Common Heli Skiing Gear Mistakes
Heli skiing, as many of our repeat clients know, is often incomparable to resort or even backcountry skiing. For those uninitiated with the concept they may immediately liken heli skiing with backcountry skiing or touring. Because of this, and many other reasons, people often turn up at Last Frontier ready for the helicopter with bad gear choices. Here we’ll try to describe some of these bad gear choices, and how to avoid gear mistakes on your way here.
Whilst you may be an expert skier on piste, requiring the stiffest performance boots your budget can stretch to, heli skiing is more often than not through powder. For this, softer boots are more beneficial. Stiff boots will inhibit movements needed to float through the deeper snow. So leave the top end racing ones at home and bring a decent freeride pair instead.
Gear that works great inbounds, even on powder days, may not be up to the bottomless conditions that we regularly ski here in the northern BC Mountains. Because there is often no firm base under the powder we are skiing, unlike at resorts, equipment will respond differently. Bring your old trusty faithful skis by all means, but we bet within a day you’ll be begging to take out a pair from our awesome rental line!
The bigger the goggles you bring the better. While these may not look as cool as lower profile offerings, they will be doubly hard to fog up. The added space between the lens, and what will quickly become a very hot face, will keep them fog free for much longer. Even better, bring a spare pair of goggles or extra lens with you for guaranteed vision all day long.
Decent gloves will go a long way to keeping the smile high on your face all day long also. Too often we see people turn up with the ‘fashionable’ pair of gloves, that may look great, but really have no place in a real mountain environment. Gloves like this, that fit the bill, include those with short cuffs that easily let in tons of snow and those without decent insulation, leaving your fingers rapidly turning blue. Mittens are our choice for keeping your fingers nice and snug, warmer than standard pairs, and easier to get on and off in the heli.
Another often-made mistake is people turning up to heli ski in too many clothes. While this is not going to make a disaster of your whole heli skiing break (it’s easy enough to put less on next time) it may leave you drenched in sweat, overheating and fogging up all through the first day, not really setting the standard for the holiday. So try to bear this in mind from day one.
Many other gear mistakes revolve around clothing, and all are easy to avoid with the right amount of preparation. Expensive jackets with faux-fur and open necks might be the staple of Aspen ski wear, but here in the real mountains anything that lets snow invade the privacy of your body is a bad choice. Similarly, all-in-one white numbers should also be avoided, and here we think the reasons are pretty obvious!
Tags: Heli Skiing, Heliskiing, Heli Ski, Heliski, Heli Skiing Tour, Heli Skiing Holiday, Heli Skiing BC, Heli Skiing Resorts, Heli Skiing Lodges