Heli skiing at dawn in New Zealand is a true bucket list experience.
New Zealand weather and I have wrestled almost every winter for the past decade. You know you’re considered a bad omen when the ski marketers start to ask when you’re arriving so they can plan their holidays.
I have been known to bring rain, gale force winds and snow droughts with me across the ditch. So I didn’t hold out much hope when I arrived this time. Especially as it started to puke in Australia as soon as I stepped on the plane to NZ.
But I must have been doing something right of late, or maybe my hosts paid Ullr some serious dough because everything aligned and we had one of the best mornings in my ski career to date.
I can’t say too much as myself and my photographer for this adventure, Camilla Rutherford, were in town to research a new heli ski product that will launch next season. All will be revealed when our editorial is published closer to the time in newspapers and magazines so keep an eye out, you will not be disappointed.
For now, let’s just say we got a taste of the finer things in life at Minaret Station, a helicopter accessible wilderness experience consisting of four eco chalets with thousand thread cotton sheets, private hot tubs for two on the deck and a main lodge that feels more like the holiday home of your rich friends than a stiff hotel lodge.
Think of Minaret as personal access to real New Zealand with private guides that have lived on the surrounding land since birth.
A scenic flight in at dusk followed by a three course chef prepared meal then a slumber between those thousand thread sheets and we woke before dawn for a helicopter flight to the station’s private heli ski land.
Just me, Camilla, a heli ski guide, the chopper pilot called Tweezers and Southern Lakes Heli Ski director Julian Field and Matt Wallis, founder of Minaret Station and director of Alpine Helicopters.
Few people get the privilege to see the sun rise over a mountain ridge line to greet a blue bird day as a helicopter rises from a valley floor. I count myself now one of them.
We’ll let the iPhone pics I snapped speak for themselves below. Just me, my new best friends, a helicopter and a private landscape to call our own and make our ski turns mark.
Of course we did a bit more than that as this iPhone video below shows.
But shhhh, don’t tell anyone, for now it is secret squirrel till we let the cat out of the bag for next season.
[wpvideo pKXeTOUX]
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SnowsBest was a guest of Southern Lakes Heli Ski, Minaret Station, Alpine Helicopters, Ski Tourism Marketing Network of New Zealand and Air New Zealand.
