 "The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky." - Dave R |
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I've done 2 days heliboarding whilst at Whilster, both were great days.
The first time, I went into an intermediate group. There was me, the misses and about 8 teenagers from Japan. We didn't speak any Japanese (worthy of repeating), and they spoke very little English. But it made no difference. This was the best group of fun loving, easy going guys and girls that anyone would wish to spend a day with.
When the helicopter dumped us on our first peak and pulled away to get the next group, the blast wind stopped, there was nothing but silence, and these guys stood up whooping and a hollering, jumping up and down giving each other high fives. It was infectious. They ended up doing that after every drop off, and never stopped.
The riding was super sweet, although nothing that steep, the powder was really good, and most of the stuff was above the treeline.
One down side of the day was the first run, which ended up in the trees and flattened out. Myself and many others lost the guide through the trees although we knew where to go, but I ended up having to hike out of the spot I ended up in. Not exactly what I paid for. The guide realised that no-one had enjoyed that bit, apologised profusely and offered us another run at the end of the day, no charge. Nice one.
Another down side was the fact that my goggles kept misting up and wouldn't clear. It was probably this that made me mad when I lost my way. C'est la vie. I could have been at work!
My second day was in the "advanced" group, which I thought would give me some better riding. Unfortunately the only boarders were myself and another guy. The rest were on skis, and I'm sorry, they just don't do it in powder. I had to go at half speed most of the time, even though the runs were steeper. And of course to be considerate as well as safe, I couldn't just put in massive carved turns. That said, the riding was good, and the powder was great.
