Dropped on the top of a 7,000 ft peak, from a AS355 twin engine Aerospatiale Squirrel, with blades rotating at 394 revolutions per minute, you click in and point downhill to grab fresh lines down a vertical kilometer of untouched New Zealand backcountry pow in the Southern Alps. Meet the Squirrel at the bottom and repeat… 5 times. This is Heli-skiing and this is our day 2 on the South Island.
We spent a full day tearing through the meter of light kiwi powder on a bluebird day.
We started out the day by being picked up by the local Heli group and rode the hour drive down a dirt road crowded with cows and sheep. We eventually arrived at a little farm house in a valley surrounded by snowcapped mountains. We geared up and were given little beeping walkie-talkie sized boxes that we needed to strap on to our chests. These were our avalanche beacons! Eek! We were given instructions on what to do in case of an avalanche and practiced finding a beacon hidden in the yard. We were then prepared. Supposedly.
Split up into groups of 4 skiers/boarders, a guide, and a pilot, we boarded the helicopter and took off. We ascended quickly and flew through the white mountains. It was beautiful! We went up close to a few different ridges so our guide could check them out and see if they were solid enough to ski on. Some of them had winds that were too high and we could even feel it pulling and pushing the helicopter. Soon we found one that he liked. The chopper was landed and we hopped out into the Arrowsmith Range. Hopping in and out each time required ducking down over our skies and boards and protecting our faces and necks while the helicopter created a cyclone of snow around us. It was crazy!Our guide dug a snow column out of the slope to check out the stability and then he headed down. That’s it. We were just supposed to follow down this steep run that no one has skied on before and meet him a bit further down. No problem? Angie (a lawyer from NZ) started out on her snowboard and did just fine. Then it was my turn. Eek. Scary. Tyler says it was only as steep as runs that we’ve done before but I was pretty scared. So I fell. Of course. Then Nick (Angie’s husband) flew by on his snowboard. Then Tyler sped down, floating on the powder with tight bouncing turns. Quote from Tyler: “It was tasty gorgeous.”
We soon met up and continued on, going 800 meters at a time before re-meeting up. When we hit a good flat spot, the helicopter was called and we were picked up and brought to a new spot. It was exciting! But scary. And nerve wrecking. And beautiful!The second run was on more untouched powder. We hopped out of the helicopter and with encouraging words from Tyler; I was determined to do better this time. Then I hit a large pot of choppy crusty powder, twisted my skies over my head, gashed my ear off (and it was my good ear), and buried my skies in the snow. Ok so I didn’t gash my ear off. Tyler describes it more as a shaving cut. “What were you doing shaving your ears?” We soon were back on the light fluffy powder, making the turns smoother and more controlled.
After 2 and a half runs, we stopped for lunch on a flat spot at 5,600 feet. Our guide dug a picnic table into the snow and the helicopter came by and dropped the food off. We had a delicious lunch of pumpkin soup, salmon sandwiches, chicken legs, chocolate cake, apples, and candy bars. And the views were incredible! I don’t think there’s a restaurant around “with a view” that could compete. The other groups with other guides met us as well. Quote from Tyler: “It was yummy in my tummy.”
After lunch, with Tyler’s encouraging words and confidence building comments, I was hopefully ready to go again.
Then we “landed” on a ridge that was a little wider than the heli’s forks, with a steep rocky 100m drop directly below the door (as shown in the pic). Our guide got out first as he always did, pulled out our equipment, and we carefully maneuvered out onto more sure ground. It was definitely scary. One wrong step and we would have been over the cliff. Luckily, we didn’t ski off the steep rocky side – but instead took the steep wide open side (apparently on bigger snow years our guide had done the former). It was beautiful. By this time, I was starting to get a bit more confidence and putting a bit more trust in Tyler’s word saying “you can do it!” It was fun! And scary. Still scary. But definitely fun and awesome as well. Gliding over the light and fluffy white stuff was amazing!We met the helicopter and it took us to one last run at another peak. The top was beautiful and we got a group picture (by this time we had lost Nick to another group so it’s just us three).
The run was quick, steep, and wonderful. We waited at the bottom and after unsuccessfully lobbying for another go, we boarded the chopper to head back to the farm. Tyler, with his newly formed raccoon eyes, sat in the co-pilots seat and took some pictures of the ride back.We had some tea and coffee at the farm, then navigated through the cows and sheep back to Methven and were dropped back off at our Hotel. We hesitantly meandered to the hot tub as there was already a group of teenage girls singing the titanic theme song taking up one of the tubs. After a little bit they left and we were able to relax and enjoy the spa (and the IPA Tyler had found at the shop earlier in the day). For this reason, Tyler wanted to name the title: “My Bader in my left hand, my beer in my right… relaxing in the hot-tub after a day of heli-skiing”
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