#1 On my Bucket List: Heli-Skiing
For the last few years the number one on my bucket list was to go heli-skiing. And boy oh boy was that fun. Towards the end of last year, one of my new EO forum buddies got a last minute opportunity to go heli-skiing with CMH at their Galena lodge. I could not let this change pass, so I booked a spot!
I fell in love with skiing the first time I tried it. Growing up in South Africa we rarely even saw snow, in fact I was 18 years old before I saw it for the first time. After skiing in Europe for a few years we came to Fernie three years ago, here we learned to ski all over again, properly this time. With the abundance of fresh snow in Fernie, we quickly became even more addicted to skiing, this time in powder.
Heaven must be close to Galena
It was the most amazing 7 days of skiing I have ever had. Galena is known for steep tree skiing, and we were not disappointed. We had some great conditions, got some time in the alpine and loads of powder. Even with limited fresh snow, the terrain is so big that we made fresh tracks almost every run.
The whole operation from when they picked us up in the small town of Trout Lake was exceptionally well run. The staff go out of their way to make your time as enjoyable as possible, I even got a plate of tomatoes with dinner every night. Jason, Cam’s buddie who also went, made this great video about this trip:
Heli-skiing – check! No wait…
Bucket Lists are supposed to be filled with ‘once in a lifetime’ activities. That’s the mindset I had when convincing myself to spend the money to go heli-skiing. Instead of being able to tick heli-skiing off the list, I now find myself even more eager to go again. The floating sensation when making tracks in fresh powder is like nothing else I have ever experienced. With the heli you get to do it with every run for an entire week.
Now I need to make sure I am in better shape for the next once in a lifetime heli-skiing trip. Thanks for inviting me Cam, it was amazing!