Choppy start to heli-skiing
CARIBOO MOUNTAINS, Canada — I carved an S-curve of downhill graffiti on deep, virgin alpine powder, floating down amid spectacular snow-covered mountain ranges beneath a bluebird sky. Suddenly, I wiped out in a dramatic “double eject,” losing both my skis
OK?” she asked, brushing snow off my jacket. I caught the reflection of my powder-caked face in her goggles and we both began to laugh.
A few hundred feet below us, our Montreal-born guide, Jean-Francois “JF” Lacombe, patiently leaned on his poles, waiting for us, offering advice. “Don’t rush,” he said. “Take it slow.”
It was Day One of a fiveday women’s-only helicopter powder ski introduction in central-eastern British Columbia’s Cariboo Mountains.
At times the inexperienced powder puppies didn’t, perhaps, look pretty as they careered downhill, but everyone was relaxed, having fun and learning at our own pace.
Years ago I went helicopter skiing, hated it, and vowed never to do it again.
The problem then wasn’t the skiing; powder can be bliss. It was the rest of the experience.
I was a strong intermediate skier, had taken powder prep courses and then signed up for a day’s heli-skiing. I was buddied-up with a similarly skilled fellow and was dropped atop a pristine summit.
At the end of the run we carefully threaded our way through the trees to the chopper, only to meet with glares from our macho group mates who had skied hard and fast and were waiting for us.
They told us that unless we skied faster they wouldn’t get in an extra run before our chopper time ran out. I could see their point — heli-skiing is not cheap — but I spent the rest of the day pressured and stressed.
Since then I’ve listened to dozens of women with similar tales or who have avoided heli-skiing because they figured they didn’t ski well enough to tackle this holy grail of downhill schussing.
Yet I never forgot the exhilarating feeling of making turns on fresh powder. When I learned that Canadian Mountain Holidays, or CMH, offered a women’s-only heliski powder introduction, I signed up.
“Male guests told us in the ’90s that they wanted to bring wives or girlfriends on their heli-ski vacations, but that the women didn’t want the pressure of keeping up,” said Dave Cochrane, a mountain guide and manager of CMH’s Bugaboos Lodge.
“So we started a women’s“You only group with more guides and instruction for a higher comfort level.”
The ideal minimum skill level for heli-skiing, said Cochrane, who has been with the company since 1979, is someone who skis blue runs with confidence and who seeks black runs for challenge.
“It’s not necessary to have ever skied powder,” he said.
CMH offers mixed helipowder introduction trips throughout the winter at most of its 12 luxury lodges spread across 3 million acres of terrain, an area about a third the size of Switzerland, but there is usually only one women’s group per season.
This year it took place at its Cariboos Lodge outside the city of Kamloops; next January it will be at Bugaboos Lodge, accessed from Calgary, Alberta.
I arrived early in Kamloops to take part in a twoday heli-cat warm-up course at nearby Sun Peaks Resort run by Bodie Shandro, a ski guide and avalanche safety instructor who thinks first time heli-skiers benefit from a more intensive briefing on powder ski techniques and safety instruction.
We tweaked my ski moves, then I learned and practiced backcountry safety skills such as digging someone out of a tree well and finding hidden transmitters that skiers wear in case of avalanches.
“More women are trying heli-skiing in the past decade,” Shandro said. “I see at least two or three in every group of 10 skiers now.”