BaseNZ.com - Wanaka/Snow/Life: Epic Day Heliskiing with Southern Lakes Heliski

When fortune shines on you it's best not to ignore it. So it was that i found myself madly getting my riding gear together on wednesday night after getting the call late that a days Heli boarding was on the next day with Southern Lakes Heliski. After a very restless night dreaming of fresh powder turns i headed into town to meet the crew before heading to the bottom of the TC road to meet up with our "special" chairlift(that's the helicopter). All the gear on, then a safety briefing from the Southern Lakes Heliski guides and we were airborne. The snow and weather conditions of the last weeks had left us with primo conditions this early in the winter and the mountains looked amazing from our vantage point in the chopper. The SouthernLakes heli crew had picked out Black Peak as our drop off point and they were right on the money.
First run was down thru a wide open powder field that dropped into super fun rollers and gullies giving us untracked turns all the way down to the pick up point. From the chopper the runs didn't look massively long but when the guide pulled up after what seemed like millions of turns and said we weren't even half way down I knew we were in for a wicked day. Another ride up in our "special" chairlift and we were on run two. This time we dropped off the other side of the ridge we had been dropped onto, the snow was about 20 -40cm deep depending on the direction the slope we were on was facing so the turns mostly felt bottomless. Only at the very bottom did we start to break thru the snow cover. After run 2 it was back up to the drop off point for a tasty lunch at the top of Black Peak with views of Wanaka and the lake behind us(see pics). Run 3 was a corka, our guide, the Grey Wolf, aka Ian, picked one of the best lines of the day finding us a huge section of deeper snow with some awsome natural features for the crew to hit. By this stage our perma-grins were starting hurt but we wanted more. So up we go in the chopper, which, by the way is almost as fun as riding freshies. Run 4 turned out to be the best of the day as we scoped more untouched powder down a wide field with a natural gully that dropped away down a perfectly pitched slope into more gullys and fun terrain.
It was high fives allround at the bottom while we waited for our ride back to the cars.
Southern Lakes Heliski were awesome, making sure everyone was safe and taking us to perfect terrain and finding the killer fresh snow. If you've ever thought about going heliskiing, stop thinking about it and get out there and do it. It is the best thing ever. So much so that on the chopper ridde home i was weighing up how much heli time i could get if i sold everything i own bar my snowboarding gear.
If you're curious get onto http://www.southernlakesheliski.co.nz/ and check out what's on offer.