Our Canadian Roadtrip Adventure: Heli Heli Heli

Back on Sunday 1st April I ventured out for my first ever time time heli skiing. The stuff of boyhood dreams, seen in so many ski films and magazines and now, at last, it was my time. Not only that but it was also the first time I've ever been in a helicopter and so I feel very privileged to have had this opportunity, it's been something on my bucket list for a very long time.

Canada is undoubtedly the Heli skiing capital of the world. All around the powder highway are various heliski operations, some of which cater for multi day packages where you stay with them in a remote lodge, eat their food, soak in their hot tubs and ski all day for many days in their helicopter. But this is the seriously big boys way of heli skiing and is way out of our reach. But then there are a few outfits who also cater for single day outings, such as RK Heliski which is based at Panorama, which was convenient as that's exactly where we were based at the time. It meant that I could wait until the last minute before deciding whether or not to go. Really last minute. I phoned them up at 07:30 am on Sunday morning to check if they had any standby places, they did, so 15 minutes later I had made the short walk to the Heliplex in time for registration, breakfast and the full briefing. And, getting the standby rate knocked 100 bucks off the cost, so not complaining at that.

Decided to use their Armada JJ skis instead of mine, only 183cm but wider and a fair bit stiffer than mine. They were good, seemed to plough through the deep snow with a bit more power than mine.

After the briefing we picked up the skis, loaded them into the van and drove around 20 mins to the heli pick up point. When the heli came in to sight I started taking some video with my phone but seriously didn't quite appreciate how strong the blast from the rotos would be and it completely blew me over, as well as almost blowing the phone out of my hand. See the video below. Lesson learnt!

Getting into the chopper for the first time was really exciting, following all the procedures and waiting for that first take off. Then it took off and, you know what, it was nothing particularly special, a bit like a flying taxi. Was really smooth, didn't do any rapid movements or anything , it just went up, flew a bit, then came down again. it was cool to see the pilot at work though and the views through the cockpit and windows were awesome. The landing was so soft landing on fresh snow, that I hadn't even realised we had touched down.

As part of the package we had 5 runs included, with the option to buy extra runs at the day's end, if time allowed and if sufficient numbers were willing. This meant at least 5 trips in the helicopter. As it happened, because of the way the day worked out we managed 7 flights. One of the extra ones was a freebie, because due to the weather the runs were shorter than normal so to keep us sweet RK threw in an extra one. Nice touch. The other extra run was a bought one. Some opted for another run and I would have too had they offered something tougher, say through the trees, or something nice and steep, but they didn't, so I didn't. So from a helicopter virgin to 7 flights in one day ... very good. Very good indeed!

The landing sites varied from run to run, as we moved around the Purcell mountain range. Some landing sites had been used recently, but others were fresh, so the guides literally had to dig out a landing patch ahead of the helicopter arriving.

The whole operation was really well planned with regular communication between the guides and the pilot. On this day there were three separate groups, all sharing the same chopper and it worked really well. Only on a couple of occasions did we have to wait more than a couple of minutes.

My only gripe is that the terrain was a little tame for the ability of the group. All 8 of us in the group were capable of more, a few knarly lines would have been good, or even a couple of steep pitches, but this didn't happen. I can only think that because the visibility was at times poor with occasional whiteouts and snowfall, that they were being cautious. The first run was a beautiful open bowl and really nice fresh snow. Not as good as the snow at Valhalla Powdercats the week before (reminds me I still have to blog that day), but very decent none the less. The second run started off poor, the sun had kissed the snow and formed a light crust, so they ventured off into some trees which was much better, in fact possibly the best stretch of the day. It was the most challenging of the day's skiing and I have to say was a little disappointed we didn't do more of this. The remaining runs were all very same'y, but the sort of same'y you could do all day long. Despite the lack of real challenge, it was really good and fun skiing.

When the skiing was over we headed back to base in the van, where I was greeted by a very excited Finlay, after which there were some snacks laid on and we had a couple of cheeky beers. Then I bought the obligatory been there done that T-shirt, bought some more beers for a couple of Canadian guys who, while out there, used my GoPro to take some footage of me skiing, which was really good of them and very much appreciated.

Great experience and a very big box ticked.