Like father, like son

Most snowboarders spend their tenth day on snow learning the ropes. KJ spent his climbing into a helicopter at CMH Revelstoke.

For his father, Todd—a longtime CMH guest with more than five million vertical feet behind him—it was a moment he had imagined for years and never quite expected to happen.

“I was thrilled, but also very nervous,” Todd says. “The backcountry is very different and demanding.”

KJ took to it quickly. And for Todd, watching his son discover something that had shaped so much of his own life was almost better than the skiing itself.

“The look on his face and the joy he was getting from it was one of my greatest experiences heli-skiing,” he says.

How one CMH trip became five million vertical feet

Todd’s own CMH story began in 2001, when he presented his first trip to his wife, Diane, as the holiday of a lifetime. A singular event. One and done.

“Then I spent the trip home trying to figure out how to explain that I had already signed up for the next year,” he says.

More than two decades and five million vertical feet later, Todd now takes roughly three snowboarding trips with CMH each year. He has shared runs with lifelong friends, introduced his family to CMH Summer Adventures and built much of his adult life around returning to the mountains.

“After five million feet, it is still by far the most addictive thing I have ever done,” he says.

But one experience remained out of reach. KJ’s swimming career had left little time for skiing or snowboarding, making the prospect of riding together in the backcountry feel more like a pipe dream than a future plan. Then came that day in Revelstoke.

From learning to snowboard to heli-skiing at CMH

KJ first stepped onto a snowboard at Sunshine Village in January 2025. He took a lesson, rode for a few more days, then returned to the learning curve during the family’s March trip to Revelstoke.

READ: How good do you need to be to go heli-skiing?

Less than a year later, he was riding Larch at CMH Bugaboos alongside his dad on his first full heli-skiing trip.

“It was a steep learning curve,” KJ says, with some understatement.

He was naturally nervous about heading into the backcountry, but having Todd beside him changed the experience.

“Being with my dad, who provided a lot of guidance, made the trip super special,” he says.

For Todd, those early runs brought excitement, pride and a healthy dose of parental concern. For KJ, they offered a chance to experience a side of his father he had previously known mostly through stories.

“It brought a ton of joy to me to experience one of my dad’s lifelong hobbies with him,” KJ says.

Why sharing heli-skiing with family feels different

A great run is still a great run. But when the person following your tracks is someone you love, the experience takes on another dimension.

Todd describes their days together as a combination of adventure, trust and the absolute rush of moving through the mountains side by side.

“Screaming through the trees, counting on each other and sharing that thrill—it’s an incredible way to connect,” he says.

That connection carries back to the lodge, where the usual interruptions of daily life become much easier to ignore.

“You’re disconnected from the rest of the world and get quality time that’s hard to find in today’s bombardment of information and noise,” Todd says. “We take the opportunity to get away from all that and just enjoy the time.”

WATCH: Heli-skiing with the Miller family

Spending quality time together at a CMH lodge

At Bugaboos, one of those evenings happened over New Year’s. Todd and KJ joined the lodge celebration around a bonfire overlooking the Bugaboo Spires—one of those scenes that sounds almost overproduced until you’re standing inside it.

How heli-skiing became a family tradition

CMH has been part of Todd’s family story for years. After racing Ironman Canada in 2008, he brought his family to CMH Bobbie Burns for a summer hiking trip so they could experience the people, landscape and lodge culture that kept pulling him back.

They were hooked, too.

But sharing heli-skiing with KJ felt different. It was not simply introducing his son to CMH. It was passing along something deeply personal: a passion that began on 300-vertical-foot hills in Michigan, grew during trips with his wife and eventually became a defining part of Todd’s life.

Now father and son have shared a full trip at Bugaboos, returned to CMH Revelstoke and begun building a collection of mountain memories that belongs to both of them.

KJ already understands how valuable that time is.

“These are moments I will remember for the rest of my life,” he says. “I won’t always be able to ski in the backcountry with my dad as my tree partner. Take advantage of these moments whenever you can.”

The best heli-skiing memories are shared

Todd spent years imagining what it might be like to share heli-skiing with his son. Then, almost overnight, KJ went from learning his first turns to following his dad through the backcountry.

The best mountain experiences are rarely just about terrain or vertical. They’re about who is beside you when the helicopter lifts off, who follows your line through the trees and who is still retelling the story over dinner that night.

If there’s someone you’ve always wanted to bring into your favourite corner of winter, take Todd and KJ’s advice: don’t save the idea for someday. Make the trip, share the turns and give yourselves a story that belongs to you and your loved ones.