Up to the farm in Iceland for heli-skiing
A former SoCal surfer guides thrill-seekers down remote slopes with Arctic Ocean vistas.
TROLL PENINSULA, Iceland — Alan Bernholtz grew up in the San Fernando Valley and surfed off Malibu. But the ski slopes of the Sierra — and later Colorado, Alaska, the Andes and the Alps — lured him away from the Pacific Ocean.
Now the ski guide spends part of the year flitting from peak to peak in a juiced-up helicopter on northern Iceland’s Troll Peninsula, leading clients down slopes with stunning views of the Arctic Ocean.
He is based at a remote outpost in the Fljot Valley, where mountains rise thousands of feet on both sides.
I met him here in the spring on an outdoor adventure: skiing for three days on what is (almost) the top of the globe.
From Reykjavik it was a short flight on Air Iceland to Akureyri, a town of 20,000 on the Troll Peninsula, where my group hopped in a souped-up Mercedes transport.
Within a few hours, the transport pulled up to what looked like a pleasant farmhouse complete with a sod roof. This was Deplar Farm, and there were two helicopters parked in the yard. What appeared to be a modest dwelling was actually an elegant 13-suite lodge.
The next morning we flew to pristine peaks far above our valley base. After taking a few minutes to absorb the impressive vistas, we were off. The first runs were mellow as we found our legs, progressing to steeper pistes before stopping for lunch in a snow-covered meadow.
My favorite run that afternoon was a bowl we named Lost Glove, where I floated from turn to turn down more than 1,500 feet through soft powder. Then we descended 1,000 feet more to our chopper pickup for the next run of the eight we would have that day. It got better over the next day and a half.
That night over a dinner of Arctic salmon, Bernholtz told us a bit about how Deplar Farm came to be.
In 2008 he launched a cat-skiing operation in the mountains around Crested Butte for Chad Pike, the London-based owner of Eleven Experience, which includes high-end lodges in Colorado, France and Iceland.
“Four years after that, Chad was fly fishing in Iceland, where he saw the potential for a heli-skiing operation,” said Bernholtz, who is Eleven’s global activities director.
Pike dispatched Bernholtz and several other guides to the Troll Peninsula in 2013. They hired a helicopter and pilot, flew around the snowy mountains and were impressed by what they saw.
“The terrain was excellent for a range of skiers and snowboarders, the snowpack was more stable than Colorado and the views simply amazing,” Bernholtz said.
But Eleven needed a lodge to match the peaks, so Pike bought Deplar Farm, a former sheepherder’s home, in 2014.
Reconstruction of the 900square-foot farmhouse began that fall and by the time it reopened a year later, the building had been turned into a luxurious lodge with a spa, pool, bar and theater.
Tim Albinson, who lives in the Bay Area, first skied with Bernholtz in Crested Butte. The guide encouraged him to visit Iceland, and Albinson and his wife, Heather, made the trip in March.
“After four days at Deplar we were hooked,” he said. “The skiing was awesome, and there were a lot of other things to do. Where else can you spend all day skiing from rugged, snow-capped peaks straight down to the ocean, then après ski in a geothermal pool sipping cocktails under the northern lights? They nailed it.”