could say Gmoser (and his friend Leo Grillmair - who manged The Bugaboo operation for CMH - and many others) were responsible not only for heli-skiing, but also for backcountry hut skiing and much of the mountaineering guiding now done in Canada, including climbing schools. Without Hans' influence all of these mountain sports would have been much slower in coming to Canada and probably to some degree to the US. I think the only other operations of scale that developed early in North America were the Exum operation in the Tetons and RMI on Rainier. But neither had the skiing scope that CMH heli-skiing developed or challenged guides in the same way because of the ever changing conditions in heli-skiing and diverse mountain conditions in the interior and Rockies of BC. Because of the large number of client days of CMH (ultimately multiple lodges and 44 clients/day/lodge) and diverse and challenging snowpack in Canada, the character of guiding and avalanche knowledge developed in step with heli-guiding in BC.

Wiegele's Blue River operation followed CMH skiing into operations in the interior of BC to the best of my knowledge. Client safety, being an obvious concern, the demand for avalanche knowledge was high. With help from funding by CMH (and Wiegele (I believe) avalanche programs in BC at UBC (McClung) and the University of Calgary (Jamieson) have become equals in content with Swiss and French programs in Europe. The avalanche field in North America was also strongly influenced By LaChapelle, Perla and others in the US, too.

Anyway, I met Hans Gmoser in 1974 or so while heli-skiing at his new Monashee operation. The following summer my sister and I took a mountaineering course in the Bugaboos offered by CMH. I remember when I showed up at the lodge, Gmoser greeted me with, "Hello, Gary", even though we had only briefly met and he had had hundreds of clients. Hans had a tremendous gift for remembering names. I later skied with Hans in the Monashees a couple more times and at Bugaboo lodge over Christmas a few times. I recall the first time I took notice of surface hoar I was skiing with Hans near a streambed in the Monashees. Hans pointed out the obviously weak, buried layer. I also remember Hans' enthusiasm for really good snow. I recall skiing one particularly great day just southwest of the Bugaboos, down McCarthur Glacier and then miles to the west of Howser Spires to a new run. Hans was positively beaming. He enjoyed skiing so much and was so happy to share that enthusiasm with guests (who really became his friends). It must have cost a mint to fly to these distant runs, but the skiing and pleasing his clientel won out over economics. Maybe that is the day and the memory I'll have of Hans Gmoser, smiling and laughing in the low December sun (his then young son Robson was along that day) and then flying back to the beautiful Bugaboo Lodge, passing the Howser Spires at sunset on the way back. Somewhere Hans is still out there, making beautiful powder turns under a blue sky on some remote mountain.

I should also have mentioned that Hans had a very memorable smile and a very hearty deep laugh. I would say he was the most charismatic individual I ever met. Maybe that is why he was so successful at starting a novel business like CMH.