Banff Heli Ski Day.
We loaded up into a sweet soccer mom SUV and after a quick stop for breakfast at Tim Hortons ( a Canadian Coffee shop named after a famous hockey player) we made the drive into British Columbia. When we arrived we were greeted by the guides, Jeff, Matt and Hamish, plus a batch of fresh baked muffins. After a thorough safety briefing covering helicopter and backcountry safety we ready to roll out.
The excitement levels were through the roof as we loaded up the chopper and took off from the lodge, located in the hills over the town of Golden. After a quick 15 min flight we were on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere ready for our first drop. The first run blew everyone’s minds, we had the mountain to ourselves and blower powder everywhere. The energy from the group was amazing as we ripped through the bowl, down into the woods and out into a clear cut field that was the remnants of a logging operation. That was probably my favorite part of the day as there were leftover stumps everywhere covered with a couple meters of snow which turned them into the best pillows to blast off from. We ripped down to the waiting chopper and then blasted up to do two more runs in the same zone.
The guides had an amazing lunch packed for us so we had a quick picnic as the remaining clouds broke, giving us access to some even higher peaks. We loaded up and were on our way up into the high alpine. We did two more runs through a zone called Zoro, it started out through some wide open bowls with amazing snow and then wound its way down through a tree zone with more amazing pillows everywhere before spitting us out in a filled it creek bed/natural halfpipe that lead us right back to the chopper.
Once we were al knackered we made our move back to the lodge in Golden for some après beverages and lots of banter about who had the most faceplants!
Thanks to the crew at Purcell for an amazing expirence!
Check out the video below for some of the action form the day.
-Andrew
