We’ve been wanting to go on a heli-trip for some time now. It’s been one of those things that’s on our “life’s list of things to do”, but there has always been a tendency to push it off. Well, thanks mainly to Judy, it became a reality this season.

Judy, Patty, Brian, and I signed up with Diamond Peaks Adventures, an Ogden, UT based heli-skiing outfit. They’re based out of the Hidden Lake Lodge at the top of the Hidden Lake lift at Powder Mountain. The helicopter lands and picks you up at the parking lot right outside the lodge.

As we found out during our trip to Powder Mountain a few weeks ago, Utah was experiencing a pretty dry year, and unfortunately for us, there were no major snowstorms since our last trip. The hillsides along the road leading up to the Moose Hollow lodge were even more lacking of snow than last time. Our hope was that the helicopter would be able to take us to some remaining powder areas.

We arrived at the Hidden Lake Lodge at 9:30 AM, but ended up not taking off until well past 11 AM. Safety is high on the mind of this heli-skiing outfit, and they won’t allow the helicopters to take off until the morning fog has receded enough to ensure good visibility. As we waited for the fog to clear, we chatted with the guides as well as the owners of Diamond Peaks. They were all really nice, down-to-earth people and we had a good time talking with them.

The fog finally cleared and the helicopter was given clearance to come and land in the Hidden Lake parking lot. We were given a quick course on things: instructions on how to approach the copter, what positions to be in as the copter landed, how to board and unboard, etc. Most of it was pretty much common sense stuff and we were soon ready to go.

Outside of our immediate group, our group consisted of three others. The helicopter could only fit a maximum of 5 people at a time including the pilot so the pilot would have to shuttle smaller groups of us to the top. This didn’t take very long and soon our whole group was at the top of a ridge and ready to go down our first run.

It’s amazing how accurate the pilot is at landing those things. Everytime a helicopter lands, it packs down the snow creating a more stable foundation. The pilot therefore tries to land in the same place everytime, and that’s exactly what he does. His precision in landing the copter was literally about +/- 6 inches. We know this because we saw it first hand! As you wait for the helicopter to pick you up, you are supposed to kneel down about a foot or two from the previous landing tracks. That’s pretty damn close! But without fail, the pilot was able to land the helicopter in pretty much the exact same place, which is a good thing because if he didn’t, we probably would have gotten crushed!

Unfortunately, even a helicopter can’t take you to good snow if that good snow doesn’t exist. It simply had not snowed enough this year and had been too warm. The snow we rode was “corn snow” and although we made a lot of fresh tracks, it wasn’t quite the pristine Utah powder that we had hoped for.

Overall, I’ve got mixed feelings about our heli-skiing experience. Obviously, things would have been much better if the snow was good. But even then, the runs didn’t quite meet my expectations. I had envisioned really long runs, at the end of which your thighs would be burning. I expected big, wide bowls of powder. Our runs were not like these at all. They were not particularly long, and even had the snow been good, I’m not sure that it would have been much better than some of the resort runs we can find at Powder Mountain or Snowbasin. We paid about $500 or so and got 6 runs each so that’s about $80-$90/run. Was it worth it? I’m not sure. It was undoubtedly a very fun and unique experience. I’m just not sure it was worth the money.

We hit Snowbasin the day after our heli trip. The snow had deteriorated from last time, so we spent some time in the park. There’s some good movie clips of me as well as some, well, not so good clips. Be sure to check out my instructional video on how not to do a rail slide.

On our last day, we hit Powder Mountain. After Patty and Judy decided to retire, Brian and I decided to do some trekking to see if we could find some good snow. We hiked quite a ways, and were rewarded with some pretty good powder. It was surprising how good the snow was considering how warm it had been lately, but we were happy to ride it. It was a great way to end the trip.

Check out the pics and movies.

Posted by Roger at 7:01 pm.