My Heliskiing Adventure

OK, so a huge dream of mine was to do some backcountry powder skiing, and if you could throw in a helicopter, all the better. The opportunity came to me in January as the hunting outfit who operates the lodge and hunting on my employers property were exploring using the lodge as a base for heliskiing in the Uinta mountains.

The lodge itself is the finest log structure I have ever seen, and I have seen many in my time. It is beautifully constructed and you do not see any gaps, or caulking between the huge logs it is contructed from. From the picture I have included you can see a suspended tree truck holding up one of the roof trusses. This along with a fine chef for the meals really set a nice vibe to the whole trip. I arrived the evening before the adventure and we had a nice gormet meal. Our guide arrived that evening and we went over some of the safety points and other details to save time the next morning.

With heliskiing, weather is everything and there is no guarantee that the bird can fly. So all of us (there were six in the party), kept our fingers crossed that the weather would cooperate. The next morning our wish was granted and after a night time dusting of new powder the skies started to clear. We contacted our bird and he was headed over from Bountiful where it is based. It was really exciting when it flew in and landed.

I was with a group of six skiiers and 2 guides. We were ferried from the lodge to Uinta Mountains on Thousand Peaks Ranch...and then all the fun began. Wide bowls of untracked snow. I would say the powder was about six to eight inches deep. Blue sky, untract snow, and wide open spaces.

The guide always were first and indicated which side of his line we were to stay on. I usually hung back and went toward the last, perhaps my lack of confidence. But I never took a fall and never held anyone up.

It was interesting to see the guides work to create a landing zone for the "bird" as it could not land on a powder base. They really hustled and I would have been exhaused doing what they did. So a few more pics showing some of the bowls, and if you are real good you can see the tracks we left in the snow.

The guides provided for lunch, which consisted of superb soup and sandwitches. Here is a pic of the snowcat which was also utilized in the afternoon and us eating lunch.

Anyway, it was a great experience and I'm glad I did it. Would love to try it again some time.