--- title: "Two lodges above the treeline" description: "I've flown into both Purcell and Mistaya with a drone case in one hand and skis in the other. Fifteen helicopter minutes from Golden, a full world away from it; here's how BC's heli-access backcountry lodges work, and how to choose between meadow and glacier." author: "Ben Taft" published: "2026-07-26" updated: "2026-09-20" canonical: "https://wildernessledger.com/guides/two-lodges-above-the-treeline" about: - "Purcell Mountain Lodge: https://wildernessledger.com/experience/purcell-mountain-lodge" - "Mistaya Lodge: https://wildernessledger.com/experience/mistaya-lodge" --- # Two lodges above the treeline > I've flown into both Purcell and Mistaya with a drone case in one hand and skis in the other. Fifteen helicopter minutes from Golden, a full world away from it; here's how BC's heli-access backcountry lodges work, and how to choose between meadow and glacier. Words, photography and film by Ben Taft. Published 26 July 2026, updated 20 September 2026. Canonical page: https://wildernessledger.com/guides/two-lodges-above-the-treeline Photograph: A line of ski tourers skinning across an open snowfield below a wall of snow-covered peaks There is a moment, about twelve minutes out of Golden, when the clearcuts stop and the country goes vertical, and whatever you were thinking about in the staging lot does not survive it. I have made that flight with a [drone](https://wildernessledger.com/go/gear/dji-mini-5-pro/primary) in its [Pelican case](https://wildernessledger.com/go/gear/pelican-cases/primary) wedged between my knees and my heart in my throat four times now, three of them to Purcell across a summer and two winters, and once to Mistaya in summer. The landing is the same both times: the machine banks, a roofline appears in country that has no business containing architecture, and you are delivered into a week that runs on snow, weather and appetite rather than any clock you brought with you. [Purcell Mountain Lodge](https://wildernessledger.com/experience/purcell-mountain-lodge) and [Mistaya Lodge](https://wildernessledger.com/experience/mistaya-lodge) both stage out of Golden, both run on fixed changeover flights with all meals and guiding included, and both close in the shoulder seasons when neither snow nor trail can be relied on. Choosing between them is really a choice between kinds of country. I shot a film at each, and I will try to be fair to both. ## Purcell: the meadow Purcell is the sociable one. Three storeys of timber on an alpine bench at the edge of Glacier National Park, ten rooms upstairs, and a separate two-bedroom chalet that can be taken self-catered. Photograph: Purcell Mountain Lodge, a three-storey timber lodge with a blue roof, lit at sunset with jagged peaks behind Caption: Purcell at last light. I flew the drone until my fingers stopped working. The helicopter is the least important part of the week. It is forty minutes of noise buying you seven days of silence. Photograph: The lodge in deep winter snow below a long ridge, under pink and violet dawn cloud ## Meadow first, which is why I recommend it The terrain starts gentle in every direction, which makes this the one I send people to for a first backcountry trip. You can learn to skin and to snowshoe without committing to anything you cannot reverse. It rises to forty-degree lines and multi-summit days of up to two thousand vertical metres for parties who want them, and both guided and self-guided weeks run, which is rare in this category. The snow here comes deep and stays cold. Photograph: Green aurora over the snow-covered lodge and surrounding ridges at night Photograph: Aerial view at dusk of the lodge and its separate chalet on open meadow, ranges receding behind ## Alone on the bench Some nights the sky joins in. There is nothing on the horizon to compete with it and no road to bring headlights. The lodge and its chalet from above, with the ranges stacked behind. The nearest building of any kind is a long way outside this frame. Photograph: A line of ski tourers crossing a wide snowfield below a wall of snow-covered peaks, seen from the air Caption: A guided line on the bench in winter, from the air. The terrain starts gentle in every direction, which is the point. Photograph: Lodge lounge with a wood fire, sofas, board games and a timber-beamed ceiling ## Changeover day The lounge, where the board-game shelf sees serious and occasionally bitter use. A week of weather days will do that to a group. Fifteen minutes from Golden, luggage by the skid. Everything that will be eaten, drunk or worn for the next seven days arrives on the same flight you do. Photograph: Guests unloading from a red and white helicopter on the meadow landing pad Photograph: The lodge seen at a distance, standing alone in green alpine meadow above treeline with ranges beyond Photograph: Late sun raking across a broad alpine ridge of meadow and scree, mountains fading into haze In summer the meadows do the work the snow does in winter. I spent an evening on the ridge with hikers strung out along the crest and mountains dissolving into haze behind them, and it is the closest thing to walking on a topographic map I know. Photograph: A line of hikers strung along a high ridge above a snow cornice, glaciated peaks behind On the ground ### The summer state The ridge walk above the lodge, cornice still holding in July. Nobody on this crest had seen another party all day. Green meadow, no roads, no neighbours. The same bench that holds two metres of snow in February. [Check availability](https://wildernessledger.com/experience/purcell-mountain-lodge#request-availability) Photograph: Hikers climbing a snow-patched alpine slope above Purcell Mountain Lodge, Mount Sir Donald sharp on the skyline behind them The climb ### Kneegrinder, with Sir Donald behind The way up to the ridge walk, and the name the lodge gives it is accurate. Mount Sir Donald keeps you company the whole way. > Late sun on scree is the reason I keep going back with a longer lens than I need. > > Field note Photograph: Broad scree-and-meadow ridge falling away to hazy blue ranges The detail ### The country you have to yourself There is no permit queue and no trailhead car park, because there is no trailhead. Access is the helicopter and nothing else. Raking light on the high traverse. Late sun on scree is the reason I keep going back with a longer lens than I need. Photograph: The lodge glowing under a dense star field with the Milky Way overhead Photograph: The Milky Way rising over a dark alpine meadow with a distant peak on the horizon ## No light pollution for a hundred kilometres And it shows. The lodge is the only lit thing in the frame and it is running on its own power. I stopped counting satellites at thirty. If you have never seen the Milky Way properly, this is a cheaper way to fix that than most. Film: [Purcell Mountain Lodge, film by Ben Taft](https://www.youtube.com/embed/A7itDWvndtI) My Purcell film, shot across a summer week. The [360 degree tour is here](https://demo.360immersion.com/purcellmountainlodge/preview4/). ## Mistaya: the glacier Mistaya is the alpinist's version. Fourteen guests in a red-roofed lodge at 2,040 metres in the Wildcat Creek basin, with glaciated ground straight off the deck and a sauna for what the glaciated ground does to you. Photograph: Mistaya Lodge, a timber lodge with a red roof and wraparound deck, standing in alpine meadow ringed by spruce Caption: Mistaya from the meadow. Everything here arrived by longline. Glaciated ground starts at the deck. There is no warm-up valley and no gentle first day unless you decide to make one. Photograph: Three hikers standing on a footbridge over a rushing glacial creek, snow-covered peaks at the valley head Photograph: Aerial view of the lodge above a turquoise alpine tarn, with glaciated Rocky Mountain peaks beyond ## The daily commute The footbridge below the lodge is the way out to the high routes, and it is crossed twice a day by everybody staying. The lodge shares its basin with a private tarn. That is the whole neighbourhood: one building, one lake, and the ice above it. Photograph: Glaciated peaks rising above two turquoise meltwater tarns and patches of late-season snow The detail ### The upper basin August, and the meltwater is a colour nothing else manages. It comes off the ice a few hundred metres above where this was taken. Evening light finding its way down-valley. The basin faces so that the last hour of sun arrives sideways, which is the hour to be outside with a camera. Photograph: Sunbeams breaking over jagged peaks and pouring down a forested valley at sunset Some nights the sky joins in Photograph: Open-plan timber lounge and dining room with large windows framing snow-capped peaks Caption: The main room. The windows won the argument with the walls. The numbers ### Every price published A seven-day summer week is $3,940 and the deep-winter week is $4,500. In a category fond of "enquire for rates", publishing the lot reads almost like a manifesto. I have only seen Mistaya in summer; the winter figures are theirs, not mine. Inside it is warmer than it has any right to be: a long dining table under timber beams, a lounge wall of glass facing the peaks, and pine rooms where the window frames do the artwork job. [Check availability](https://wildernessledger.com/experience/mistaya-lodge#request-availability) Photograph: Pine-panelled bedroom with a striped duvet, bunk bed and a window framing a glaciated peak Photograph: Overhead aerial view of a turquoise alpine tarn ringed by conifer forest and a hiking trail ## Simple, warm, pointed at the mountains Rooms are pine and bunks and a duvet, with the window doing everything a picture would be doing somewhere else. The tarn from directly above. The trail around it is the warm-down lap, and on a rest day it is the whole itinerary. Photograph: The lodge lit from within beneath a dense field of stars, framed by tall spruce On the ground ### Night at 2,040 metres The lodge lit from inside under a sky that is doing this every clear night whether anybody is watching or not. The other reason to be here in the dark. Both of these lodges are at altitudes and distances that make astrophotography almost unfairly easy. Photograph: The Milky Way arching over silhouetted spruce and a distant snow-covered peak Film: [Mistaya Lodge, film by Ben Taft](https://www.youtube.com/embed/xY8bDdDEv-c) The Mistaya film. Their [360 degree tour is here](https://tours.360immersion.com/r/mistayalodge/). Side by side ### Purcell vs Mistaya, on the record Season, sleeps, access, rate band and guest rating for both, with the inferred numbers flagged, and the verdicts from this piece set against each other. [Read the comparison](https://wildernessledger.com/compare/purcell-mountain-lodge-vs-mistaya-lodge) ## Choosing Take Purcell if the party is mixed in abilities, ages or appetites, or if self-guiding matters to you. Take Mistaya if the word "glacier" raises your pulse, and if published pricing earns your trust the way it earns mine. Both fill their peak weeks far ahead, and returning groups treat their dates as heirlooms. Book the changeover day, train your legs, and let the machine do the only rushing of the week. ## Questions **What does a week at a backcountry lodge cost?** Mistaya publishes its full card, summer trips from $2,400 for three days to $3,940 for seven, winter from $3,400 to $4,500 per person, with the helicopter, all meals and guiding included. Purcell prints starting-from prices only, $2,598 per person for three nights and $2,998 for four in winter 2026/27, double occupancy plus tax, and asks you to call for the week. Solo travellers pay a single-room supplement at both. **How is this different from heli-skiing?** The helicopter is transport, not the lift. You fly in on a fixed changeover day, travel under your own power all week, skinning uphill in winter, hiking in summer, and fly out. It costs a fraction of a heli-ski week and spends far more of the day moving. **Do I need avalanche training for a winter week?** Certified guides carry the decision-making at both lodges, and guided programmes are the default. Winter guests need to be comfortable skinning for several hours and skiing variable snow in control; avalanche coursework is recommended rather than required. ## The experiences in this story - Purcell Mountain Lodge: https://wildernessledger.com/experience/purcell-mountain-lodge (plain text: https://wildernessledger.com/experience/purcell-mountain-lodge.md) Purcell Mountain Lodge: from $2,598 CAD per person for 3 nights, double, winter 2026/27 (December to April), plus tax, with the helicopter from Golden, meals and guiding in the price, and the lodge says to call for the best rate. Read from Purcell Mountain Lodge, home page (winter 2026/27, starting-from rates) on 14 September 2026. - Mistaya Lodge: https://wildernessledger.com/experience/mistaya-lodge (plain text: https://wildernessledger.com/experience/mistaya-lodge.md) Mistaya Lodge: from $2,400 CAD per person for 3 nights, sharing, summer 2027 (2 July to 20 September), with all taxes and the helicopter from Golden included; winter 2026/27 is from $3,400, and every winter week from 31 January to 11 April 2027 was already full when read on 14 September 2026. Read from Mistaya Lodge, winter rates and availability on 14 September 2026. Written by Ben Taft, Photographer and filmmaker, The Wilderness Ledger (https://wildernessledger.com/about). Ben Taft stayed at the places this story describes and wrote it afterwards. Every photograph and film is his. Publisher: The Wilderness Ledger. Corrections: hello@wildernessledger.com.