realskiers

I flew to Copenhagen on 4/16 and I spent a day and a half there. On 4/19 I flew from Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq Greenland and then onto Maniitsoq Greenland. In Maniitsoq we met our guides and got on a boat called the Kisaq and headed out for the fjords of Greenland. We skied the first day we arrived starting at around 4:30 in the afternoon (it's light until 10:30 at night at this time of year and they pick up 12 minutes additional light each day!). For the next 6 days we moved around the fjords and the heli followed us and we had weather good enough to heli ski on 5 of the seven days. The other two days we ski toured mainly in white out conditions. Going up was fun. Coming back down was a total white out and challenging. I took one of those days off to rest the legs.

We hit it pretty big. The snowpack was excellent and we were able to ski some fairly steep stuff which is not always the case when heli skiing. We had two amazing guides. One was Pete Patterson who was on the US Ski team for 9 years and was an olympian twice. Pete is the brother of one of my dear friends wife. The other guide was Kevin O'Rourke from Wasatch powder guides. Both Pete and Kevin have immense experience in the backcountry and in Greenland as well (Pete is in his 13th season in Greenland). They are also both quite conservative and have zero cowboy in them and safety is the number one goal all the time on their trips. I would be very wary about heli skiing with any guide that I didn't know or know quite a bit about. We skied on many glaciers where there is not just avalanche risk but huge crevasses and some falling ice which can cause all types of issues. Our guides were amazing and it made some intense terrain and areas quite manageable.

It really was the trip of a lifetime!! An amazing week with some great people and fabulous guides. I hope to go back next year or the year after with my brother and one of my good friends.

Again it is definitely one to put on everyones list of things to do before we can't anymore.