It was 6am on February 16th and I just realized my first heli trip was happening in just 2 hours. I ate a good breakfast and put my gear on. I saw all of my other friends still sleeping and all I could think at that moment was how they are missing out on this adventure. I arrived at the whistler Heli building for training. I had to make quick friends because these people could possibly save my life today just in case something went wrong. The first guy I met was actually a doctor. He was a younger guy and I think he was more of a executive desk doctor type, whatever the hell that means.
We did 2 hours of beacon and heli training but in the middle of the training, in the10 years she's been doing these tours, our instructor said she's never had anyone berried in an avalanche deeper than knee deep. That was a huge sign of relief for the time being. For whatever reason our group was the last to take off of maybe 6-8 groups. I'm not sure if that was us just getting screwed or due to our 11 person crew. Once we got in the air all of my new friends were extremely excited. How could you not be, we were about to ski / board down some amazing, untouched glacier bowls. We were in the air with Blackcomb to our right and we landed on this tiny peak. My first step from the heli to the snow felt like Neal Armstrong stepping onto the moon. Everyone strapped in and looking down this 4 mile long glacier bowl was the most epic thing I've ever seen. The first 50 feet you realize you're no longer on the resort or even the back country of the resort because you're in untouched knee to thy deep snow and the only thing you can hear are everyone's screaming due to how fucking bad ass it actually is. However you think / imagine how sweet your first Heli trip will be, throw that out of the window because you not no idea. After one of the most insane runs of my 15 years of snowboarding, all we wanted to do was do more.
We were back in the air and going to a peak 15 minutes from where we were. The 2nd run was a little different. After we dropped about 2000 feet and got off the glacier we started seeing trees and really cool hits like mini 10 foot cliffs and quarter pipes for some nice slashing and it was our longest rune of the day. When we stopped at the bottom of this valley the heli landed and we had food. I can't speak for everyone else but we've knocked out 2 of our 3 runs by 12:00pm and we stopped and met up with other groups who came down behind us and had maybe a 60-90 minute lunch break. That was a fucking downer because I could've gone and done our last run and maybe even a 4th, which we end up doing, and been done by 2pm. But we had this insanely long break filling out our bellies. After watching what we called "TEAM ASIA" come down our trails they were trying to get really aggressive with some natural features and these guys were falling so bad, i'm talking face plant and upside down vertical falls. From what I saw, those guys should have stayed at the resort and trained on the greens.
Now with full bellies and it was about 2:00pm we were arriving at our 3rd and final peak. This time was a little bit different, we had a staffed photographer / filmer with us. He was taking photos and filming eveyrthing he could. I didn't understand why he wasn't with us for our first 2 runs when the conditions were the best i've ever experienced . We're about to drop into this glacier that was on the north side facing the wind and when wind hits the snow directly a hard layer starts crusting on the top with the fresh pow pow underneath with freaking sucks balls. The first 1000 feet or so was great though, a little layer on top but still fun then we make it to this change in vertical which didn't bother me, but the fact the sun has set behind the peak in front and now is casting a shadow the size of Manhattan is my main issue. I couldn't see any detail in the snow and did a nice face plant, BOOM!! You can see this face plant on the below video thanks to the photographer catching it. I continued to go down with no issues but my food coma was stetting in. At the bottom we voted to do another run which of course costs extra. We flew about 10 minutes to our final peak and again, it was mostly layered up due to heavy winds. I made the most of it, trying to get down as fast as I could. The photographer was taking photos on this last run. I of course was the first to drop in like most of the day. I basically went straight down and waited for everyone else to get their photos. At this point of the trip I just wanted to get back. Again, this glacier / mountain had a drop in vertical with a gnarly shadow the last mile or so. It was now 3:30pm and that sun was trying to get away from us as fast as possible. The shadow was looking like night minute by minute. We saw there was a group below us and they actually had a level 1 avalanche which they triggered. They were at the very bottom and we were held up in cold shade for about 30-45 minutes. Once we got the go ahead it was beyond snowboard / skiing conditions. Our group leader told us to follow her tracks. That was also pretty hard since my goggles are for sunlight. This terrain was the steepest of the whole trip, and visibility was now 10 feet and the snow is averaging thy to waist deep. I was trying not to fall but it was impossible unless you had night vision goggles. I boarded by a guy in our group who looks exactly like Jack Black but he was from Austria or something. Anyway, he was berried so bad to the point his skiis were vertical with the front of his skiis facing down, yes, it was gnarly looking. I couldn't stop because if I stopped to help I would've been pretty freaking berried myself which would've SUCKED. I continued to go down to our finish point and I saw some other skiers helping him out. Since we had to change the finish spot due to the avalanche the heli had to land in the middle of this mountain and we needed to dig out a landing pad for it. The heli landed into the hole we dug out with the blades hovering about 4 feet above a snow drift. I thought that was insane to see in person and I wish the photographer got a photo of that.
We landed safely and had a nice happy hour with all of the groups who went out that day. Overall, it was one of the most amazing things I've ever done and I highly recommend it to anyone who's experienced and wants to drop $1000.
