Skiing Magazine Highway to Heli

HIG
TO
68
skiing
FEBRUARY 2007
W W W.SKINET.COM
HWAY
HELI
It’s been a long road, but you’ve
finally arrived at the ultimate ski
indulgence. Load your skis,
watch that rotor blade, and
get ready for liftoff.
CHRISTOFFER SJÖSTRÖM
I
n 1965, the late Hans Gmoser, an Austrian living in
Canada, had an old logging camp, a Vietnam-era
helicopter, and a vision: to free his skiing brethren from
the confines of the resort. Forty-two years later, his legacy,
Canadian Mountain Holidays, runs 7,000 heli-skiing clients
down four million acres of wirgin pow pretty much anywhere it snows in the interior of British Columbia.
Gmoser’s vision had legs. In 1970, Mike Wiegele jumped into
the heli-skiing game with his deluxe Canadian heli op. In the
Lower 48, former ski patrollers Bill Janss and Joe Royer started
flying in Sun Valley, Idaho, and Nevada’s Ruby Mountains.
By the early ’90s, extreme skiers Dean Cummings and Doug
Coombs were guiding people in Alaska. Today, some 40 operators fly skiers in North America alone. In 40 years, the heli-ski
dream became the gold standard of the ski experience: a highW W W.SKINET.COM
stakes adventure with legitimate danger and face shots.
Heli-skiing has consistently delivered the best big-mountain
powder skiing money can buy. But it’s never been cheap. You
can hemorrhage an astounding $65,000 on a private week at
CMH. Still, there are plenty of heli operations you can almost
sort of possibly afford. Right this minute, there are outfitters
in North America offering trips that last from a day to a week,
with price tags ranging from $550 to $10,000, and you can still
scam a single unguided drop for as little as $75.
Sell your children to science. Donate your sperm or your
girlfriend’s eggs. Work a little harder. Switch back to domestic
beer. Just make it happen. Skiing’s biggest ride is worth every
penny. Before you know it, you’ll be choking on three feet of
powder in a cedar grove somewhere in the Monashees. And you
won’t be thinking about money anymore.
FEBRUARY 2007
skiing
69
FEATURED DESTINATION
O
n the fourth night, we
burned a snowboarder. Not
that we had anything against
snowboarders. There were three
among us, including Neil—the Brit
who’d plundered Valdez’s secondhand store for effigy supplies. We
hoped our sacrifice would prompt
the gods to blanket the Chugach
with that famous powder—the kind
that plasters 50-degree faces but
still billows over your head.
We’d skied four bluebird days on
wind-scalloped chalk. Our guides
ferreted out plenty of soft pockets,
but we sought perfection. I saw it
one day from a col on a razoredge ridge: dozens of 40-degree
chutes dropping 2,000 feet. Lines
like these made Valdez Heli Ski
Guides, Alaska’s first guided heliskiing op, famous.
My experience wasn’t typical. I visited during the season’s
only snowless week. Hopefully, I
de-skunked the chopper so you’ll
have the typical Valdez experience: five days of thigh-deep
blower and two restful down days.
About 1,000 inches annually
adhere to the Chugach’s steepest
slopes. Unpredictable weather is
part of the deal, and it pays to be
patient. We didn’t get a big dump,
but VHSG guides can sniff out
more white dust than Kate Moss.
While 90 percent of the Chugach
was encased in windslab, we
hopped among velvety stashes.
Later, I catalogued my week.
Long, booze-soaked dinners.
Down-day diversions like ice climbing and sea kayaking. Cruising
among colossal peaks. Torching a
dummy under the moon with three
Scots, four Norwegians, two Spaniards, and a Limey. I didn’t get any
face shots, but I didn’t feel robbed.
—SAM BASS
MAX ELEVATION: 8,500 feet
MAX VERTICAL DROP: 5,000
feet
AVERAGE VERTICAL PER
DAY: 25,000 feet
ACRES: 1,920,000
MINIMUM DAYS NEEDED: 7
(3- to 4-day packages available
as space allows)
PRICE: $6,600 per person
(7-day package); $60,900 for a
private group of up to 8.
CONTACT: valdezheliski
guides.com
70
skiing
FEBRUARY 2007
CPG TORDRILLO
OPERATION
(NOT SHOWN)
C
H
U
C H
G A
M O U N T A I N S
VALDEZ HELI
SKI GUIDES
Girdwood
CHUGACH
POWDER
GUIDES
Cordova
POINTS NORTH
HELI-ADVENTURES
* BOUNDARIES ARE APPROXIMATE
The bird’s-eye
view.
GREG VON DOERSTEN
Valdez Heli
Ski Guides,
Valdez,
Alaska
a short history of heli-skiing
1936: Airplane inventor Orville Wright denounces helicopter technology as facing “several seemingly insurmountable difficulties” en route to suc1958: Bengt Sandahl, the first known heli guide, starts guiding skiers out of Alyeska Resort, Alaska, using a Hiller helicopter with a Soloy conversion,
near Radium, BC, to otherwise inaccessible Bugaboo Mountain terrain with his fledgling Rocky Mountain Guides Ltd. 1966: Bill Janss heli-skis with
M A P BY I N T E R N AT I O N A L M A P P I N G
Chugach Powder Guides,
Girdwood, Alaska
MAX ELEVATION: 7,000 feet; 11,000 feet MAX VERTICAL DROP:
4,000 ft. AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY: 20,000 feet PRICE:
$4–6,500 for packages CONTACT: chugachpowderguides.com
THE LOWDOWN
Every operation in the Chugach has
access to the same kind of hairball
steeps and massive glaciers,
but Chugach Powder Guides
offers even more: a resort for the
inevitable down days, and access
to Anchorage and its amenities.
Based at Alyeska Resort, a mere 45
minutes southeast of Anchorage,
CPG will have you swimming in
frontier pow without isolating you
in a stinky man camp.
TERRAIN
CPG’s three outfits offer three
distinct experiences: The Girdwood
base gives you access to the
southeastern Chugach and tons of
resort and cat-skiing. Sixty miles
south in Seward, private groups
explore the mountains flanking the
North Gulf Coast. The new, remote
Tordrillo Lodge takes groups of 12
to a million volcano-studded acres.
SNOW
Warm, moist air comes in from
the Pacific, collides with the
frigid Arctic mass, and drops
anywhere from 600 to 1,300
inches annually on all of CPG’s
operations. Since the Tordrillo
Mountains are higher, their
snow tends to be lighter
and deeper.
DIGS AND GRUB
Around Thanksgiving, CPG
partner Chris Owens buys a heliseason’s worth (600 pounds)
of fresh king crab straight off
the boat for the Tordrillo and
Seward ops. If you’re skiing in
Girdwood, the Double Muskie
steakhouse fries up a mean
pepper steak, and serves sinusclearing jambalaya.
TIP FROM A REAL HELI GUIDE
“We allow it, but booking short
trips is like throwing a dart at the
calendar,” says Owens. “Down
days are a given, so if you want
powder, committing to at least
five days is a necessity.”
Andrea Binning
machs into a landing on her personal
glacier strip.
Hairier than the
local girls. Sage
Cattabriga-Alosa
peers down a spine.
Points North Heli-Adventures,
Cordova, Alaska
MAX ELEVATION: 7,411 feet MAX VERTICAL DROP: 4,400 feet
AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY: 30,000 feet PRICE: packages start
at $3,700 CONTACT: alaskaheliski.com
CHRISTOFFER SJÖSTRÖM ( TOP), TONY HARRINGTON
THE LOWDOWN
Cordova is just 15 minutes from
Valdez as the A-Star flies. But with
30 miles of rowdy Chugach terrain
between the two towns, it’s insulated from any sign of Valdez’s
five heli-ski outfits. Points North
is the only op in Cordova, a fishing
town of 2,500. Clearly, Cordovans
appreciate PNH’s business: Last
year, they presented owner Kevin
Quinn with the key to the city.
TERRAIN
PNH’s three A-Star B2s fly
north-northeast out of Cordova
into a massive chunk of serrated
terrain with more dizzyingly steep
chutes, spines, and ramps than
the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland. But nestled among all that
gnar are countless vertical miles
of low- to moderate-angle skiing.
cess. 1939: Russian immigrant Igor Sikorsky perfects the single-rotor helicopter in New York.
but his operation doesn’t last. 1965: Hans Gmoser heli-lifts skiers from an old logging camp
Gmoser in the Purcell Mountains, then, inspired, starts his own heli
op in Ketchum,
Idaho.
Skier:
tktk1966
ktktk
W W W.SKINET.COM
SNOW
Nearly 100 feet of maritime snow
spackle the Chugach steeps like
spray snow on a fake Christmas
tree. Avalanches occur, but not
as often they do in the Lower 48.
To ensure your safety, all PNH
guides are also forecasters.
DIGS AND GRUB
Cordova’s got a few restaurants,
bars, and motels, but PNH’s cannery turned lodge has everything
you need. Guests stay in one of 28
rooms, and Quinn’s three chefs
feed ’em three muy gordo meals a
day. Entertainment on down days
includes foosball, pool, Ping-Pong,
a climbing wall, and 800-verticalfoot shots at Cordova’s local ski hill,
Mount Eyak.
TIP FROM A REAL HELI GUIDE
“The Chugach is known for huge,
steep descents off big peaks,” says
Quinn. “But there’s more lowangle glacier skiing than steeps.
There’s something for every skier
here. It’s not like you’re required to
ski 50-degree chutes.”
FEBRUARY 2007
skiing
71
FEATURED DESTINATION
BELLA COOLA
HELI SPORTS
TLH
HELISKIING
A
N
O
D
I
A
N
R
T
E
N
A
Y
A
N
G
O
C
K
I
E
S
E
G
E
FEBRUARY 2007
O
A
R
R
skiing
K
T
72
S
Whistler
Nelson
SNOW WATER
HELI SKIING
* BOUNDARIES ARE APPROXIMATE
a short history of heli-skiing
The only good
pick-up line in
ski country.
1968: Rocky Mountain Guides opens the Bugaboo Lodge, the world’s first heli-served five-star backcountry cabin. 1977: Joe Royer, a patroller at Snowvada, and opens Ruby Mountain Heli Skiing. 1978: Canadian heli outfits form the British Columbia Helicopter and Snowcat Skiing Operators Association
name to HeliCat Canada in 2005. 1983: Eight US heli outfits join to form the American version of HeliCat Canada, Heli-Ski U.S. 1991: Helis lift competi-
M A P BY I N T E R N AT I O N A L M A P P I N G
R ANDY LINCKS
MAX ELEVATION: 9,740 feet
MAX VERTICAL DROP: 5,633
feet
AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY:
25,000 feet
ACRES: 832,000
MINIMUM DAYS NEEDED: 2
PRICE: US$3,500, single
occupancy, for three days
CONTACT: tlhheli.com
N
A
he last time I topped off a
$250 dinner with a $15 glass
of single-malt scotch, I was
partying recklessly with a French
professor in 1996. The last time I ate
a $250 dinner with a private helicopter sitting outside the front door
was back in nineteen-ninety-never.
It’s the third day of a five-day
trip at TLH Heliskiing, 125 miles
north of Vancouver, BC. So far,
I’ve gorged on pecan-encrusted
pork loin and homemade chocolate torte. I’ve downed at least
two bottles of $50 wine and skied
a total of 85,000 vertical feet in
powder so virginal it would make
Mother Teresa blush. And right
now, Edgar, a CEO from Munich,
Germany, wants to celebrate his
52nd birthday with another bottle
of Dom. “Es ist mein Geburtstag,”
he shouts. “Getränk!” I say, “Fill
’er up!”
There’s a reason affluent
Europeans book with TLH. The
company flies two skier groups
per heli (more skiing, less waiting)
in the remote, big-mountain-filled
South Chilcotin range. For four
days we drop 2,500-foot runs in
thigh-deep snow past jade-green
glaciers into enormous U-shaped
valleys, racking up 121,000 vertical feet without crossing a single
track. Then it’s back to the lodge
to work on my “heli belly,” a fivepound affliction brought on by
fresh cheese and rich pies.
When grounded, Edgar and
I have nothing in common but
an affinity for good booze. But
out in the terrain, stupid jokes,
brought on by heli bliss, become
the great equalizer. As Edgar
yodels down another 3,000-foot
line, I fall in alongside him, Edgar wiggling three turns for each
one of mine. And I yodel.
—RACHEL ODELL
A
O
T
C
C
TLH
Heliskiing,
South Chilcotin Mountains, BC
Snowwater Heli Skiing,
Nelson, British Columbia
MAX ELEVATION: 9,000 feet MAX VERTICAL DROP: 4,100 feet
AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY: 25,000 feet PRICE: US$3,250 for
three days CONTACT: snowwater.com
THE LOWDOWN
Snowwater dishes up expert
terrain in the Selkirks, located in
BC’s Kootenay region. A standby
snowcat at the lodge guarantees
you’ll ski every day, even if the
sky’s elephant gray and the bird’s
grounded. Up to 12 guests stay
and eat at the remote lodge 20
miles west of Nelson.
TERRAIN
You’ll ski 40-degree glades of
old-growth Engelmann spruce,
3,000-foot north- and east-facing snow traps, and 45-degree
high-alpine lines slicing through
granite cliffs. With a permit for the
Bonnington, Nelson, and Valhalla
micro-ranges, Snowwater’s got
access to it all.
SNOW
Weather nerds call the snowpack
“intercontinental,” but locals
simply say “blower.” The Kootenay
cold smoke starts falling in Octo-
ber and blasts into May. It’s lighter
than coastal snow and, with an
average 550 inches, far deeper
than the Canadian Rockies’.
DIGS AND GRUB
Co-owner and guide Patric
Maloney built the lodge himself.
Leather furniture, surroundsound stereo, high-speed
Internet, and a hot tub provide
creature comforts, and the
unattached yurt doubles as
a massage and yoga studio.
Maloney’s a foodie, and hires
top-certified chefs to prepare
five-star meals.
TIP FROM A REAL HELI
GUIDE
“Make sure you have comfortable boots, and use our fat skis
[104 millimeters in the waist],”
says Maloney. “We supply the
best gear for what we do, which
makes the skiing much more
enjoyable.”
Basket-weaving in
the Bella Coolas.
Chris Winter snowwaters himself in
the Kootenays.
Bella Coola Heli Sports,
Bella Coola, British Columbia
MAX ELEVATION: up to 9,500 feet MAX VERRTICAL DROP:
5,000 feet AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY: 20,000 feet PRICE:
US$3,300 for three days CONTACT: bellacoolahelisports.com
THE LOWDOWN
Bella Coola Heli Sports has
exclusive rights to 2,300 square
miles—1.5 million acres—in the
giant Bella Coola mountains,
which stretch from sea level
to 10,000 feet. Film crews, pro
athletes, and passionate skiers
return annually to this remote
operation 250 miles (an hour and
a half by air) north of Vancouver.
ERIC BERGER (2)
TERRAIN
The landscape ranges from golfcourse fairways to breath-stopping
steeps. Expert runs drop up to
5,000 feet. On one of the largest
heli-skiing tenures in the world,
you’re guaranteed solitude amidst
glaciers, rock, snow, and ice.
bird, Utah, spies a lonely, powder-choked mountain range north of Interstate 80 near Elko, Ne(BCHSSOA—phew) to define standards and operating guidelines. The association changed its
tors to the top of their runs in the first World Extreme Skiing Competition,
in Valdez,
Alaska.
Skier:
tktktktktktk
W W W.SKINET.COM
SNOW
Since Bella Coola is on the lee
side of the Coast range, the
snow’s colder and drier here
than in, say, Whistler. Febru-
ary and March are typically the
snowiest months, and the region
averages about 35 feet of snow
each season.
DIGS AND GRUB
Guests sleep in newly constructed double-occupancy log
cabins and hang out and eat in
the Tweedsmuir Lodge, a historic
building with polished wood
floors, overstuffed furniture, a
15-person dining room, and a
spa. The chefs serve local seafood and high-quality meat, like
rack of lamb.
TIP FROM A REAL HELI GUIDE
“You’re not always going to ski
powder, so you need to know
how to handle any type of snow
that isn’t groomed,” says company president and guide Peter
“Swede” Mattsson. “And be in
shape. The more fit you are, the
more fun you are going to have.”
FEBRUARY 2007
skiing
73
FEATURED DESTINATION
Ruby
Mountain
Heli Skiing,
Lamoille,
Nevada
Sun Valley
SUN VALLEY
HELI SKIING
Y
MAX ELEVATION: 11,387 feet
MAX VERTICAL DROP: 2,500
feet
AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY:
39,000 feet (guaranteed over
three days)
ACRES: 200,000
MINIMUM DAYS NEEDED: 3
PRICE: $3,300 for three days
CONTACT: helicopterskiing.com
74
skiing
FEBRUARY 2007
Lamoille
RUBY
MOUNTAIN
HELI SKI
WASATCH
POWDERBIRD
GUIDES
* BOUNDARIES ARE APPROXIMATE
a short history of heli-skiing
Look who’s mowing
lawns now.
1991: Doug Coombs pioneers several first descents in the Chugach Range. 1991: Russians Nikolay Veelovskiy and Vitaly Ilinykh
the Caucuses Mountains. Heli ops open throughout the world. 2001: Gordon Campbell, the new premier of BC, makes issuing permit
Intrawest Corporation buys Canadian Mountain Holidays, the largest heli operation in the world.
M A P BY I N T E R N AT I O N A L M A P P I N G
JOE ROYER
ou don’t want to read about
me going heli-skiing. I know
this because I never want to
read about someone else going
heli-skiing either. It’s gloating. It
would be like Brad Pitt sending
out a mass e-mail every time he
sees Angelina step out of the
shower. Well, screw you and your
little e-mails, Brad, and screw
the “aren’t I blessed” travel narrative too.
I don’t gloat. So when I got
back from my three days at Ruby
Mountain Heli Skiing in Lamoille,
Nevada, last winter (my first
time ever heli-skiing, mind you),
I didn’t tell my co-workers how
light and dry the shin-deep snow
was. I said nothing about the
incredible dropoff and pickup
efficiencies that owner and lead
guide Joe Royer has put in place
over the past 30 years. Do you
think I’d tell my wife that there
were only six skiers in our group,
or that Joe’s wife Francy is an
amazing cook? I’d rather swallow
cyanide. While I was resting my
ski legs by the fire nursing a beer,
the little lady was at home changing diapers and chipping dried
Cheerios off the furniture.
I know I have it easy now, but
I used to work for a living. I’ve
gutted cod, scrubbed toilets, and
mowed more lawns than Forrest
friggin’ Gump. Heli-skiing is an
expensive pursuit that offers the
best experience the sport has to
offer. I never thought I’d be able
to go. Because of that I wrote
it off as overpriced. It’s not. At
Ruby Mountain Heli anyway, you
get what you pay for. It ruined
me, in fact. I’ll be saving money
for heli-skiing while I’m in my
80s. And then, on my deathbed,
I’ll tell my grandkids all about it.
—MARC PERUZZI
Sun Valley Heli Skiing,
Sun Valley, Idaho
Hey buddy, watch
where you sneeze
next time, eh?
MAX ELEVATION: 10,500 feet MAX VERTICAL DROP: 4,000 vertical feet AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY: 12,000 feet PRICE: $875
per day CONTACT: sunvalleyheliski.com
THE LOWDOWN
“When God invented ski mountains, he created the mountains
surrounding Sun Valley,” says
veteran guide Sigi Vogl. Manning
the oldest heli-op in the Lower
48, Sun Valley Heli Ski’s guides
draw from a century of collective
experience and fly you to yawning
bowls and towering ridgelines in
three south-central Idaho ranges.
TERRAIN
SVHS boasts a 750-square-mile
permit area that serves up 30degree powder fields off Phantom
Ridge; sparsely treed, 4,000-foot
leg burners on 10,500-foot
Otteson Peak; and remote 1,700foot cruisers all over Paradise
Peak. If conditions are right and
your guides green-light the chutes
off Big Peak, you’re in for a treat.
SNOW
Subzero temperatures dry out
snow and put a powdery finish
on even the warmest, wettest
dumps. Translation: recycledto-fluffy face shots for up to four
weeks after a storm. Come in
January for the best pow, February for guaranteed-bluebird fly
days, and April for more corn
than an Indiana harvest festival.
DIGS AND GRUB
Score down-home cookin’ at
the newly built Smoky Mountain
Lodge ($4,300 per person for
three days of skiing and two
nights’ fly-in lodging), 20 chopper miles west of Sun Valley.
Staying in Ketchum? Hit the
Sawtooth Club on Main Street
and wobble home to the Best
Western Tyrolean (from $129 a
night; bestwestern.com/
tyroleanlodge).
TIP FROM A REAL HELI GUIDE
“If you come in January (the
snowiest month), wait out the
storms for a fly day,” says owner
and guide Mark Baumgardner.
“It’s worth it.”
Wasatch Powderbird
Guides, Snowbird, Utah
MAX ELEVATION: 11,500 feet MAX VERTICAL DROP: 4,000 feet
AVERAGE VERTICAL PER DAY: 15,000 feet PRICE: $630–$910,
depending on time of season CONTACT: powderbird.com
HILL ARY MAYBERY ( TOP). WILL WISSMAN
THE LOWDOWN
When the snow junkies have
mainlined every last scrap of
powder at nearby Snowbird and
Alta, Wasatch Powderbird Guides
will fly you away from it all. Chase
the guide and staff—a team of
ex-freeskiing champs and local
patrollers—through mellow fluff
piles and untracked bowls in an
80,000-acre permit area.
Alta? What’s Alta?
Heh, heh, heh, heh.
found the Moscow-based heli op Vertikalny Mir and start offering heli packages in
requests from heli operators a priority, giving rise to an influx of new outfits. 2005:
W W W.SKINET.COM
TERRAIN
Investment bankers on teambuilding trips like the low-angle,
wide-open powder fields of the
2,000-foot Terrace Run. If you
must join them, spice things up by
popping off wind drifts and charging
pockets between aspens and firs.
Need steeper? Request Cardiac
Bowl, a 35-degree plunge into a few
thousand feet of the deep.
SNOW
Utah skiers probably coined the
term “puking.” Storm clouds
from the west suck moisture
from the Great Salt Lake, chill it
to 32 degrees, then regurgitate
500 inches of it on the Wasatch
each winter. Make those GREATEST
SNOW ON EARTH plates prove it.
DIGS AND GRUB
Soak your tree trunks in the
rooftop hot tub at the Cliff Lodge
(from $349 a night; snowbird
.com) before gorging yourself on
the best sushi in the intermountain region at the Aerie Lodge
one floor down. Feeling walled
in by the canyon? Head to SLC
for debauchery within blocks of
Temple Square.
TIP FROM A REAL HELI GUIDE
“Keep smiling,” says lead guide
Mike Olson. “Confidence is a
huge thing.” Translation: Once
the chopper drops you off, there’s
no easy way down. But if you can
hold your own in Utah resorts’
back bowls, you’re good to go.
FEBRUARY 2007
skiing
75