SKIING HELTER-SKELTER
Heli-skiing is off-trail, downhill skiing that is accessed by a helicopter, as opposed to a ski lift. As Hugh Morris discovers, you don’t have to be an expert to experience this ultimate thrill
I’M lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. I glance at the clock and it’s past 1am. I sigh and roll over, knowing full well I should be able to drift off, but the butterflies in my stomach are having a hoedown and my mind is doing 200km/h. Tomorrow, I’m going heli-skiing.
Rarely have I been on such a precarious emotional knife edge. On the one hand, unbridled joy and anticipation — my first time in a helicopter, the drop, the isolation, the uncharted territory ahead — on the other, the fear — my first time in a helicopter, the drop, the isolation, the uncharted territory ahead. A question turns over and over in my head: am I good enough to heli-ski?
A major feature on any keen skier or rider’s bucket list, heli-skiing has always conjured up dramatic images in my mind of dropping, skis on, from a chopper hovering metres above a near-vertical, waist-wide gully into chest-deep powder, with nothing to get me down the mountain but adrenaline and faith. It feels like it’s reserved for world-class, cojones-rich pro-athletes and beware anyone who doubts that. And that’s what’s keeping me awake in my hotel bed in Sestriere.
The next morning, we’re taken by 4x4 to a small field-cum-landing area just outside the Italian resort where we — six of us — greet the two guides who will be accompanying us. They’re busy sorting kit for the day — transceivers, shovels, airbags. I gulp, but I know, because we’re told, it’s all procedure and the chances of us being buried in an avalanche are very slim.
Most of us are in the same heli-ski virgin boat. Glancing around during the safety briefing — pull the red loop on your airbag in case of avalanche, make sure your transceiver’s working, don’t stand up by spinning blades — I see the same expression of anxious anticipation on each face.
I check and check again the backpack that my guide, Giuseppe, has fitted to me, lay my skis and poles for him to load into the chopper, take cover 15m back, breathe deeply, and await our steed.
From the second I hear the chopper thumping from behind a mountaintop, my mind’s in a spin. I’m in the first of two pickups. The helicopter lands but keeps its blades spinning. My heart’s pumping — duck down, clamber in, belt on and we’re off. We whip up into the air, winding our way around peaks and over valleys. It’s incredible. I’m grinning like an idiot. Giuseppe points to a sheet-white clearing just below a rocky outcrop and the pilot nimbly whisks us around and down in a matter of seconds.
Thuddunk — first landing skid down — thuddunk — the second, then we're out of the door in a blur. Giuseppe and our other guide, Stefano, take our skis and poles out of the chopper's carriage cage and we’re directed to huddle together within touching distance of the helicopter, ducking theatrically beneath the thundering blades. I just have time to glance up at the oddly hypnotising spin of the rotors, taking it in with a backdrop of panoramic Alpine beauty, before its off, up and away.
Then, pulse still racing, smile plastered across my face, I stand up. We're alone. There is barely a bird in the piercing, blue sky, and all around is silence. The emptiness and beauty are astounding.
I calm myself and prepare to ski. The rush of the ride fades and I recall my fear of deep powder and petrifying gradients swallowing me whole. But as I glance around, it’s much more genteel. The hills of the Argentera Valley ahead, to the south of Sestriere and other Milky Way resorts, such as Sauze d’Oulx, roll on for miles, sloping this way and that, before bottoming out and following the course of a small stream, flanked on both sides by high, snow-splashed cliffs.
“Follow one at a time,” shouts Giuseppe as he slips into his first turn, the soft, midmorning snow spraying out beneath his skis. My group exchange nervous nods to arrange ourselves into a punctuated line, Stefano bringing up the rear. I mark my first few turns carefully, getting a feel for the spring snow, and then my confidence grows.
I cruise over white crests, nipping in and out of shallow gullies, finding my own way down the course that nature — and not a piste-basher — has created.
It takes 90 minutes to reach the bottom of the valley, where we await our lift. The helicopter is heard before seen, then within 30 seconds it lands. I pick up my skis and move towards it but Stefano gestures me back. The chopper’s blades slow before chugging to a stop and two men hop out with a hamper — lunch. We enjoy a picnic of local ham and cheese washed down with prosecco, the cork of which is popped with a ski, before being given a lift back to a peak just above a piste. We disembark and ski a short patch of off-piste on to a red run, then on down to join a chairlift queue.
I’m still grinning, satisfied that my nerves just got a little carried away. Heliskiing is not the brutal, cold-blooded monster of a death trip I let myself worry it was. There is a softer side just as exhilarating and frankly awesome without being cripplingly terrifying. It’s still a white-knuckle experience, but one for which the balance of anticipation can be firmly kept to childish excitement rather than blubbering fear; one for which you don’t need to schlep to Canada or Alaska, Italy will do nicely; and one for which you don’t need to be in the top percentile of revered skiers or riders — half decent should do it.
We’re alone. There is barely a bird in the piercing, blue sky, and all around is silence