Heliboarding With Snowmotions, Switzerland

I've talked about Snowmotions quite a bit over the course of this season - and with good right too. If you've been following this blog you'll know that a group of us spent two weeks in Laax/Flims back in March, staying in one of the Snowmotions chalets. One of the things that really made the trip great was the local knowledge, specifically off-piste and back-country knowledge, passed on to us from Jason - owner of Snowmotions. In fact this trip provided the majority of the group, including myself, with our first real taste of riding off-piste, something that I now want to do more and more...

One of the options available from Snowmotions is to have them organise a Heli-Trip. It's not something that we did while we were in Switzerland, but not long after we'd gone home, Jason and some others did a day with a heli. They passed on a quick review of the action, partly to make me jealouse I'm sure, but also to give an indication of what a heli-trip can be like. Here are some details and photos from that day... take a look, it really does look awesome.

• Date: 5th April 2007
• Location: Hoeffi Firn / Toedi, Switzerland
• Take Off: 8am Tavanasa, 20 minutes from Flims
• Altitude of landing points: 3000m and 3200m
• Conditions of north east hang towards Linthal: perfect, fresh cold powder!
• Conditions of Val Russein, south hang: powder to icy crust, to sulz, to slush, to no more snow. And a long walk out!
• Mountain Guide: Paul from www.alpventura.ch
• Heli firm: www.airgrischa.ch
• Cost: CHF420- per person for 2 flights, including an excellent mountain guide
• Verdict: great day out in high alpine terrain...

Thanks to Snowmotions for the info!