Page 98 - OCEAN BLUE - WINTER 2016

SPORTS & TOYS

HELI-
SKIING

By: Patrick Tunnicliffe
Photo: Dave Silver

HELI-SKIING OFFERS BETTER SNOW, CHALLENGING
TOPOGRAPHY AND THE THRILLS AND STUNNING
BEAUTY OF FREQUENT HELICOPTER RIDES

T he moment the rotors and the growing stillness of the
backcountry skier is mountain. Pushing onto the slope,
gripped by the heaving the serenity is unexpectedly split with
lift of composite rotors liberating shouts and joyful cries of
is when the weight of the world is glee. Anywhere else diffidence would
released. The ties of ordinary life and overwhelm and silence would reign
burden melt and are replaced with but here nothing is reserved.
chance and opportunity as the unique On and on the skier twists over the
contours of the surrounding alpine contours of the mountain until what
provoke a rare emotional response. appeared a dream begins to fade and
momentum finally fails, then back
Serene slopes support the infinite again our hero goes for repeated
horizon. The bluebird sky replaces the relapses into pleasure.
highways and walls of responsibility. Ultimately the return to lower elevation
Anticipation flows through the skier’s is completed in style and with pride by
soul. Adrenaline dilates the off-piste the pilot. Our skier returns to earth.
skier’s veins. Eventually the bearing of It’s over but the backcountry hero gets
the helicopter and the soft mound atop to keep the day forever.
an endless meadow of powder meet
and this plain mound invites endless
opportunity.

This first return to alpine earth brings
the crisp air of the Coastal Mountain
Range, where the backcountry hero
is overcome with the fading beat of

“In the face of mountains, measurement seems contrived,
impertinent, dwarfed. But mountains do not dwarf the spirit; they
present reaches that convene with the universal.

–Andrea Mead Lawrence, A Practice of Mountains

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