Leo Grillmair was born in Austria, and his fate and future was intertwined with WWII, mountaineering, Hans Gmoser and the origins and development of heli-skiing in Canada.

 

Grillmair, as young man, lived through the depression of the 1930s, carnage of WWII (when the Nazis invaded Austria) and the job shortages in Austria after WWII. It was during Grillmair’s years in Austria, though, that he was introduced to mountaineering and did some of the major peaks in Austria.

 

Grillmair and Gmoser (both being Austrians) came to Canada in 1951, hoping to find work and spend more time in the mountains. Both men found jobs in Alberta (Grillmair was a trained plumber) and it was just a matter of time before hiking, climbing and skiing became their passions.

 

In 1952, Grillmair and friends drove to Yamnuska (west of Calgary) and did what some consider ‘the first modern climb in western Canada’. Grillmair Chimneys at Yamnuska was named in honor of the climb. Grillmair and Gmoser, throughout much of the 1950s, called Stanley Mitchell hut in Yoho home, and they led many ski trips in the winter in the mountainous region.

Grillmair earned his mountain guiding license in 1957 from Walter Perren, and this official certificate enhanced his guiding possibilities.

 

Grillmair was front and centre in the growth and development of mountaineering in the 1960s. He attempted in 1963, with Gmoser and others, McKinley’s imposing Wickersham Wall, but blindness turned him back.  It was in 1963, also, that Grillmair became a founding member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.

 

Downhill skiing on groomed slopes was common in the 1960s, but Gmoser and Grillmair had more creative ideas about what could be done on skis in the backcountry. In 1965, both men initiated a two week experimental helicopter skiing trip in the Bugaboos in BC. The skiing was superb, the reviews were exceptional, and in 1966 a six week helicopter ski touring program took place in the Bugaboos.  The sheer success of heli-skiing made it clear that something permanent had to be established, so in 1968 Bugaboo Lodge was built, and Grillmair was manager of the Lodge from 1968-1990.

The Lodge was the first built as part of Gmoser and Grillmair’s Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) ’10-Lodge helicopter skiing empire, which changed the face of backcountry recreation in the western hemisphere’.

 

The transition from the more primitive and simple Stanley Mitchell hut of the 1950s to the more elaborate CMH lodges of the 1960s-1970s-1980s ushered in a new phase of off piste skiing, and Grillmair was at the centre of this transition. Grillmair’s second wife, Lynne (who he married in 1975), was essential to the success of the Bugaboo Lodge and Grillmair’s mountaineering work in the areas of both heli-hiking and heli-skiing.

 

Grillmair was always a softer, gentler, less driven and more diplomatic version of Hans Gmoser, but both worked (at times clashing) together to redefine what can be done in the mountains with creativity, hard work and

a loyal following.

 

The Grillmairs now live in Brisco (near the Bugaboos) in the Columbia Valley where much of their life has been lived, Lynne working as a fine artist and tending her vegetable garden and Leo a committed woodworker.

Leo/Lynne Grillmair carry within them the history of a transitional phase of Canadian mountaineering, and, as such, their lives are now etched into the rocks of mountaineering culture.

 

By Ron Dart

 

Books

 

Lynn Martel: A Life So Fascinating: Leo Grillmair (2009)

 

Chic Scott: Deep Powder and Steep Rock: The Life of Mountain Guide Hans Gmoser (2009)

 

Topher Donahue: Bugaboo Dreams: A Story of Skiers, Helicopters & Mountains (2008)