Canada's insider blog

Perched on a steep ridgeline watching the helicopter recede among the snowcapped peaks of British Columbia’s rugged and remote Cariboo Mountains, I’m grinning from earplug to earplug.

Here I am, a normally cautious blue run skier with no backcountry experience riding around in choppers, about to cruise down untouched glaciers where a single “run” would hold entire ski areas in other parts of the world, and lay first tracks though dense evergreen forests half buried in the fluffiest, driest white stuff on Earth.
“If you’re comfortable on intermediate runs at most resorts, willing to tackle the occasional black diamond run, and have a real sense of adventure, you’re ready for Powder 101,” the Canadian Mountain Holidays representative explained when I had enquired about their innovative new introductory heli-skiing course.

Designed to make the backcountry more accessible to intermediate skiers with a willingness to get outside their comfort zones, Powder 101 is an exhilarating immersion into deep powder wilderness heli-skiing with exclusive access to more than 2,589 square km (1,000 square miles) of challenging terrain.

Giddily pointing my fat skis downhill, I set off to “write my name on the face of the Gods” – tracing increasingly graceful S-turn signatures while emitting jet streams of snow across a crystalline cloud.

Now I understand why your first heli-skiing run is called “the point of no return.” For this former powder pup suddenly skiing every powder hound’s ultimate downhill dream – no run I’ve done before can compare.

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