Words and Pics by David Gonzales
For 2 weeks I’ve been glomming onto the Valdez Heli Ski Guides, trading bumps for jpegs and gradually learning the ins and outs of heli guiding and heli mooching. A few rules:
1. Always be ready. This is rule number one, the idea being that if you’re not standing on the heli pad with your ski boots on, your beacon beeping, and a hopeful look on your face, then you don’t deserve the next empty seat on the bird. Everything moves fast on the heli pad, decisions are made in a heartbeat, golden tickets handed out at a moment’s notice, and if you’re in the porta-potty when your ship comes in, so sad, too bad, bye bye. Also, some of the guides take it personally if you’re not as rabid to fly as they are. Which leads to rule number 2:
2. Watch out for heli guides when they’re on the ground. Their behavior on the deck is unpredictable at best, especially when it’s the first clear day after several days of storms, or when they’ve been assigned to be “ground guide” because there aren’t enough clients to go around. In the former case, they will shock you with the foam that drips from their muzzles as they clamber into the front seat of the helicopter before the day’s first run. In the latter case, they will surprise you with their dedication. Nat Patridge, avalanche forecaster for VHSG, is highly skilled, highly intelligent, and extremely thoughtful while in the mountains. But that didn’t stop him from going out to the highway on Thompson Pass one morning when it looked like he might not fly, and practically throwing himself in front of oncoming traffic in hopes of rustling up some clients.
3. Don’t always expect a warm-up. Sometimes you wait all day for the weather to change or for a seat on the heli to empty. So you shuffle around for hours on end, from the parking lot to the client tent to a bench in the sun, where the late April sunshine is plenty warm enough for a long nap in your ski boots, then suddenly an empty seat comes up and you’re on the chopper and literally 3 minutes later you’re on top of the Diamond, the giant of the eastern Chugach, rubbing sleep from your eyes and wondering what the hell just happened as you peer down the trillion-foot-long west face, and the first, 55-degree warm-up turn. Good luck on that one.
4. Treat the heli with utmost respect. These machines are noisy, scary, expensive, and as delicate and miraculous as dragonflies. The guides don’t even want the clients to open or close a door on the chopper, as each door costs $60,000. When you get out of the ship, you have to delicately slither out, thereby not jostling the machine. Immediately before and after the ship lands, you must huddle under it, like mendicants prostrating themselves before a wrathful god. In other words, show utter deference to the big, clattering bug, and maybe someday, you will have the same sort of loving relationship that Workman has with it. A few days ago, at the end of the day, Workman asked if anybody else wanted to go sit in the parked heli. There was an awkward pause. Said Doug, “I just want to smell it.”
I’m a toe ho!!
Yeah Joey!! Sounds sick! I want more pics.
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