Heliskiing in Annapurna Sanctuary, Nepal March 8.-15.2014
I have one of the most awesome job there is! This time the work took me to Nepal, heliskiing in the frikkin’ Himalayas! Not too bad at all…
It was just a mind-blowing experience! Imagine flying around with a heli, watching the sunrise and being surrounded by these massive peaks and walls, beautiful powder filled mountain sides, scoping lines and just generally being in awe! Then being dropped with a heli at around 5000 meters on top of something fun to ski and look around and see Annapurna I, II, III and IV towering around you over 3000 meters higher with huge, amazingly beautiful, impressive and virgin lines all over the place. It’s just fantastic! Then ski down with your friend, perfect powder in the sunshine and then repeat and repeat. Then when your done for the day, fly back to town, take a shower and a nap and go for some curry lunch and a massage. Gotta love Nepal!
Ok the culture and the people are super cool but the mountains there are something else… I spotted this one of the most impressive and beautiful face I’ve ever seen with spines, couloirs and faces all starting from around 7500 meters… What a rare gem but how do you ever ride a huge thing like that in good conditions..? Maybe the future kids will take it to the next level and ride something like that one day…
We stayed at the town of Pokhara, about 6 days walk or 15 minutes flight away from the Annapurna base camp area where we flew and skied. Pokhara is beautiful, lively city at the foot of the Himalayas and with a lake with the same name. It’s nice and warm, flip-flops and t-shirts, and with lots of very good restaurants, nice little local giftshops and culture. People are nice and friendly and super easy going. With Mikko we spent one night at the Annapurna base camp just for the fun of it and to see sunset and sunrise over there. It was well worth it! Such a beautiful place! And the night with the hut gardiens was fun with a little bit of whisky and the normal boy’s talk.
We met some interesting characters on our trip. Our trip organiser and Mr. Heliski Nepal, Craig, had some stories to tell from all over the world but this one guy on our group, Nobu from Japan, had some interesting news. Nobu had been in Annapurna before, 50 years ago, when he was meditating in a cave below the base camp. After the meditation he took a bus trip via the Hash Highway from New Delhi in India to Istanbul in Turkey. That’s like 7000 km on a bus through Afghanistan, Iran and who knows how many other countries, in the 19sixties! Big up Nobu!
The skiing in the Annapurna Sanctuary area was nice, mellow freeriding with good fresh snow and fun terrain. The afternoon thunders brought fresh snow almost every day and with Mikko we had heaps of fun cruising down this playful terrain. Generally the snowpack was a bit unstable so we were forced to ride small and easy but still had loads of good fun and good skiing!
Now when I sit back and think about the trip it’s hard to come up with enough positive descriptions about everything that was going on there but let me just say that it was one of the most memorable trips I have ever been on!
Big, huge!! thanks to Craig Calonica from Heliski Nepal for offering me this job and taking care of all the permits and hassle in Nepal and also Jossi Lindblom, a Swedish guide colleague who put up a good word for me so I landed this job in the first place!!
And big thanks to Mikko Lehtinen for being the best imaginable travel- and skiing partner and for taking my skis and boots back to Chamonix after so I could travel straight to California with light gear.
THANKS GUYS!!
Now off to FlajFlaj and California, the best freefly skillscamp there is!