Canada

Heli-skiing was invented here, grizzly and polar bear country you travel through rather than around, and enough frozen vertical ice to keep a climber busy for a lifetime.

3 Ice & Snow lines

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Extreme Skiing · British Columbia interior

Heli-skiing, Columbia Mountains & Bugaboos

EXPERTRisk: HIGHCAD ~1,500–2,250 per day

The birthplace of commercial heli-skiing — helicopters drop skiers onto untracked glaciers and alpine bowls across a permit area the size of a small country, with terrain from mellow powder fields to committing couloirs, all genuinely avalanche country.

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Ice Climbing · Banff National Park, Alberta

Ice climbing, Weeping Wall & Icefields Parkway

EXPERTRisk: HIGHCAD Guided day ~350–500

A pair of massive frozen waterfall complexes right off the Icefields Parkway — one of the most famous ice-climbing venues in North America, with routes stacked in difficulty from a single beginner pitch to sustained, multi-pitch lines a short walk from the road.

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Ice Diving · Ontario (Georgian Bay)

Ice diving, Tobermory

EXPERTRisk: HIGHCAD Certification course ~3…

Certified divers cut a hole through frozen Georgian Bay and descend beneath the ice sheet into some of the clearest fresh water in North America, tethered by a safety line to a surface tender the entire time — a specialist ice-diving certification is required before anyone lets you near the hole.

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