TR: Mica Heli [Jan 14-17/10]

[dapesche]

Shameless plug for a band that a friend of mine is part of: Have a listen and hope you like what you see.




I'm finally able to post some stoke.
My fiance and I were lucky enough to score a couple spots at Mica for 4 days.



Helicopter Porn






Arrived on Wednesday, and it proceeded to snow continuously until early Saturday morning.



One down day with unbelievably deep cat skiing [video to come of that].










We awoke to a bluebird day on Saturday.



Time to go skiing:



One more video right now. Need more music?





I'll try to give a better report later on. HTML is the work of satan, and I don't want to be near my computer anymore.

[powfiend]

You went heli skiing and skiied someone elses tracked tree line?? is there something im not getting here?? I rode more fresh this weekend in tahoe.
JONG!!!

[pointedem]

those night pics are cool

[RiderX]

Cool footage.

I saw their website last night and was wondering about their op. How steep is the terrain in general? Sometimes the helmet cams make slopes appear less steep than they really are, but some of your footage looks fairly flat.

You went heli skiing and skiied someone elses tracked tree line?? is there something im not getting here?? I rode more fresh this weekend in tahoe.
JONG!!!

I wanted to ask about that as well. Seems like you guys were doing some farming. What's the policy on that?

[Premier71]

Some cool pics that go well with music.


If that's SOP at Mica (which I thought was aggro as far as BC ops go) I'll never pay for Hobbs time outside of AK. Helmet cam footage looks like the runout at Silverton

[addict]

My fiance and I were lucky enough to score a couple spots at Mica for 4 days.

Really? Congrats man. Might be heading past your hood on the way to Ak in a week, not sure if we're stopping though.....

[Meathelmet]

You went heli skiing and skiied someone elses tracked tree line?? is there something im not getting here??

Seconded.
If I would go heliskiing, and would have to pay arm and leg to ski some tracked out moguls,well...I would shoot somebody. Jeesus...

Am I missing something here? Was that a warmup run after wich you lapped some 6000ft faces non stop?

[subtle plague]

joining the majority here: woohooo! 5k per week for tracked flat stuff? even if it was untracked, id still be bored to death....

[DeeAre]

joining the majority here: woohooo! 5k per week for tracked flat stuff? even if it was untracked, id still be bored to death....

...and angry.

Smooth turns though nonetheless. Thanks for sharing.

[gimpy]

geeeeezzzzz, u guys need to get the fuck off this cats cloud. doesnt mean i dont agree w/ u but i sure as shit aint gonna harsh his mellow like u fukstix just did.

one man gathers what another man spills

[thin cover]

^^^^ and the people all complain...

Wish I was heli skiing something. Nice TR

[liv2ski]

geeeeezzzzz, u guys need to get the fuck off this cats cloud. doesnt mean i dont agree w/ u but i sure as shit aint gonna harsh his mellow like u fukstix just did.

one man gathers what another man spills

Come on gimpy, this is TGNAR. You knew the guy was going to get question, if not out right flamed for posting low angle meadow skipping. Shiiiit, that is why I have never put a TR up

[DeeAre]

Come on gimpy, this is TGNAR. You knew the guy was going to get question, if not out right flamed for posting low angle meadow skipping. Shiiiit, that is why I have never put a TR up

It wasn't the meadowskipping, or the low angle. It was the single-track mode

[dapesche]

thanks for the comments on the photos. I'm happy with how they turned out.

Was it the Heli experience I was dreaming of ...Hell no. Was the snow quality absolutely amazing ... yes. Was I jumping into the back of a helicopter and being flow to the top of a mountain over and over and over again...yes sir, and it is an experience I'll never forget ... and most likely never experience again unless I win the lottery.

If you can afford it, I'd highly recommend the operation. Most of us can't afford it, and that's why we slap skins on or hop on the back of a sled.



I figured I post the movies since I thought there would be interest in what the area looked like. Amazing place with incredible terrain; sadly we were not able to touch it.


This is how the 4 days played out:

When we arrived the report was a meter of snow in the previous four days.

First Day [Heli]:
Our first day was a mix of fun and confusion. B/C of low cloud were could not get any higher than roughly 1600m's. We were doing roughly 450m laps in the trees. Snow quality was great at the top, but the bottom 1/4 was wet snow/rain. We manged to get higher later in the day, where the snow quality improved A LOT, the the run angle was around 25 degrees.

2nd Day [Cat]:
The picture of the car above was in the morning on the 2nd day. That snow came down in approve 10-12 hours. CMH had a down day, but we manged to get an amazing day of cat skiing in. Deepest snow I've ever skied in my life. A lot of fun.

3rd Day [Heli]:
Blue bird day. Problem was that from Wednesday evening till about Saturday morning, it had snowed very hard. They guessed apprx. 60+ in the alpine. They had no beta from the surrounding heli operations, so it was a very slow start to the day. First two runs consisted of me going straight and video taping others skiing.

Our guides were tip-toeing around and you could sense the nervousness in their voices. One group had the snow settle underneath them and it was in really tame terrain. All aspects and elevations were sliding. From the lodge [~1200m's I think] to the alpine.

4th day [heli]:
Great snow again, but much more of the same tree skiing.

Reason for following tracks:
There was either too much snow and I needed to maintain speed or gain speed to cut a turn, or I wasn't sure where out guide was going.
Wayne was great, but looking back he could've communicated a little better where we were going. We got side tracked in one spot and my fiance had to boot pack for 15mins in waste deep powder.

[dapesche]

to put it all in perspective: The small pillow line in the 2nd video made my day. I really wish we would've been able to get into more areas like that.
oh well. maybe in my next life.

[grskier]

thanks for the comments on the photos. I'm happy with how they turned out.

Was it the Heli experience I was dreaming of ...Hell no. Was the snow quality absolutely amazing ... yes. ncredible terrain; sadly we were not able to touch it.
r.

Thanks for the recap and the TR...
What you are saying is.... you were either thwarted by weather and/or stability depending on the day from getting the gnar.... I guess that happens... sorta not ideal, but still looks like a great time.

[Crystal_Mt_Dreamin]

That looks like the same shit we had at Powder Mtn heli, but at least you had deep. We just had flat bullshit with mental midget guides.

That snow looks LIGHT, good lord, I'd kill for some of that.

[Mike Pow]

Great pics, great snow, blue skies.

I'll take it please.

Thanks

[Epic Planks]

nice footage! went to mica a couple years ago....sick!

[TheRealPoop]

It takes balls to post a TR, so way to go. If the bar keeps droping you might see me posting some sick 10' cliff drops in 4" of pow, complete with helmet cam vid of runout back to lift line, sick!!

sorry dude, just saw the bandwagon and had to jump on, keep having fun.

[mikedski]

I couldn't resist chiming in on this one. Nice shots dapesche! It brings back good memories from my trip to Mica just a couple of weeks before you were there.

To all the haters: You're either ignorant or stupid. If you think you're going to just go out and shred big steep faces after 60+, you live in a different reality to the rest of us. A mountain guide's primary goal is to keep you alive. They pick the best terrain for the clients to ski and step it up if conditions permit. Shane, Eric, and Darcy know their shit and we always trusted what they said.

After 3 trips to Mica, I can say it's probably the best sub-treeline terrain I ever seen at any heli-op. Add to that unbelievable snow quality and only a handful of down days in the past 5 yrs, and you get a kick-ass heli op. I can't wait to go back.

[skibum93]

What kind of helmet cam did you use?

[stomp]

weather and avy hazard aren't negotiable in a heli op... given the circumstances that looked like fun terrain.... little pillows and natural jib features..and you had good light and good snow...and good guides that weren't going to take unnecessary chances. thanks for sharing.