Helen Sovdat Guide, Mentor, Friend
Helen
Sovdat
Guide, Mentor, Friend
Helen Sovdat is one of Canada’s finest mountain
guides. Her accomplishments as a climber and
skier are stunning. She has pioneered long traverses
along the crest of the Coast Mountains. She has
stood on nearly all of the peaks in the Canadian
Rockies that exceed 11,000 feet (3,353m). She has
climbed in the high ranges of Argentina, Bolivia,
Ecuador, and Peru. In Asia, she has scaled some of
the world’s highest mountains: Ama Dablam, Cho
Oyu, and Manaslu. Many of these adventures were
with members of her loyal legion of clients.
In 1996, Helen became the third woman in
North America to earn full certification through
the ACMG/IFMGA as a mountain guide. She was
a leader in a group that broke the mould of North
American guiding as an all-male profession. Now,
she’s giving back as an ACMG examiner herself –
and continues to plot new adventures, and to share
her excitement for the unknown. An inspiration to
a whole generation of guides and leaders, Helen’s
outstanding career achievements are muted only
by her own humility and altruism.
For further information regarding the Summit Series of mountaineering biographies,
please contact the National Office of the Alpine Club of Canada.
www.alpineclubofcanada.ca
Twenty-first in the SUMMIT SERIES
Biographies of people who have made a difference in Canadian mountaineering
By Zac Robinson
Helen
Sovdat
Guide, Mentor, Friend
by Zac Robinson
CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATIONS DATA
Robinson, Zac
Helen Sovdat: Guide, Mentor, Friend
Design by Suzan Chamney, Glacier Lily Productions.
ISBN: 978-0-920330-61-6
© 2015, The Alpine Club of Canada
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be copied or
reproduced without the permission of the author or the subject.
OF
IATION
OC
SS
N A DI A N M
O
A
CMG
S
CA
TAIN GUIDE
UN
A
The Alpine Club of Canada
P.O. Box 8040
Canmore, Alberta
T1W 2T8
403.678.3200
Printed in Canada
Association of Canadian
Mountain Guides
P.O. Box 8341
Canmore, AB T1W 2V1
403.678.2885
Acknowledgements
The Alpine Club of Canada gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the 26th annual
Mountain Guides Ball and this publication by these sponsors:
Fran & Lloyd
Gallagher
Research for this project has been supported by:
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Cover photo: Helen Sovdat guiding on Mount Wotan in the Northern Selkirks. Photo by Karen Woo, 2015.
Title page:
Monmouth Mountain, Coast Mountains. Photo by John Baldwin, 1980.
Back cover: Helen writes in her journal while guiding in Nepal. Photo by Bill Milsom, 2011.
All photos are from the Sovdat collection unless otherwise noted.
2
Helen Sovdat
Helen
T
here she was in a photo at a slide show. Dangling over the lip of a bergschrund wearing a heavy pack.
Skis in pack. Complicated rope system. Helen was on one of her famous West Coast ski traverses and
I never really expected to meet this impressive looking woman.
But, lucky for me, I did meet her and we started running trips together for the Alpine Club of Canada.
For our first adventure to Aconcagua, we agreed that we were going anyway, so the Club did not have to
worry whether the trip would fill up. We were so excited. And we collected notes on climbing to altitude,
food choices, gas quantities, equipment to pack, strategies to various camps, budgets to consider (our
favourite was the “pampering” accounting line) – all into a big fat binder.
There have been many adventures since then. Around the world. Some professional and some personal.
Throughout, Helen has remained a consummate professional, dedicated to her craft, working hard to
be better. On an overseas climb, I even overheard her chastising a European guide for not treating his
clients better. She felt he had a responsibility to them.
Much of what I know about camping, I learned from Helen. In her humble way, she will tell those who
ask that climbing is sometimes just about being a good camper. If you are comfortable, well rested and
well fed, you will perform better.
Sure, we camped well in Bolivia. But it was her technical prowess and gutsy performance that had the
guys in our group giggling with accomplishment. The line up the steep snowy section was clogged with
slow climbers. Helen assessed the situation quickly and went for it, dragging us along in tow. We danced
in and around the slugs and popped out on top, laughing.
Incredibly, after all these years, Helen remains just as enthusiastic about the mountains and guiding as
ever. On her days off, there is nothing she would rather do than tackle another 11,000er. Or explore an
unknown peak. Just for the fun of it.
But what endears you to Helen is that she is so…normal.
“Should I take these pants, or those ones? I can’t decide.” Really?
“I baked ginger cookies for our ski trip.” Nice.
“Which of these colours should I paint my house?” Helen, they are all the same.
Why is Helen so popular? She is your friend and wants to know about you; she’ll draw you out. When
practical, she will guide from the back, only to come forward to navigate the tricky bits – you didn’t even
realize she just did that. Helen gives you confidence that you ARE part of this team and we’ll keep going,
one step at a time, to the summit. After all, it is your trip.
Helen does not need a big fat binder anymore. All those details
have been fine tuned and committed to memory. She is at the
pinnacle of her career and, forgive me Helen, but as some of your
many clients, er, friends say, she’ll take you Hel-en Gone but
always bring you Hel-en Back. Kick up your heels my friend. This
is a well-deserved celebration.
—Marg Saul
Helen and Marg Saul (right)
after ascent of Cho Oyu.
Photo by Karen McNeill, 1996.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
3
T
Helen climbing in
Eldorado Canyon.
Photo by Mike Shaw, 1984.
he Annual Mountain Guides Ball is a proud
tradition of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC)
and the Association of Canadian Mountain
Guides (ACMG). The event brings together
members of the mountain community to celebrate
our shared mountain culture and raise funds for
various worthy causes. Each year, a patron is honoured for their long-time contribution to Canada’s
mountain community, and new mountain guides
are awarded their hard-earned IFMGA pins from
the guides’ association.
The ACC and the ACMG are immensely pleased
to have as their patron for the 26th Annual
Mountain Guides Ball an individual who has left
an indelible mark on both organizations, and
many others.
Helen Sovdat is one of Canada’s finest mountain
guides – full stop. She exemplifies the very best of
her profession. Her accomplishments as a climber
and skier are stunning. Helen has pioneered
long traverses along the crest of the Coast
Mountains; she has stood on nearly all of the
peaks in the Canadian Rockies that exceed 11,000
Helen on the Columbia Icefield. Photo by Renée Lavergne, 2013.
feet (3,353m), and she helped create a veritable
Canadian Haute Route running for hundreds of
kilometres south of Bella Coola. She has climbed
in the high ranges of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador,
and Peru. In Asia, she has scaled some of the
world’s highest mountains: Ama Dablam, Cho
Oyu, and Manaslu. Many of these peaks were
climbed with loyal clients.
In 1996, Helen became the third woman in
North America to earn full certification through
the ACMG/IFMGA as a mountain guide. She was
a leader in a group that broke the mould of North
American guiding as an all-male profession.
Now, she’s giving back as an ACMG examiner
herself – and continues to plot new adventures,
and to share her excitement for the unknown. An
inspiration to a whole generation of guides and
leaders, Helen’s outstanding career achievements
are muted only by her own humility and altruism.
This publication is a tribute to Helen Sovdat.
With typical modesty, she insisted on sharing the
spotlight here with others – the organizations and
individuals who lastingly shaped her passion for
the mountain world.
Helen wouldn’t have it any other way.
4
Helen Sovdat
Mentors
H
elen was an East Vancouver kid. The first
of two children, she was born in spring of
1959 to Maria Katona and Anton Sovdat, a young
immigrant couple, who met, fell in love, and
married in the downtown community known for
its working-class roots, affordable housing, and
cultural diversity.
Helen’s mother was hardly eighteen years of
age when she arrived in Canada. A foster child
in her native Hungary, Maria had been separated
from her sole sibling, a sister, at an early age, and
times were tough. The Second World War had
left Hungary socially and economically crippled,
and the ensuing Soviet occupation didn’t improve
living standards and freedoms. Hard labour on
a farm characterized much of her youth. When
a student demonstration in Budapest boiled
over into a nation-wide revolution in the fall of
1956, Maria was one of two hundred thousand
Hungarians to flee central Europe.
“Those days are over,” Maria would later say.
“I don’t think about them much anymore.”
Maria and Anton Sovdat, 1958.
A destroyed Soviet tank in Budapest, Hungary, 1956.
But her upbringing shaped the type of person
she would become: determined, resourceful,
tough. She had won her refugee status by running,
under the cover of darkness, across the tightly
controlled Hungarian-Austrian border. It was
considered “no-man’s land,” the ground pitted and
blasted from unseen land mines. Of her group,
Maria would take the lead. She slipped across the
border first, navigating a safe route for others to
follow.
A refugee camp in Austria was a brief stopover
on a journey that led to North America. Canada
welcomed Maria – and many others like her
– with open arms. In the wake of the crushed
“Hungarian Revolution,” the Government of
Canada, under Liberal Prime Minister Louis St.
Laurent, implemented a special program with free
passage for those fleeing state persecution and
repression. Thousands of Hungarians arrived in
the early months of 1957 on over 200 chartered
flights. More than 37,000 Hungarians were admitted in less than a year.
Anton Sovdat immigrated to Canada from
the People’s Republic of Slovenia, then part of
the newly formed Socialist Federal Republic of
Guide, Mentor, Friend
5
Yugoslavia. A strong man in his early twenties,
he came from a long line of woodcutters in the
mountains of northern Slovenia, and he looked
the part. Employment in Canada was plentiful
in the booming postwar decades. Optimism was
everywhere. Far from Eastern Europe, still wartorn and now gripped by a new fascism, Maria
and Anton met, and their future seemed positively
bright. They learned to speak English together,
built a small house on Vancouver Island, and
celebrated the birth of their second child – a son,
Stanislau – in the spring of 1961.
Maria and Helen Sovdat in
Vancouver, c. 1980.
Stan and Helen Sovdat in the Bugaboos, c. 1983.
H
elen has only three memories of her father.
“Just images, really: giving me pancakes,
holding my hand somewhere, looking down at
me caringly.” In 1963, tragedy struck. Anton
Sovdat was killed suddenly in a logging accident
near Port Alberni. Again faced with an uncertain
future, Maria rallied and moved the family back
to Vancouver’s East Side. She took up waitressing
to make ends meet, and concentrated her energy
on the kids. “I was only four,” recalls Helen. “I
didn’t yet know what it meant to lose a parent.”
For Maria, the new “normal” – a single-mother
household – would have been a stark contrast to
the dominant, more traditional ideas of family
in postwar Canada, especially at a time when
most newcomers just wanted to fit in. That Maria
Sovdat created a safe and nurturing environment,
where her children could dream, and imagine
possible futures, is further testament to her resilience and resourcefulness.
She was Helen’s first mentor.
6
Helen Sovdat
Beyond The Sisters
F
rom a young age, Helen was completely taken with mountains. “I had a
constant itch to go looking around and exploring – it wasn’t rock climbing or skiing, specifically – I just always wondered what was, for example,
beyond that West Lion.”
The Lions are a pair of pointed peaks along the North Shore Mountains
in Metro Vancouver. They can be seen from much of the Greater Vancouver
area, as far as Robert Burnaby Park in East Burnaby, south to parts of Surrey,
and from the west on the Howe Sound Islands and the Sunshine Coast. To the
Squamish First Nation, The Lions are known as Ch’ich’iyúy, “Twin Sisters.”
Helen got her wish in high school.
Van Tech was a big, brawny, downtown technical school in the mid-1970s,
and Helen was the only girl in the high school Hiking Club. Today, she laughs
when recalling the early adventure: “The club was run by our science teacher.
He made us memorize the height of the West Lion… 5, 4, 0, 1! It was one of
my first trips. And the view… well, it was stunning”
M
ore than high school, though, it was
perhaps the Girl Guides of Canada – an
organization dedicated to enable “confidence
and courage” in girls and women, and to share
the “sisterhood of Guiding” – that instilled in
Helen an early love for the outdoors, and a sense
of belonging. “I did some great trips with the Girl
Guides, and met some great friends. A few of
us – in grade nine, or maybe grade ten – hiked the
West Coast Trail all by ourselves. It was a big deal
for us. We planned the trip, we got the guidebook,
we took the bus out there, and we did it.”
Other youth clubs weren’t as welcoming to young
women. Helen hung out for years on the front stoop
of the Boys’ Club of Canada’s Vancouver headquarters at 12th and Windsor: an organization devoted
to giving downtown “youth a chance to have some
recreation and to see beyond the confines of their
immediate situation.” “Youth,” however, meant
The Thunderbirds, UBC’s Junior Varsity Field Hockey Team, 1979.
boys only – at least until 1974, when the club
widened its mandate and became The Boys and
Girls Club of Canada. Then eighteen years of age,
Helen was too old to participate in programming,
so she did the next best thing: she took a job, and
became one the first female counsellors at the club’s
summer camp, Camp Potlatch.
“As part of the program, we took girl campers
on long multi-day canoe trips around Howe
Sound and climbed some of the rugged peaks
around camp. I thrived on travelling in the
elements, making decisions on our own and going
wild with a pack of girls in tow.”
Sports saved Helen in high school. Her marks
were good enough, but basketball and field hockey
kept her sane. They provided her with “something
to do after school.” In a graduating class of three
hundred, she was one of only a few students to
continue on to postsecondary studies. A degree
program in the Faculty of Physical Education and
Recreation at the University of British Columbia
seemed to make sense. “Many of my role models
at that point were teachers,” she admits, and then
there were always sports. Quickly and easily,
Helen made the varsity field hockey team. But
mountains would soon supersede organized athletics, and nearly everything else for that matter.
Only two years were spent on the Thunderbirds’
pitch. News of an accredited outdoor recreation
program on the far side of the western cordillera,
at the University of Calgary, gave new focus to
her combined passion for teaching and outdoor
pursuits. Helen relocated to the Alberta Rockies.
But she was far from finished with the Coast.
The Lions, North Shore Mountains.
Photo by John Baldwin.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
7
The Coast Mountains on Skis
F
ew people are aware of the large glaciers that
lie within commuting distance of downtown
Vancouver – and that those icefields, adorned
with high peaks, stretch north for hundreds
and hundreds of kilometres. In an odd twist
of geography, the extent of glaciation is rarely
apparent from low-lying areas. Perhaps it’s for this
reason that local skiers were slow to recognize
the potential for long alpine ski traverses in the
rugged Coast Mountains. Prior to 1980, only a few
routes had been completed.
A turning point occurred in 1979. The proliferation of coastal logging roads, as well as the
publication of a new 1:50,000-scale topographic
map series, aided a small group of UBC students
belonging to the Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC) in
reaching the southern edge of the Lillooet Icefield,
the first major icefield north of Vancouver. Several
peaks were climbed on skis, but the real prize
was the view northwards – and only then was the
potential realized.
Helen remembers her first VOC meeting well.
“It took a lot of guts for me to go,” she confessed.
“It was ’79. I had just arrived at UBC, and I didn’t
know anyone. There were hundreds of people in
the auditorium.” Any trepidation was short-lived.
There, in that sea of students, Helen would find a
community of kindred spirits. The learning curve,
however, was steep. Helen soon joined a VOC
trip to Mount Baker, one of the highest in the
Cascades – “my first big winter trip!” – and it was
there that she learned to ski. She went to Mount
Robson, the highest in the Canadian Rockies –
“my second trip with crampons” – and learned to
climb. The VOC became school – “Can you give
me some pointers?” “Just follow me and do what I
do” – and Helen soaked it up.
She soon fell in with a ragtag group of skiers
that included such luminaries as Graham
Underhill, “famous for going all day at a pace
only properly called a run,” and Steve Ludwig,
a disinterested biology student turned telemark
fanatic. Both men would later become ski guides.
Ludwig would become Helen’s confidant, a coach
and mentor, and later her husband. But it was an
engineering student, John Baldwin, who was the
“inspiration and mastermind” behind the group’s
activities. In time, Baldwin would write and
illustrate the guidebook to ski touring in the Coast
Mountains, as well as other books celebrating the
wildness and beauty of the region. In the spring of
1980, however, he was simply keen to attempt that
A skier meanders across the huge expanse of the Homathko Icefield in the Coast Mountains. Photo by John Baldwin.
8
Helen Sovdat
which he had spied the year before: a traverse of the Lillooet Icefield, three
weeks on skis, from the Tchaikazan River on the interior side of the range to
Meager Creek. Helen got an invitation. It was the first in a series of annual
trips to one big icefield after another – and would result in the formation of a
high-level ski route from Vancouver to Bella Coola.
“What an eye-opener for me! I was still a neophyte skier, and it was my
first long trip. We landed at the toe of the Tchaikazan by ski plane, and
started skiing. I never looked back, but I always looked forward to our spring
explorations.”
E
Phyllis Munday and her child, Edith. Munday is wearing a packboard
on her back. Image I-61701 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and
Archives.
Tent bound in the Coast Mountains. Left to right: John Baldwin,
Steve Ludwig, and Stan Sovdat. Photo by Helen Sovdat, c. late 1980s.
Helen Sovdat at the completion of the Monarch Icefield Traverse,
1986. Photo by Steve Ludwig.
xploring the Coast Mountains gave Helen a strong base as a mountaineer,
and advanced even further her deep passion for getting off the beaten
path. Throughout the 1980s, the group – which now often included Helen’s
brother, Stan – would cross a half-dozen major icefields, many of which were
rarely, if ever, visited, always climbing peaks along the way. Mt. Gilbert.
Mt. Grenville. Klinaklini Peak. Monmouth Mountain. Mt. Munday. Mt.
Waddington. Cerberus Mountain. These are all big peaks – the highest in
their respective areas – and are spectacular places to be on skis.
One particularly memorable summit was Silverthrone Mountain, the
highest peak on the Ha-iltzuk Icefield, which is the largest icefield in the
Coast Mountains south of the Alaska Panhandle. Helen’s group likely made
the second ascent of the massive glaciated dome. But the real prize, for Helen
at least, was knowing who had been there first.
Phyllis and Don Munday, an inseparable wife-and-husband duo from
Vancouver, ventured deep into the Coast Mountains on eleven separate
occasions between 1925 and 1936. Their unique
style of low-budget trips involved sailing up the
coast for 200-plus kilometres, thrashing inland
for days until they reached a glacier, then skiing
from camp to distant peaks in thirty-hour
single-push missions. Phyllis Munday would
later receive the Order of Canada for her pioneering explorations, but also for her lifelong dedication to service through organizations like the
Girl Guides of Canada, St. John Ambulance, and
the Alpine Club of Canada. She was a trailblazer
in every regard, a humanitarian, and a role
model for women wanting from life something
other than the status quo.
“Knowing that they had been there in 1936 gave
me such a thrill,” Helen remembers, smiling. “It
was then that I became fully hooked.”
“I wanted to climb everything in sight.”
Guide, Mentor, Friend
9
Flutes of windblown snow
grace the main summit of
Mount Waddington.
Photo by John Baldwin.
Leading
There is more in you than you think.
T
his was the simple idea guiding the philosophy behind Outward Bound Canada,
a not-for-profit, charitable organization that
began delivering wilderness-based experiential
education programs in 1969. Their courses were
designed to be much more than just learning the
technical skills of rock climbing or backpacking.
They were to cultivate resilience, compassion,
and leadership through “challenging journeys of
self-discovery in the natural world.”
If Helen’s adventures in the Coast Mountains
gave her a solid foundation as a mountaineer, it
was Outward Bound, she says, that set her on the
path towards becoming a leader.
S
Alf Skrastins, 1988.
12
Helen Sovdat
Helen during her first year with Outward Bound, 1981.
he came to the ur-wilderness school via the Outdoor Pursuits Program
at the University of Calgary. A professional practicum was a degree
requirement, and Helen jumped at the opportunity in 1981. She was soon rubbing elbows with an eclectic group of international instructors, such as Howie
Richardson and Davey Todd. “These guys were rugged, prided themselves
on living simply, and exuded an expertise that I longed to have. They were
natural facilitators, and I wanted to emulate them.” The one-month practicum
rolled into a second as an Assistant Instructor – and nine years of sustained
summer work followed.
Outward Bound’s mission of self-discovery and personal growth deeply
resonated with Helen. She carried it forward to the University of Calgary’s
Outdoor Centre, where she worked from 1985 to 1987, creating and implementing outdoor programs for the public. There, now attentive to the leadership styles of her peers, Helen herself grew as a leader, and gained confidence
along the way. Much of that growth Helen credits to the Centre’s manager, Alf
Skrastins.
Skrastins had co-founded the award-winning Explore – Canada’s Outdoor
Magazine, even served as an early Editor, but his greatest satisfaction, he
claims, came “from seeing the pleasure and passion that so many people [had]
experienced as a result of being able to get out into wild places.” A quarter of
a million course registrations were processed during his thirty years at the
Centre, over half a million in gear rentals. Skrastins’s motivation was simple:
it was “to inspire people,” he says, “and to eliminate any barriers that might be
preventing them from getting out and developing a love for outdoor activity.”
His leadership style matched his outlook. “Alf was always hugely supportive,”
Helen recalls. “He was patient, calm, and inclusive. He always treated me with
respect, and it was incredibly empowering.”
Helen took her first guides exam in 1987.
To become a fully certified mountain guide in Canada is hard – hard for
anyone. It’s been called a veritable Ph.D. in the school of rock and snow.
Certification through the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG)
in the late 1980s required four exams at a cost of
about $10,000 in addition to the necessary first
aid and avalanche education. Just getting accepted
into the “program” then, like now, required a level
of proficiency that only came after years of hard
work and training.
The reward was great. ACMG mountain guides
held the highest internationally recognized
qualification for instruction and guiding in
rock and ice climbing, mountaineering, and
backcountry skiing and touring – signified by the
coveted blue badge of the International Federation
of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA). This
badge, recognized throughout the mountain
world, was a guarantee of professional training
and competence in all aspects of mountaineering
and client care.
There were fourteen candidates on the Assistant
Ski Guide Exam in 1987. Helen was the sole
woman in the group – but that didn’t come as
surprising. At the time, there were no fully certified female mountain guides from North America.
Not a single one.
“I was really intimidated by the examiners and
the other candidates, and I assumed that I would
be the weakest person there. There were rumours
of having to piggyback the examiners down
the hill on skis, and I knew that I wasn’t strong
enough to do that. And so, strategies for survival
kicked in – I kept a low profile, worked hard, and
didn’t expect anything.”
Rudi Kranabitter during
Helen’s first ACMG
guides exam, 1987.
The exam was a gruelling, twenty-one-day,
dawn-to-dusk ski-mountaineering ordeal where
participants took turns playing the guide role
while skiing or climbing up and down a route
selected by the examiners. When candidates were
not leading, they quietly followed behind, avoiding any influence on the current leader’s decision
making. The examiners mostly followed quietly,
too, taking notes, sometimes asking questions.
In the end, the fittest athletes returned home
bone-tired, physically and mentally. Half the
group passed, and were free to start work in the
winter guiding industry and progress to the
next course. But not Helen. She was one of the
unsuccessful seven. She was “mid-pack,” however;
and that meant the world to her. “I was thrilled!”
she admitted, laughing. “I wasn’t the weakest
person there. For me, it was a huge success. I knew
I was close. I knew I had it in me.”
Helen needed mileage. And she went out and
got it, happily.
Getting mileage on Mount Logan’s
East Ridge. Helen climbed the ridge
in alpine style (five days) with Karl
Nagy. Photo by Karl Nagy, 1994.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
13
T
Left to right: Diny Harrison,
Alison Andrews, and Helen
working for Canadian
Mountain Holidays. Photo by
Greg Yavorski, 2004.
14
Helen Sovdat
he exam process took Helen ten years to complete. Through it all, she received mentorship
from “the masters of the trade”: men like Pierre
Lemire, Dan Grifith and Rudi Kranabitter, ACMG
examiners in the 1980s and ’90s. Kranabitter, the
youngest Austrian to be certified by the IFMGA,
remains notorious among a whole generation of
Canadian guides, having earned the nickname
“Rudi Ankle-biter” for his near-ruthless attention
to detail and sky-high standards. Colin Zacharias,
who was a candidate on Helen’s first exam, moved
quickly through the program to serve as the
examiner on her last course in 1996; he would
become the ACMG’s Technical Director, and was
“a personal hero” to Helen. She held them all in
the highest regard.
“They taught me that the intuition guides are so
famous for can’t be learned in the classroom. You
need mileage. Mountains can be good instructors,
too. I enjoyed the exam process.”
Helen’s climbing mentors had been mostly
informal – and they had almost always been men.
That suddenly changed in the early ’90s, when
Helen met two other women working their way
through the ACMG program: Diny Harrison and
Alison Andrews. Helen revelled in their company:
“It was uncanny. We were all on the same track.
We all ended up in the Bow Valley around the
same time. We were all close in age. We came
from different backgrounds, but our motivations
were the same: We wanted to work as professionals in the field. I finally had some women to train
with! We had a lot of laughs along the way.”
Helen ice climbing near Lake Louise, 1996.
In 1992, Diny Harrison became the first woman
in North America to become a fully certified
ACMG/IFMGA mountain guide. She credits an
adventurous mother for placing her on a path
towards the mountain life. Good-humoured and
strong, Harrison playfully flustered her examiners
by wearing a borrowed Girl Guides uniform to
her final certification interview. Alison Andrews
followed suit in 1994, sans uniform. Two years
later, Helen became the third. The exact order is
trivial, of course. These were the leaders of a wider
group – along with Jocelyn Lang and Sharon
Wood – that would crack the mould of Canadian
guiding as an all-male profession. Now, actively
working alongside Helen are the more recently
certified IFMGA guides: Kirsten Knechtel, Sylvia
Forest, Lilla Molnar, Jen Olson, Lisa Paulson,
Cecelia Mortenson.
Helen never expected the path that began with
Outward Bound would lead to professional mountain guiding. She continues to run her trips today
with those same values. “I encourage my clients
to contribute so that they have a sense of ownership over the trip. They can truly say that ‘I did
that.’ And they can be proud. We work together,
support each other, and bring each other up.”
Summer Days
T
o attend the Alpine Club of Canada’s General
Mountaineering Camp (GMC) is one of those
quintessential “Canadian” things to do.
Perhaps that’s overstating it. Full disclosure –
it’s a wee bit more committing than, say, a scenic
drive along the Icefields Parkway, or a paddle
across Maligne Lake in Jasper. Club members,
however, speak of the ACC’s flagship operation
like it’s “a pilgrimage to Mecca”; that “everyone
should do it at least once in their lives.” Guides,
staff, participants: they all talk reverently about
“the special atmosphere in camp,” “the sense of
history,” and “the camaraderie encircling the
camp, not just the climbing.”
Climbing camps were once the backbone of
Canadian mountaineering. First held at Yoho
Pass in 1906, the annual summer camp has been
simplifying arrangements for individuals to climb
in the remote areas of the Columbias and the
Rockies for well over a hundred years now. It provides the occasion for the inexperienced to spend
a week and climb with more seasoned mountaineers. Because of the companionable setting, the
challenge of the activity pursued, and the absence
of other worldly distractions, the friendships and
memories formed can last a lifetime.
Helen attended the Farnham Creek GMC in
1987 as a volunteer amateur leader. She was at the
front end of the guides exams, and figured a week
of short-roping practice in the Purcells would
serve her well. She now laughs when recalling her
introduction to the camp:
“It was amazing to me. The camp was run by
Brad Harrison, of course. His father, Bill, had
outfitted the camps since the 1940s, and he was
there, too. We all hiked in from a staging area on
the Horsethief Creek Forest Service Road, and a
helicopter was supposed to fly in all the supplies –
the food, all of our personal gear – which we left in
a pile at staging. But the machine never showed up!
Base camp at the 2003 Snowy
Pass GMC with the Chaba
Icefield behind in early
morning light.
Photo by Roger Laurilla.
Climbing Mt Tsar with Bibiana Cujec.
Photo by Ryan Titchener, 2014.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
15
The pilot apparently got lost; this was pre-GPS, and
he couldn’t find the staging area. And so there we
were, everybody huddled around the fire, hungry
and without sleeping bags. To make a long story
short, it was a terrible night. But people awoke the
next day to the sound of the helicopter: thwack,
thwack, thwack. Suddenly, it was ‘game on.’ ‘We’re
going climbing today,’ Brad barked. ‘Helen, you’re
taking people up Mount May’ – and off we went,
five thousand feet straight up from camp. People
loved it, and so did I.”
B
Brad Harrison and Helen
studying maps (and drinking
scotch) at the 2003 Snowy Pass
GMC. Photo by Cyril Shokoples.
16
Helen Sovdat
Week Four participants and staff – dressed as pirates? – at the 2012 Sir Sandford GMC. Helen sits in the
front row, sixth from the left. Photo by Zac Robinson.
rad Harrison, the camp’s long-time outfitter
and manager, holds the unique distinction of
having spent more time at the GMC than anyone
else in the camp’s history. Harrison assumed
management of the camp in 1985, and dutifully
modernized it over the next two decades to
ensure its vitality. His frenetic daily pace in camp
remains legendary. According to veteran GMC
guide Cyril Shokoples, “many of the participants
were convinced Brad slept for only a few hours a
day, if at all,” in order to ensure everything ran
smoothly, one week after another. Harrison’s
enthusiasm extended to staff, on whom, he
maintained, “the success of the camp depends.”
Many, like Shokoples, have worked loyally at the
GMC for years.
“Brad’s work ethic and energy inspired me,” says
Helen. “He was also one of my biggest supporters. He saw me as one of the team, as equal, and
competent to lead. Even when I was working as a
practicum, he would make sure things were fair.”
Nowhere was Harrison’s support for Helen
better demonstrated than at the Scott-Hooker
GMC in 1993, just three years before Helen
earned her ACMG/IFMGA badge. A participant,
initially keen on joining a day trip, withdrew upon
discovering that a woman was the guide. Harrison
investigated and learned that the participant’s
hesitation stemmed from nothing more than an
outdated, sexist myth of female frailty. Harrison
convinced the participant to nevertheless go,
that “it would all be okay,” and returned to Helen
with only two words: “bury him.” The participant
returned from the next day’s outing – “crawling
on his knees” – with a new-found respect for his
guide.
Helen has attended nearly every camp since.
“The GMC is the highlight of the summer for me,”
she says, proudly. “The return rate is high, and it’s
a pleasure to reunite with participants and staff,
many of whom have become good friends over the
years.”
Helen’s most memorable day of guiding
occurred at the GMC in 1996. From a camp in the
Rockies, perched high above Icefall Brook, just
above treeline on the western side of the divide
between the Lyell and Mons icefields, she got the
rare opportunity to guide a group she called,
variously, “the dream team,” “the wooden ice axe
team,” and “the Legends.”
Richard and Louise Guy, both mainstays of the
club, approached Helen. She was the last guide in
camp that morning, and Richard informed her
that “some of the camp’s more, er, senior members”
were “ready for their big climb of the week.” They
wanted to climb Mons Peak, via its northeastern
slopes – and Helen, by default, was their guide.
Richard had one condition. “We want this trip
to run a certain way,” he said, pulling Helen aside,
speaking in confidence. “Make sure you do not
give us any breaks; no rest stops whatsoever.”
Helen was taken aback. Surely Richard was joking.
He was seventy-nine years old that year; Louise
was seventy-eight. And then there was Don Forest,
who was seventy-six; Ron Naylor, seventy-nine;
Wally Joyce was eighty. Each participant stubbornly wielded a wooden ice axe! No rest stops?
“I was shocked,” recalls Helen, “and then
Richard leaned in, winked, and added, ‘You see, if
you let us stop for too long, we’ll never get going
again!’”
Mons Peak was not an insignificant objective.
It required glacier travel, some moderate-angle
snow climbing, and a rock scramble to reach its
3,083-metre-high summit.
But this was no ordinary group. The Guys had
been attending GMCs since the early 1970s. Don
Forest had been going since 1965. Wally Joyce had
been a camp regular since the mid-’50s. Forest, in
fact, was famous for his stamina and endurance.
He didn’t begin serious mountaineering until
mid-life. Twenty years later, at the age of fiftynine, Forest became the first person to climb all
of the fifty-four peaks in the Rockies that exceed
11,000 feet (3,353m). Later still, at seventy-one,
he became the oldest person to reach the west
summit of Mount Logan.
“Halfway up,” recalls Helen, “I looked back at
the group and thought, ‘wow, this is so amazing.’
It was such a big deal for them. It was a very
special experience for me, too.” The group of longtime friends, “the Legends,” would never climb
together again.
Edie Shackleton, the amateur leader on the
climb, snapped a shot of the group on the summit.
It remains one of Helen’s favourites.
“The Legends” on the summit of
Mons Peak. Left to right: Wally
Joyce, Ron Naylor, Richard Guy,
Louise Guy, and Don Forest.
Photo by Edie Shackleton, 1996.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
17
Laying Tracks
“A few points the guide should keep in mind:
First, [s]he should show no fear.
Second, [s]he should be courteous to all and always
give special attention to the weakest member of the party.
Third, [s]he should be witty and able to make up
a white lie if necessary on short notice and tell it in a
convincing manner.
Fourth, [s]he should know when to show authority
and, if the situation demands it, be able to give a good
scolding to whomsoever demands it.”
– Conrad Kain, early Canadian guide (1935)
C
Heli-skiing in the Adamants
with CMH, c. 2005.
Helen leading on an ACC ski trip
to Mount Fairweather, 1999.
18
Helen Sovdat
“Where’s the pickup?” asks a skier.
“At the end of my track,” replies Helen, smiling, and then pushes
off into the white.
lients place tremendous trust in their mountain guides, and that trust
is usually given outright. Rarely do guides need to prove themselves.
The badge carries weight. Sometimes younger guides get called out – subtly.
“Wow, you look old enough to be my kid.”
Helen’s authority as a mountain guide seems to be never called into question – certainly not by anyone who knows her or
has spent time with her in the mountains. She has
nevertheless had to prove herself to win respect
on a few occasions. And it has had little to do with
age.
“There persists a general assumption that, due
to my gender, I’m somehow not as competent as
others. It’s rare to see; it’s always unspoken, but
it’s out there. As a woman, I’m supposed to be
compassionate and nurturing – which, I should
point out, you know, are fairly important traits for
any guide to have!”
Helen enjoys poking fun at the stereotypes. She
doesn’t get too hung up on gender politics. Her
strategy has always been to lead by example, and
on her own terms. That, for Helen, is the job.
“One incident that I will never forget – it was a
near-revolt, actually – occurred during an ACC
trip to the Wapta Icefield in the mid-’90s. I was
leading a group of men to the Peyto Hut. We were
in a complete whiteout, and in fairly complex
terrain. I had made a route plan and was following
a bearing, but travel was pretty slow. One person
didn’t believe that we were headed in the right
direction. He didn’t trust my abilities as a guide,
and tried to convince the group to turn back. He
Weather clears just at the right time
on the ironically-named Mount
Fairweather. While the views from
the summit were stunning, they
were fleeting. The descent was
Helen’s first test with a GPS. Photo
by Steve Ludwig, 1999.
wanted Ron Andrews, the ACC’s Camp Manager,
to take over, to lead us back to the road, but Ron
held steadfast: ‘Helen is the guide,’ he said, calmly.
‘She knows what she’s doing.’ Having little luck
with Ron, the anxious participant turned and
asked another group member, Ed May, a commercial pilot, to take over the navigation – Ed, after
all, was an expert at navigation. So it went, on
and on, for hours. I kept them moving, one step
at a time. I could hear resistance quietly growing
behind me as I pulled them through the murk.
There was no way I was going to turn back; we
were on the last leg to the hut. The group became
increasingly vocal. Ron tried his best to reason
with them, but tension was mounting. And just
when it reached its worst, I turned and said loudly,
‘Look, guys, the hut is right there.’ I had lifted my
ski pole as if to point, when – suddenly, miraculously, at that very second – the clouds parted, and
there it was, the hut, right where I knew it was.
There was stunned silence, then cheers and laughter. I was so relieved! We had gotten to the hut
exactly on track. We even made good time. But
the anxious participant never reconciled with me,
with Ron, or anyone else in the group. In the end,
he actually left the trip early. Everyone else was
pretty much blown away. A few of the participants
became my most loyal clients for years.”
For Helen, the Wapta trip marked the first of
many adventures throughout the ’90s and early
’00s with Ron Andrews, a veterinarian from
Vancouver and the long-time Chair of the ACC’s
Ski Committee. Ron’s son, Lars, made the introduction, fresh from a skills course with Yamnuska
Mountain School in the Bow Valley. Helen was
one of Lars’s instructors. The course changed his
life. Lars would tag along on many of his father’s
subsequent trips with Helen. They would run
successful junkets all over Western Canada. From
ascents of Mount Fairweather and Mount Logan
in the north, to the Grand Ski Traverses across the
heights of the Columbias, not to mention a halfdozen or more fly-in ski camps, Helen and Ron
breathed life into the ACC’s fledgling Mountain
Adventure Program, and defined the model for its
national winter camps for years to come.
“Ron was a gracious host, totally supported
me and my group, and always went beyond the
call of duty to care for the clients. He was such
a superb role model for me in terms of professionalism.” Their experiences were formative for
Lars Andrews, too. He is now an ACMG/IFMGA
mountain guide himself, and runs a successful
ski-touring business – Whitecap Lodge, near
Pemberton – with his dad.
Lars and Ron Andrews at the
height of the King’s Trench on an
ACC trip to Mount Logan in 1998.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
19
F
Helen with Jos Lang (left)
and Sharon Wood (right)
at CMH in 1988.
20
Helen Sovdat
or the past two decades, ski touring has
constituted roughly half of Helen’s winter
work as a guide. The other half has derived from
the outrageous adventure of learning to ski – and
guide – with a helicopter for a lift.
The Chinook winds were blowing hard through
Calgary in February 1988. The XV Olympic
Winter Games were about to kick off, and Helen
wanted to get out of town, away from cowboy
hats and noise. And so it was convenient that
Kobi Wyss, a soft-spoken senior guide, generously invited her to join a five-week work stint
heli-skiing in the Cariboos. “It will be good for
you,” he said, kindly. Helen leapt at the chance.
Mechanized skiing was completely new to Helen.
So too was deep powder.
Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) was
the premier heli-skiing company in Canada at
the time. The novelty that had grown out of the
Bugaboos in the mid-1960s was, by the late ’80s,
an expanding operation that boasted seven lodges
throughout the Columbias, with more on the way.
Today, CMH is by far the largest heli-ski operator in the world, with eleven
lodges and other areas. Over the years, they have pioneered the techniques
and procedures needed for running such a complicated and dangerous business. According to ski
historian Chic Scott, “they have set the standards
to which other heli-ski operations around the
world aspire.”
CMH was fundamental in Helen’s development as a guide. A fairly big mental adjustment
is required to go from a Zen-paced ski-touring
group to leading the charge down some of the
world’s biggest ski terrain at high speed, with
eleven or so powder hounds chasing you, unmindful of the risk. They’ve paid top dollar for the
luxury. But while hazard management systems
of modern heli-skiing approach “NASA-esque
complexity,” the guide’s intuition and on-the-fly
decision making remain absolutely paramount,
and are sometimes squeezed thin. “Learning
how to deal with the intensity of a fast pace,” says
Helen, “as well as the expectations of the guests,
always kept me on my toes. It was very good for
my own progression. That, and the skiing. I was
only a telemark skier when I started at CMH. But
I had some great support from some amazing
mentors: Hans Gmoser, Dave Cochrane, Erich
Unterburger, and ‘Kiwi’ Gallagher. Those guys
really made me feel like I belonged there.”
A stylish Dave Cochrane on Ha
Ling’s Northwest Ridge in 1988.
W
hat was to have been a five-week practicum quickly spiralled, like spindrift in
the rotor blades, into twenty-seven years of CMH
powder skiing.
In the winter of 2007-08, when Helen was
based at the Adamant Lodge, only eight of the
one hundred ski guides working for CMH were
women – the same statistics, more or less, that
are endemic across the wider guiding industry.
“When I arrived on the heli-skiing scene, it was
really only Jos Lang,” recalls Helen. Jocelyn Lang
was New Zealand’s first female IFMGA guide
in 1981, and relocated to Canada for the skiing.
“She was already in management, and could hold
her own with the guys. Jos was a role model for
all of us.”
Strides have been made since Helen first began
heli-ski guiding. “It’s getting better,” Helen says.
“Some say that it’s now ‘good marketing’ to have
women guides on staff. Women make up half
the demographic, you know; we’re now a ‘target
audience’ for the industry. That may be true. But
I don’t see it so narrowly. I see more women guiding. We’re here. And there are now more in the
[ACMG] program than ever before. That means
something, and it makes a difference.”
Today, as CMH rounds its fiftieth year in the
business, Helen works where it all began – at
Bugaboo Lodge. “It’s a good fit for me,” she says.
The magic of the area – the soaring granite spires,
the steep rolling glaciers, the expansive forests
Helen with Lloyd ‘Kiwi’ Gallagher in the Bugaboos in 2013.
– has been inspiring climbers and guides all the
way back to the days of Conrad Kain, the ACC’s
first official mountain guide. When asked, Helen
will tell you that for her, though, it’s not so much
about the destination. It’s about the people.
“CMH has adapted well to the modern skier
with their many needs and desires. We cater to
all skiers, from ex-racers to first timers. We also
have ‘Powder Masters’ weeks for our aging but
loyal long-time guests, trips for women, helicopter
assisted ski-touring and other creative programs
at all the lodges. The diversity is great. As for
the staff at Bugaboo Lodge – we’re a team. I love
working with them.”
Fifth, s/he should show compassion and be generous of spirit.
Bugaboo Lodge staff training.
Photo by Marc Piché, 2012
Guide, Mentor, Friend
21
Skiing the Granite Glacier in the Northern Selkirks during an ACC Fairy Meadow Ski Week. Photo by John Latta, 2001.
22
Helen Sovdat
Dressed to Climb
I
n the spring of 2009, Helen received a note from a long-time friend and
climbing partner, Val Pitkethly.
“Hiya, do you fancy climbing Manaslu this fall?”
Pitkethly was a Canmore-based trekking guide with a myriad of connections in Nepal, and she knew of a deal to share expenses with a commercial
group. Soaring to 8,156m in the thin air of the Himalaya, Manaslu is the
world’s eighth-highest mountain. Pitkethly knew it well, too. She had guided
trekkers on the twenty-day Manaslu Circuit nearly a dozen times – always
wistfully looking up. No Canadian had ever stood on Manaslu’s lofty top.
Helen immediately agreed to go. Only vaguely aware that she and Pitkethly
had a shot at being the first Canucks to climb the peak, Helen later told reporters that, “It’s not about the mountain. It’s who I climb the mountain with.”
H
Hamming it up for their ‘official’ expedition photo during a pre-trip
meeting in Canmore. Back row: Helen (left) and Marg Saul (right).
Front row, left to right: Lisa Richardson, Val Pitkethly, and Karen
McNeill. Photo by Karl Nagy, July 1996.
elen knew what it felt like to breathe above 8,000 metres. She and
Pitkethly had planned an earlier “dream trip” together – thirteen
years earlier – to climb Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest mountain at
8,201m, with three other experienced climbers: Calgarian Marg Saul, and
Lisa Richardson and Karen McNeill of Canmore. Cho Oyu, meaning “Mother
Goddess of Turquoise,” was an enormous snowy massif straddling the border
between Tibet and Nepal, just twenty kilometres west of Mount Everest. None
of them had climbed to such heights before. They were giddy at the prospect,
and by mid-summer had adopted a team logo: red high heels strapped to
crampons, a skirt, shapely legs and a purse disappearing up a mountain.
“Dressed to climb” became the punchline. Marg Saul, Helen’s go-to expedition partner, captured their collective pre-trip enthusiasm later for Explore
Magazine: “In a spontaneous move,” she wrote, “we dressed in heels, skirts
and beads for our ‘official’ exhibition photo. As we stumbled around in heels,
laughing so hard we could hardly breathe, I realized we were having fun in a
way we all hoped would continue.”
Manaslu from Samagaon, Nepal, 2009.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
23
Helen leads a group towards Larke Pass on the Manaslu trek. Photo by Bill Milsom 2014.
24
Helen Sovdat
F
rivolity was needed. 1996 was a heady time
in the Himalayas. High-altitude climbing
had always been hyper-macho – now it was
suddenly popular. A disastrous spring on
Everest and Jon Krakauer’s subsequent exposé
in Outside Magazine conspired to make highaltitude climbing the subject of intense public
scrutiny and debate. The group found it nearly
impossible to secure meaningful sponsorship.
“It was frustrating,” recalls Helen. “No one was
interested in supporting a women’s team on
an 8,000m peak. But we ignored the negative
innuendo. We had a project, and we were going
to do it our way. And so we totally hammed it
up. Why not? It was fun.”
Four weeks before their departure, Val Pitkethly
took a lead fall while climbing on the East End of
Rundle above Canmore. The accident was a bad
one. She suffered multiple fractures, and required
a lengthy rehabilitation. For her, Cho Oyu was out
of reach. Richardson withdrew in order to support
her friend. Helen, Saul, and McNeill – stunned,
and now on their own – left for Asia.
Marg Saul, Karen McNeill, and Helen in expedition wear at Ama Dablam base camp, Nepal, 1996.
Once on the mountain, however, their enthusiasm returned – with gusto. With eighteen other
Bridget and Bill Milsom with Helen on a Manaslu trek.
Photo by Sheryl Davidson, 2014.
expeditions sharing the standard route, the atmosphere on Cho Oyu was
decidedly… social. Marg Saul described the scene:
“Helen, Karen and I were a cohesive unit on the mountain, always making
unanimous decisions, helping each other, and sharing the work. Back at
Advanced Base Camp, we socialized with the British team and the Sherpas,
usually around the long table in the eating tent…. And we dressed up. To
the amusement of those at camp, we donned our new red heels, beads and
lipstick. It was contagious. Using our extra outfits, some of the guys, including the Sherpas, joined in….”
Helen and Marg Saul became the first Canadian women to summit Cho
Oyu. They did so without the use of supplemental oxygen. McNeill, who had
been battling an illness for much of the trip, was forced to abandon her bid for
the top, but was glad to play a supportive role from their highest camp: “You
really see what it takes out of people when they come back,” she said. “You see
it in their faces right away.”
One of the many to perceive the extraordinary competence behind the base
camp exuberance of the Canadian climbers was Henry Todd, the gruff-butextroverted Edinburgh-based owner of Himalayan Guides, a large commercial outfitting company. In the Everest scene, Todd was known as “the Mayor
of Base Camp” or “the Governor.” A Canadian climbing magazine once called
him “the Toddfather.” Todd wanted Helen to work for him on Ama Dablam, a
stunning 6,812m pyramid in the Khumbu Valley. He needed a guide – and he
needed her to start within the week.
‘Sure,’ Helen told him, cheerily. ‘But can I bring my friends?’
Guide, Mentor, Friend
25
H
In the thin air of Manaslu’s
8,156-metre summit. From top,
Mel Proudlock (yellow jacket),
Val Pitkethly (red jacket), Helen
(blue jacket, with flag), and
Tensing Sherpa (green jacket).
Picture by Rob Casserley. 2009.
elen’s adventures in 1996 were the
beginning of an intense period of global
expeditions and travel. From the high mountains
of Argentina, Bolivia and Peru to the frozen
vastness of Alaska and Baffin, Helen quickly
made a name for herself as an international
specialist. Big trips – tightly sandwiched between
heli-skiing, ski touring, and ACC camps – became
part of her annual cycle. To this day, she continues
to plot new adventures, and to seek out places
where she can share the excitement for the new
and unknown. China. Ladakh. Mongolia. New
Zealand. Russia. “I am just so happy that people
want to come with me on these trips!” Helen says,
laughing. But the reality is that Helen has amassed
around her a very large group of friends, clients,
and climbing admirers who would willingly
follow her anywhere.
In 2006, despite painful joints and fall-out from
multiple knee injuries, Val Pitkethly climbed
Cho Oyu. And so it made sense that, in 2009, the
year both she and Helen celebrated their fiftieth
birthdays, they team up and try that other “dream
trip” – Manaslu.
The pair, along with friend Mel Proudlock,
successfully climbed the mountain in the fall.
“The name Manaslu translates to ‘Spirit
Mountain,’ and I really felt we were blessed by
the spirits,” says Helen, recalling their summit.
“We were almost giddy, but exhausted at the same
time. We got a good 360-degree view – above
a few puffy clouds – of unclimbed summits,
the Tibetan Plateau, the Annapurna group,
Dhaulagiri and Shishapangma. It was amazing.”
But for Helen, the real reason for amazement
was her friend:
“Val’s accident was a near-death experience, and
for a while it looked as though she would never
climb again. It was a long, slow recovery, and it’s
a lesson in determination and grit that she has
come back to lead a life as a full-time guide in the
mountains.”
“I admire her so much.”
Helen helping Val Pitkethy (left) on one of Val’s many humanitarian
aid projects. Here, Val is delivering solar lights to various remote
villages in rural Peru, 2008.
26
Helen Sovdat
In the icefall, between camps one and two, on Manaslu. Photo by Val Pitkethly, 2009.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
27
Closer to Home
“The elegance of human expression includes beauty,
gentleness and compassion – the qualities it takes to
create a rich life, for anyone. Graceful is being human,
together.”
– Jill MacDonald, Lithographica
T
he Bow Valley has been home to Helen for nearly two decades now –
though she’s often away. So goes the seasonality of guide’s work. But the
community remains important to her. “I have been so fortunate in my career
that, at a certain point, I needed to figure out a way to give back,” Helen says,
her hair more white now than blond. When she smiles, her blue eyes squint
slightly, bordered by deep tan lines from a summer’s worth of work. At
fifty-six, she exudes competence, and remains at the top of her game. As Dave
Dornian, the Calgary-based climber and raconteur, put it, “She may wear
your grandmother’s colours, but that’s only because her clothing sponsor,
Patagonia, keeps sending her garments in pastels. Serious shoulders roll under
that mauve T-neck.”
Today, Helen is an ACMG examiner herself. “It feels like I’ve come full
circle,” she says. “Watching people transform from recreationalists into
guides is an extraordinary thing. To be part of that process is very rewarding.”
It also keeps her sharp. Mentoring the next generation of Canadian mountain
guides is nothing new to Helen. Because she’s run private trips for decades,
she’s always brought aspirant guides along to help out, and to learn. “It’s part
of the job,” Helen admits, frankly. “Plus, it’s fun. I treat them as equals, and I
probably learn just as much as they do. We’re a team.” The long list of Helen’s
practicum helpers reads like the “who’s who” of the younger guides’ scene:
Lars Andrews, Tim Haggarty, Conrad Janzen, Renée Lavergne, Madeleine
Martin-Preney, Lilla Molnar, Olivia Sofer … the list goes on. Helen’s proud of
them all.
Mountain guides Lilla Molnar, Silvia Forest, Alison Andrews, Jen Olson, and Helen at the 2011 ACMG
Annual General Meeting, Canmore. Photo by Ken Bélanger.
28
Helen Sovdat
H
elen still finds time for her own climbing trips. In fact, she’s presently
on the cusp of completing that ultimate Rockies tick-list, the fifty-four
“11,000ers,” which spread out along and near the spine of the Continental
Divide, from Mount Whitehorn in the northwest to Mount Harrison more
than 400 kilometres to the southeast. Many of the harder peaks on the list
were climbed with Anne Ryall, Helen’s long-time climbing partner and friend
– “my rock expert,” Helen calls her. Only a couple of peaks remain. But Helen
is in no rush. Rather than lists, she’s more focused these days “on simply
getting out and having fun.”
Her latest climbing partner – okay, well, he’s the
numbers guy.
Helen met Dave Jones in 2007. Jones is one of
those “‘invisibles,’ the small troupe of cuttingedge adventurers spread across the county who
are out there all the time, but somehow zip
along under the radar, only rarely writing up or
talking about their trips.” Instead, he cranks out
guidebooks – lots of them. Selkirks North. Selkirks
South. Rogers Pass Alpine. At sixty-six, he has just
released his latest meticulously researched tome
in the queue: Rockies Central. And Helen has been
running all over the range with him – “trying
to keep up,” she says, grinning – collecting beta,
pictures, heights and distances for the book.
“Helen is one of those rare partners,” says Jones,
“who loves to get off the beaten track and explore
mountains simply for the joy of being in the hills.
She takes everything in stride, whether a nasty
bushwhack or more scree than one cares for,
whether just for a scramble to a new peak or a fine
technical climb on rock and snow.”
Helen’s adventures with the guidebook guru
have forced her to reappraise the Rockies. “It’s so
cool,” Helen whispers, leaning in as if to share a
secret. “Right here, just beyond the mountains
that you can see from the road, are unclimbed
peaks. First ascents. New routes. It’s like taking
candy. I just love doing it!”
Modesty prevents Helen from claiming a place
as one of Canada’s most accomplished mountain
guides, though she is that. Compassion, inclusion,
respect, perseverance, strength, imagination and
skill: these are the virtues that have transformed
the kid from East Vancouver into one of the guiding community’s leading lights, and continue to
belay her to this day. Her example speaks to what’s
best in all of us.
Ice climbing with Anne
Ryall (right), 1997.
The joy of climbing, together.
Dave Jones, Helen, and Conrad
Janzen after climbing in the Valley
of the Ten Peaks.
Photo by Zac Robinson, 2014.
Guide, Mentor, Friend
29
Descending from a first ascent of
Unnamed 2939 in the Vermillion Range
of the Rockies, with Foster Peak in the
background. Photo by David P. Jones, 2011.
Helen descending Arabesque Pinnacle #1, Hatteras Group, Purcells. Photo by Larry Forsyth, 2013.
32
Helen Sovdat
Helen Sovdat Guide, Mentor, Friend
Helen
Sovdat
Guide, Mentor, Friend
Helen Sovdat is one of Canada’s finest mountain
guides. Her accomplishments as a climber and
skier are stunning. She has pioneered long traverses
along the crest of the Coast Mountains. She has
stood on nearly all of the peaks in the Canadian
Rockies that exceed 11,000 feet (3,353m). She has
climbed in the high ranges of Argentina, Bolivia,
Ecuador, and Peru. In Asia, she has scaled some of
the world’s highest mountains: Ama Dablam, Cho
Oyu, and Manaslu. Many of these adventures were
with members of her loyal legion of clients.
In 1996, Helen became the third woman in
North America to earn full certification through
the ACMG/IFMGA as a mountain guide. She was
a leader in a group that broke the mould of North
American guiding as an all-male profession. Now,
she’s giving back as an ACMG examiner herself –
and continues to plot new adventures, and to share
her excitement for the unknown. An inspiration to
a whole generation of guides and leaders, Helen’s
outstanding career achievements are muted only
by her own humility and altruism.
For further information regarding the Summit Series of mountaineering biographies,
please contact the National Office of the Alpine Club of Canada.
www.alpineclubofcanada.ca
Twenty-first in the SUMMIT SERIES
Biographies of people who have made a difference in Canadian mountaineering
By Zac Robinson