Heli-Skiing in India by Arnie Wilson

At dawn you leave the teeming streets of Delhi. By dusk you are within striking distance of what was once known as ‘the end of the habitable world’ – normally only reached during the summer months via one of the highest and most remote mountain roads on earth. Here, high on the Rohtang Pass – the desolate gateway to Lahaul and Spiti, which reaches 3,915 metres (12,8454 ft) - the only sound which interrupts the silent reign of the great banks of snow beneath massive peaks in a hauntingly beautiful mountain kingdom is the intrusive clatter of your helicopter. You are under the spell of one of the most powerful influences known to man: the call of the mighty Himalayas. It’s another nirvana day - wallowing in some of the finest skiing terrain on earth.

On our arrival in the bustling trekking town of Manali, my fellow-guests and I had disgorged from the helicopter which had brought us from Chandigarh, the Punjabi capital to the heli-pad outside Himachal Helicopter Skiing’s HQ at the Holiday Inn, presented with a welcome drink and had a red turmeric Tilak planted firmly on our foreheads. Everyone else had washed theirs off in the shower. I kept mine on. Although I couldn’t see it unless I glanced at the mirror, I felt it confirmed in a rather intimate way that I really was in India.

The following morning, I awake in a panic to the sound of helicopters. I rip the curtains open. Dazzling sunshine. For once the BBC forecast is better than the ‘local’ one from Delhi, and the expected storm has just ‘vanished’. Exhausted by my travels, and comforted by a hot-water bottle found unexpectedly in my bed, I have overslept. Have I missed my very first lift off? To my great relief, I realise the helicopters are buzzing around carrying 200-litre fuel-containers to special caches in the mountains. Flying helicopters is expensive, and this minimises re-fuelling journeys.

The guides rotate as the week progresses. Our group – two Swiss, a German and me – will start with Chunni Thakur Auli, national champion skier in 1996, and the first Indian to become a heliskiing guide. For a local youngster, now 29, who honed his skills in the “Snow Wonderland” of Solang, a small ski hill nearby, this is quite an honour. It isn’t easy for a young unassuming Indian to take charge of a group of wealthy Europeans (myself excepted), but he does it with modest verve. “I’ll take you into the hills and give it a go,” he announces.

As we clomp along the corrugated metal track towards the heli-pad in ski boots, clutching – in my case - a helmet, I feel for all the world like an astronaut striding robotically towards the gantry for lift off aboard the Space Shuttle. It’s the absence of your skis, already loaded into the basket on one side of the Bell 407, which helps summon up this faintly ridiculous notion.

But even though you are only going to rocket down the slopes, and not round the globe, there’s plenty of equipment to check: avalanche transceiver (specially adapted with the addition of an FM transmitter so that the pilot can start searching as early as possible for anyone buried even before a search on the snow has started); air-bag (in a back-pack specially adapted to accommodate shovel and avalanche probe); Avocet watch (non-essential) for ski-bores like me to check total vertical. The usual array of goggles, sunglasses, gloves. And, of course, that helmet. Sometimes it all seems a little too much to have to think about.

Still, no complaints - what follows is a veritable ski odyssey. How could it be otherwise in such sensational surroundings. Some of the great peaks of Himachal Pradesh line up to be marvelled at: Papsura (6,451 m) – the ‘Peak of Evil’ and White Sail (6,446m) are the highest – but not so much higher than Mukar Beh, Indrasan, Deo Tibba and Shiukar Beh, all more than 6000 metres high.

The snow, at least on the higher slopes, is of the finest quality. We float down, as effortlessly as we can at around 15,000 feet (4570 metres), marvelling at both the skiing and the scenery. And that we are here at all. As the day progresses, Chunny starts to relax, smile, and enjoy himself.

The following day we find ourselves in the Pakhnoj and Jobri areas with Olivier Houillot. Olivier is an altogether different character from Chunny – blonde, carefree, extrovert, like a pop-singer, and looking much younger than his age. “No hurry,” he says, as we approach a run called, rather ominously, Destiny. “You’re on holiday.” It could almost me Monsieur Houillot’s holiday too, he’s so relaxed.

The next run seems to have my name carved indelibly though invisibly upon its steep, deep blanket of powder. Or at least my tracks. It is a wide couloir, so nothing too technical – between two rock faces: Dead Horse Chute. “OK Arnie – go for it,” says Olivier, with a smile, allowing me down first. This is generous. It’s a run that anyone would want to be first down on the basis of the oldest rule in the off-piste lexicon: no friends on powder days. I don’t need to be told twice, and in an instant, I am attacking the couloir with the passion of a hungry man who has just spotted a vast plateful of his favourite dish which just happens to need devouring instantly. No stopping – just turn after turn after turn. No question – it’s the run of the winter for me.

The following day, the guide du jour is Nicholas (Nicky) Stornig, from Carinthea, the great Franz Klammer’s home province in Austria. He’s also entertaining, but a touch stricter than Olivier - but then as HHS’s chief guide, he probably has to be. Authorised Pleasures, back in the Jobri area, is our first descent – then McNaultie’s (named after a New Zealand ski guide ), Sethen Dome and, rather appropriately, Breathless.

It’s a hot day, and, as Stornig puts it, “snow and heat don’t go together.” The snow on the lower slopes is deteriorating, so we are climbing higher to get better conditions. Durga High, is, as it sounds, a lofty drop-off at 5,080 metres – 16,667 feet.

We have one more day with Chunny, who takes us for some spectacular runs on the Rohtang Pass, blanketed deeply in snow. There’s not another soul for miles. At the end of our extraordinary week, we have comfortably skied the normal minimum vertical target of 100,000 feet (just over 30,475 metres). As we reluctantly pack our bags, Chunny, a cricket fanatic like most Indians (they set up improvised wickets everywhere - on dried up riverbeds, and even in the middle of the road) is enjoying an impromptu game near the heli-pad. Relaxed now, he flashes his biggest smile of the week. In the Valley of the Gods, blossom is beginning to appear on the apricot and plum trees, unquestionably telling us it’s spring. The most extraordinary week’s skiing of my life is over.