Density. We all cope with it, yin and yang it, embrace it, avoid it. If you’re slipping into the latter gear, your best plan may lie in the Bugs. Canada’s Bugaboos, one of the continent’s premiere climbing arenas, offer an infinity of contenders for Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. The hitch is that they are so remote, most of their alpine treasures are never seen, inaccessible unless one can fly over vast areas with near impenetrable undergrowth and no roads. But for enough nickels, you can pick a season and hike and climb, or ski, not with cape but with helicopter.

So, if you do fly, in the style to which we’d like to become accustomed but probably won’t, in a Bell 212 twin-engine with crack pilots who are magicians in rarefied air and who can put a copter into a dive that threads a needle eye of granite spires like a biplane, the experience will redefine unique.

Consider the vastness of the area, spilling beyond the Bugaboos into adjoining ranges of the Columbia Mountains of British Columbia. The purveyor of this experience, Canadian Mountain Holidays, operates twelve lodges - five of which do hiking and mountaineering as well as skiing - across an area nearly half the size of Switzerland. Roll all the European Alps together, and that’s about the size of it. And there is a similarity to the Alps, being at the top, seeing endless peaks. But no people. And no jams of ski runs coming together where one wishes for a traffic light, no paranoia of a flock of ski boarders - though ski boarders are not discriminated against - flying out of a fog to cap your noggin. No groups skiing backwards throwing footballs and tempting the Darwin Awards.

Choppering in

This is where remote becomes art. Unbroken snow on glaciers and heart-stopping slopes off ridgelines, and very steep tree areas that test a skier’s mettle. Frequent flier Reb Forte, who has logged well over five million vertical feet, one way, during 20 years of helicopter skiing, speaks with a typical Bugaboos reverence - 800f customers return annually - that makes one wonder how dominant religions might vary if they started in those mountains instead of godforsaken deserts. A former hedge fund investor now championing a startup technology in the medical records arena, he lives in Squaw Valley.

But as he looks up his neighborhood mountains, he’s thinking Bugaboos, of how long until he gets to his preference, Monashee Lodge, with his buddies, how he can use the Squaw Valley firmament to condition himself for seven days of hard skiing, and if the Austrian zither players have polished up the theme to "The Third Man."

"If you can ski down an expert slope, you can ski up there, but you have to be in condition to take full advantage of your time," he says. "Each lodge probably has access to over 500 square miles of mountains, you want to experience as much as you can."

Once Forte took his son, Will, who parodies W on Saturday Night Live, and Will pronounced it the best skiing of his life. So, sort of a presidential endorsement, though that may be losing stock of late.

Katie Jane tests her rappelling skills

But one can be satisfied with royal stamps of approval. One small group was sitting around the lodge fessing up what they did back home, and when it came to one guy, he sheepishly said "I’m a king," and for the rest of the week most thought Carlos of Spain was a wiseacre and wondered what he really did.

Forte had the pleasure of skiing with the King and Queen of Norway and their prince and princess, whom he pronounced grand company. By the way, if one wants to be a bodyguard, one had better like skiing, and if one has to throw oneself in front of an avalanche, do it for the prince, that’s the bloodline. This writer is coming back as a prince.

Avalanches, and safety generally, are no joke. "You are pretty naked before acts of God," says Forte, and in such matters there is little comprehensive insurance. But Forte says the House minimizes risk as best as can be done. "Every morning the lodge guides coordinate their reconnaissance on snow, and it’s sophisticated. Four groups each have a guide, and a fifth guide is always out doing snow profiles, taking core samples and determining changes in consistency, as composition changes as its impacted by other snow and it’s been there awhile."

The runs are rated - green if every guide likes them, yellow if passing muster only under qualified conditions, and red if a single guide puts the kibosh on a run for any reason. "You’re doing something inherently dangerous," says Forte, and there are occasional deaths. "But most calamities happen if one doesn’t pay attention to the guides. The biggest risk, not unique, is for those who have had just enough experience, just enough knowledge to feel over confident enough to take initiatives that are ill-advised, like a shortcut too close to a tree and falling into a tree well."

Majesty of the Bugaboos

Forte has seen avalanches on slopes across the way, and he respects them, even the "sloff"s," one of which he saw momentarily bury a friend who made a turn in a bad luck direction, though his hand poked up soon thereafter from an unwilling early grave. Everyone has a transmitter that can also receive and that points arrows in the direction of someone who’s buried. If a section looks dicey the guide will pioneer it and then bring on the skiers - 10 or less in a group - one at a time over a carefully spaced expanse, always with an area designated where one can escape a tsunami of snow, like trees or a rock outcrop.

So, few copter passengers will ever have to saw off a foot to escape death, even to sell an article.

Forte reckons the average run at about 1,000 vertical meters, and that often sorts to about 10 copter rides a day. Some 100,000 vertical meters a week are guaranteed. Less than that, cash back; more, cash forward, but few enthusiasts worry about the advance after they’ve sunk the initial dough, a huge chunk of which goes to copters. Prices vary per lodge and season, but it’s not unusual to add up 10 grand for a week of skiing, including one’s bar bill. Some have done as much as 225,000 vertical feet in a week. It’s rustic splendor, way more staff - fantastic staff that prove great company - than guests, and the cuisine makes one’s lips quiver.

This empire of solitude began with Austrian Hans Gmoser, who in the 1950’s became a guide for Canada’s Matterhorn, Mount Assiniboine. During his off-time, he performed little mountain feats like the first Wickersham Wall ascent of Mt. McKinley. One has to be in awe of such climbs, particularly given the difference in equipment decades ago. In 1965, helicopters seemed like a good idea, and he flew with it. CMH now catches about 7,000 skiers and 3,000 hikers a year.

Skip and Katie Jane

Don’t stop with skiing. This writer took his 10-year-old daughter, Katie Jane, the Human Fly, hiking and climbing, and it was exquisite for both of us. Great pains are taken for family oriented sessions and kids get the royal carpet. Splitting off from the lush, wildflower laden valleys for a rocky climb led by Mikey Olsthoor, a long-term skiing and mountaineering guide, I was stunned by his surefootedness up glaciers and cliffs, skimming the edges of crevasses and their deceptive optical illusions, his guardian angel an ice axe he wields like a sculptor. Great to watch, then one remembers where he goes, I got to go. Mikey looks at a mountain, it’s like reading a book, like his near psychic reading of his clients’ abilities and reservoirs of remaining strength. Though one can’t recall exactly which crack in the rock he tickled or goosed with his toe, one at least knows there’s something somewhere one can grasp for a moment and advance inches here, a foot there, ultimately to find out no, that’s not the summit, more thrillers to come, but first a pause for views one struggles to commit to memory, with density now defined as someone up the rope, and someone below, and, things being relative, being the middleman seems crowded.