JASPER, Alberta -- It was good to know that Mike McClelland was unflappable, because he was about to land his 14-seat Bell helicopter on a precarious ledge in the Canadian Rockies with a 1,000-foot drop behind him, a dramatic slope in front, and a rock wall to his left, just 2 feet beyond the chopper's blades.

Mike wore a look of deep concentration, rather than his usual ear-to-ear grin.

''I wasn't worried," he later told us. ''Just wanted to get it right."

Eight of us were counting on him to get us safely into the chopper and off the ridgeline at 8,000 feet, in the middle of British Columbia's remote Cariboo Range. It was almost dinnertime, after all, and we had a French chef waiting in the kitchen.

Paul Langevin, our hiking guide, stood on a spot he had cleared of big rocks and held a pink flag over his head, to give McClelland a visual on wind direction. Kristen Fawcett sat in the back seat of the chopper, looking down at us with a look of disbelief on her face.

''I was thinking, 'We're not really going to land there!' " she later recalled.

McClelland positioned the helicopter, swooped in and landed -- well, sort of. The back third of the chopper's landing gear dangled out over the ledge, but he held the machine steady. Langevin pulled open the door and waved us inside.

Quickly, yet delicately, we all climbed into the helicopter, which now hovered several inches above ground, and then swapped celebratory high-fives and hugs as the chopper lifted off and banked hard right, away from the rock wall. McClelland was the hero, but we all had a lot to celebrate: We had just hiked across a glacier and 2,000 feet up a steep ridgeline toward the Crazy Horse summit, and then leaped into a hovering aircraft.

Two days earlier, we had all been strangers, exchanging polite introductions as we literally geared up for our adventure at Canadian Mountain Holiday's wilderness lodge.

CMH is probably best known, at least among winter crowds, for its fabulous lodge-based heli-skiing trips around the British Columbia wilderness. Hans Gmoser, the company's founder, invented heli-skiing 40 years ago and now CMH fills its backcountry lodges each winter with adventurous skiers and snowboarders in search of the perfect powder run in a place where there is plenty of elbow room and the only lines are those that skiers leave behind on the mountainsides.

Come summer, CMH runs heli-hiking trips from its five wilderness lodges -- in the Cariboo, Bugaboo, Selkirk, and Purcell areas of the Rockies -- into some of Western Canada's most far-flung and breathtaking settings.

It would take days to access these mountains on foot, and you'd have to shoulder a good week's worth of supplies (including all camping equipment) just to reach the spots where we were beginning our heli-hikes. With CMH, it was simply a 10- to 15-minute flight aboard our aerial limo to get to glaciers, mountaintops, and remote alpine meadows. Then, we hiked for miles upon miles, toting only daypacks that held extra clothes and a few snacks and energy bars.

At the end of each day, we returned to our cozy mountain lodge, where we had beds with down comforters, a sauna, a pool table, a climbing wall, musical instruments, and a full bar, not to mention first-rate food (Claude Harvie, our French chef, received a round of applause each night at dinner). For those unable to unplug, there was even high-speed Internet at a computer tucked away in a nook on the first floor.

Hikers arrive by helicopter and are immediately provided with gear: a warm and waterproof Helly Hansen jacket and rain pants, plus a daypack, water bottle, hiking pole (typically an old ski pole), and a pair of heavyweight, all-leather boots (Solomons, Garmonts, and Tecnicas). For comfort, you bring your own, broken-in hiking boots if you have them.

The lodge can accommodate 44 guests, but had only 22, ranging in age from 17 to 75, the week I was there. CMH divided us into three groups, based on our abilities and interests. Some of us wanted to hike hard and fast and test our mettle on exposed ridges and summits (we called ourselves the ''high and wild" group), whereas others preferred to wander through meadows of alpine flowers and stick to lower elevations (the ''meadows" group).

Our days fell into a natural rhythm: wake-up bell at 7 a.m., stretch class at 7:30, breakfast at 8, and the first group of hikers aboard the chopper at 9 sharp. Over the next three days, we hiked thousands of vertical feet, crossed glaciers, scrambled up rocky mountains, traversed narrow, dusty ridges, and hiked through snow and across meadows with white heather, purple asters, and marmots. It was nothing our eclectic group of travelers couldn't handle.

We typically spent mornings in one region and were then airlifted to another region after lunch for a total change of scenery. During the afternoon hike on day two, Caroline Miller, a 75-year-old New Jersey woman who was originally from Austria, decided to stick with the ''high and wild" group and scramble up 8,400-foot Crystal Peak, a climb of about 1,200 feet.

''She never gives up," said Miller's daughter, Beth Weaver, 50, who was heading off to Zilmer Canyon for a gentler hike.

''It may be my last chance," said Miller as she set off, right behind 17-year-old Matthew Hoyle, an avid hiker from England and by far the strongest walker in our group.

The climb took us up a steep snow bowl and then across a boulder slope with sheer drops off the back side.

Sitting on the rocky summit of Crystal Peak, Miller said, ''This reminds me of Austria. It is more amazing than I ever thought it would be."

McClelland picked us up from the narrow peak, again showcasing his flying skills. It turned out he had logged 16,000 flight hours over 43 years, including dropping firefighters at forest fires with the precision of a surgeon. Now 64, he moved to Canada from New Zealand 31 years ago.

The morning of our third day, McClelland dropped us off next to turquoise-colored Penny Lake, so we could make our way up to the top of a hump overlooking the immense North Canoe Glacier. We walked beside cliffs with plunging waterfalls, saw an ice cave that had been carved out by the glacial meltwater, and scrambled up rocks that had grippy, stucco-like surfaces. Along the way, Langevin, a former Parks Canada naturalist, explained the geology of the area and gave us helpful, often humorous pointers on how to maneuver the terrain.

''You can crab up the rock," he said, sidestepping up a steep slab of granite, ''but don't cross over your feet because you might fall and that's considered bad form."

He explained how a glacier carves out the landscape, creating striations in some rocks and smoothing out others, and how it transports rocks and boulders and deposits them in unusual places.

Once we reached our outlook, he radioed McClelland, and we flew down to the North Canoe Glacier, where we hiked by deep crevasses in the ice, saw moulins (holes in the ice formed when glacial meltwater flows into crevasses), and then climbed a dramatic ridge almost to the summit of Crazy Horse, where McClelland performed that spectacular, nerves-of-steel pickup.

Kari J. Bodnarchuk is a Somerville-based writer and photographer.

If you go: Alberta, Canada

By Kari J. Bodnarchuk, Globe Correspondent  |  May 8, 2005