Day 50 - Heli-boarding!!!!!

Coast Range Heliskiing ran an ad in the local paper back in November: Locals can be put on a stand-by list and given the opportunity to heliski for half the price.  Coast Range will call you the night before if they have an extra space in one of their groups.  I thought this would be a great opportunity to try heliskiing (or heliboarding in my case) -- and for half the price, even better!

For those who aren't into the snow scene, heliskiing is where a helicopter takes you to the top of the ski runs in the backcountry instead of on a main resort with chair lifts or gondolas.  Quite expensive but very much worth it.

Our group was picked up from the Westin around 8am and we drove up to Pemberton.  Only two guys (both from Denmark and here on holiday) booked a tour for today so that left two empty seats for standbys.  I grabbed one seat and another local guy grabbed the second.  Apparently, a normal group consists of up to 12 people so we were fortunate to have a "private" tour.   I thought I would have been the only snowboarder in the group but three of us had boards and only one was on skis.  

First thing we did was get avalanche training and learn how to use the avalanche transponders.   The second thing, we learned how to safely maneuver around the helicopter.  Next, we had the time of our life!

Being up in the helicopter was thrilling enough, never mind about the perfect snow - vast terrain - and peacefulness of having over 200,000 acres all to yourself.  Words cannot describe the experience so I made a video:  Heli-boarding!!

Make sure you check it out.

More pictures on Flickr