Not too long ago I was able to partake in a day of Heli Boarding with Whistler Heli up on Spearhead Mountain.

Spearhead is a section of mountains located behind Blackcomb mountain. It is a popular spot for Whistler locals to hike or telemark to.

When I heard that I had the chance to spend a day heli boarding with these guys I immediately grabbed my point and shoot Canon G9 and my avy beacon and rushed into the village to meet up with the other group.

Whistler Heli does an amazing job at briefing everyone on how to be Avalanche smart and inform you what to do if an avalanche happens.

After the intro to the heli gear and how to’s we all hopped in a bus to transport us to the heli launch pad.

When we arrived at the launch pad the heli crew and guides told us about where were going to be heli boarding and did a little safety recap on what to do and what not to do including when loading and unloading the helicopter.

So we quickly loaded the helicopter to start out day of heli runs on a beautiful blue bird day.

It didn’t take us too long to reach spearhead and before we knew it we where on top of a peak ready to drop into some fresh powder and ride some amazing mountain lines.

Riding powder all day can get pretty tiring so after 2-3 heli runs we where greeted by the heli crew at the bottom of one of our runs with a complimentary lunch with sandwiches and hot drink. A nice treat!

The guides where excellent with keeping the groups together and making sure the photographer on site was able to take some photos of every skier and snowboarder in the groups while they/we where having the time of our lives.

After about 6 heli runs everyone was blown away with the terrain, how the guides worked and the fact that it was such a beautiful sunny day to top it all off!

I was exceptionally excited that I could take part in a heli trip and was able to capture a lot of amazing back country photos of the whole experience.

Heli Skiing on Spearhead is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

Not too long ago a bunch of friends and I all decided that we wanted to do a heli drop before the end of the season. We all couldn’t afford to pay $1000 for a day of heli boarding with some of the other heli companies, so we decided to take a different route.

We had heard from some friends that Blackcomb Heli offered single heli drops at the top of Rainbow mountain for $420. Found a group of 6 friends together and set a date to drop into some sick back country  lines on Rainbow Mountain.

When the day came we all packed our bags for a day in the back country and drove off to the heli pad for 8am to start off the sunny day of back country adventures.

When we all boarded the heli everyone was so pumped. It was everyone first heli ride (besides Nev who rode in one for an Mountain Dew ad a few years prior in New Zealand). so we where just ecstatic.

On our way up to the mountain the pilot asked us where we wanted to get dropped off at, and Nev picked a great peak to start off at.

Once the chopper landed we all got out and grabbed our boards for a day of riding shouts and hitting back country jumps.

Right away we rode a steep pow section and found an awesome wind lip to ride. At this time in the morning the skiers where blue and the sun was shinning. So I had the camera ready in hand and the guys started dropping in.

Nev was the first one to gini pig the jump and landed a solid 540 grab to the freshest back country pow landing and the rest of the guys followed suit.

As the day progressed we continued down the mountain doing pow slashes and boarding down big powder slopes until we found a nice cornus drop that Nev wanted to check out.

The cornus was pretty huge so it took awhile for everyone to hike up to the top and take a look. While everyone was hiking the cornus Simon was hiking his own line.

Simon spotted a cool icy slope that he could drop into and do some pow slashes.

Nev finished hiking up to the top of the cornus and it looked a lot bigger from the top. He decided to take a smaller line on the way down that originally anticipated.

Once Simon reached the top of his hike on top of some icy looking cliffs  he was pumped to drop in. Simon dropped a small section into a high speed pow slash down the untouched slope of powder.

With out wasting any time once Simon finished his line we where on the move again to find the next spot to ride.

After a few more steep slopes we found a nice spot to build a jump.

It took everyone a little under an hour to build the jump, and we jumped right into a session the back country booter.

By this time it had clouded over but everyone was still excited that they where in the back country hitting jumps that it didn’t phase us.

I believe Nev was the first one to hit this jump with some sort of corked rotation 900 and then moved into some flipping combination.

Ryan was trying some huge grab 180 tricks while Simon’s legs couldn’t handle the steep take off which resulted in him flying off the jump and landing flat on his face (making a nice big howl in the landing).

After the jump session was finished we had to start moving because we had to get off this mountain before it got dark.

One dis advantage of a Heli drop is that they drop you off at the top of the mountain and you have to find your way off the mountain.

We had already planned how to get off the mountain the previous night. It was a pretty simple route, all we had to do was follow the valley that the mountain funnels into and we would end up in Alpine community and not too far from Meadow Park.

The problem was our route out required about an 1 and a 1/2 hours of hiking and skating out before we where able to strap in at the cat track which allowed us to snowboard for the last 7km of the mountain which fed us out to the road in Alpine.

When we where back on the road all we had to do was take a short hike to Meadow Park where we had left a truck to transport us back home.

It was a beautiful day in the back country.

Blackcomb Heli Drop on Rainbow Mountain is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

I am currently in Argentina shooting photos for a Ski and Snowboard camp (South America Snow Sessions) at Cerro Catedral in Bariloche, Argentina. I have currently been in the country for 10 days and so far its been such an amazing experience.

Argentina's Amazing Alpine

This trip is my first international trip, first time leaving North America and I arrived in Argentina at the right time. Several days before I arrived the mountain Cerro Catedral had been closed for several days due to it receiving over 4 meters of snow.

3 jumps in Lower Nubase, 2 of which riders from SASS built

The day I arrived in Bariloche the mountain was open but with majority of the mountain being closed because the snow was so deep it buried many of the mountains snow cats.

Brendan Drury, Andrew Burns and Craig Beaulieu building a backcountry jump

My first day on the mountain was the first day they opened the entire mountain and not only was there fresh snow everywhere it was also a sunny day with blue skies. I couldn’t have asked for better luck.

Craig Beaulieu and Andrew Burns scoping a spot for a new jump

SASS is a snowboard camp that brings people from almost anywhere (mainly Canada and the United States, although there’s a couple here from the Middle East) to Argentina to ride ski and snowboard and to get coaching from professional ski and snowboarders.

Hiking into the back country for some fresh powder

So far I’ve been able to hand out with a lot of friends from Whistler who are coaching here t SASS along with a lot of new skiers and snowboarders from the East and West coasts of the United States.

The hike from the chair lift to the back country of Cerro Catedral

With all the fresh so we’ve had so far a lot of the riders, coaches and I have built severl jumps in more of the back country areas in the mountains to ride and shoot photos on. The first day I arrived I was able to shoot a nice step down with Andrew Burns and Craig Beaulieu which they build the previous day.

Some beautiful views in Bariloche

There’s nothing like going from the heat of the summer in Whistler, traveling for 2 days straight and jumping into the winter climate and shooting snowboarding photos, literately days after I had been on the beaches of Tofino, B.C.

Argentina Mountains

I have been very busy riding and shooting photos on the mountain every day I have been in Argentina but I was able to take a day off for some down time and get some things done. Expect to see some more updates hopefully before I leave Argentina (pending on our horrible internet connections), if not there will be many updates of my travels when I arrive back in Whistler.

The winding road to the base of the mountain

Craig Beaulieu at the top of the mountain

Lucas jaming to hit music at the top of Condor 3

Craig Beaulieu, Vera Janssen, Andrew Burns and Wiley Tesseo at the end of the day.

Another beautiful landscape in Argentina

Burns hitting a fun backcountry line

Vera doing some back country turns

A back country thumbs up

Robin doing some back country turns

South America Snow Sessions is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

Before I moved to Whistler I was living in Halifax Nova Scotia with a similar life style to what I have now just with smaller mountains. I always was looking for some action to shoot and one of my good friends Cory was into break dancing, I saw some pictures of what he could do and I chose some locations in Halifax and we created some pictures for his portfolio.

The first time we set up a photo shoot together I was pretty new to using off camera flashes. I set up two flashes at 45 degree angles to camera right and camera left. At the time I was shooting with Fuji Film Provia 100 which was a medium saturation colour slide film. Since I was new to using flashes and didn’t shoot Slide film (slide film is more sensitive to light i.e. easier to screw up).

Cory Break Dancing Halifax - Provia 100

For the first photo shoot I chose a location on the Halifax harbor at dust to be able to get the rich sky colours at dusk. Which was great because the day of our shoot was a hazy day but at the time I knew at dust the sky from the sunset would provide some nice colours.

The shoot went off well even though I was a bit nervous shooting slide film with the flashes and I learned a bunch about metering my flashes with ambient skies.

Cory B-boy styles

My second shoot with Cory was in the beginning of the summer a few weeks before I flew off to Whistler. At the time I had purchased a Canon 10D from another Action Sports Photographer for my trip to Whistler because I knew I had to make the switch from Film to Digital.

Film had its uniqueness but I knew if I wanted to start building a good catalogue of images in Whistler it would help a ton if I was shooting Digital. Digital’s the way of the future right?

Cory Portrait

The switch from film to digital is a big work flow change so It took a little while to adapt which Is why I wanted to get out and shoot with Cory again to familiarize myself with the new Canon 10D.

For this shoot it was in the middle of the day and I found a beautiful mural near the Halifax Commons Skate Park that I knew would make a great back drop for a photo shoot.

Cory Breaking Halifax

I set up 2 flashes on each side of our designated break dancing area. The flashes where parallel with Cory to add some contrast on him instead of the flat natural light we had that day.

We managed to capture more usage-able photo’s from our second shoot together and I was quite happy with the results.

Cory getting Inverted

Breaking Halifax is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

In the early spring I had recently moved from my old place where I lived all winter to a new place in Creekside. The new place was great and it was nice to meet some new people (roommates). So one sunny after noon me and my roommate Brian Hockenstein went out to Tricouni Mountain in search of some water falls he spotted on a map.

So we take his truck and drive down to Squamish where we connected onto an access road to start 4x4ing up Tricouni. Now I was pretty impressed with the terrain Brian’s small truck was able to climb on the tight and rocky logging road that we where on, but it was one hell of a time.

Along the way we stopped for a few photos of a nice view of Squamish River, which is a great attraction for rafting and fishing. After we stopped to take some photos we drove even further up Tricouni, trying out best to follow the map. We passed some more nice views but had little luck on getting a firm location for the water falls, so we took a gamble.

We found an entrance to a hiking trail down a rocky slope in the approximate area to where the map showed the falls, so we hiked down the trail in search of these water falls. Now since this was a rocky slope it was hard to find a solid path. But luckily enough for us I knew a little something about trail marking.

There’s something called an Inukshuk which is a trail marker used by the natives, and this man-made stone landmark had been adopted as a symbol for the 2010 Olympics here in Whistler. Since the landmark has been such a hit with the tourists I caught up on a little history and knew it was a good idea to follow the path of the Inukshuk. After a short while we connected up with the beaten path threw the tree’s of Tricouni.

Brian and I hiked threw a beautiful Forrest for quite some time with no water fall in sight. We could hear water running, but after an hour of hiking we hit a look off, and still no indication of a water fall. So Brian and I decided to snap a few photos at the look off, drink some water and hike back to the truck.

It ended up being a long day with 2 hours of hiking without finding what we were looking for. On the plus side I was able to snap some great landscape photos of Tricouni Mountain and the Squamish river so the day was without a loss.

If you enjoyed this post you can check out my other hiking posts with the links below:

Musical Bumps to Singing Pass Whistler Hiking – Alta Lake Kayaking – 2008 First Snow Fall Whistler Landscapes – Whistler Blackcomb Peak 2 Peak Landscapes

Hiking Tricouni is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

Continued…

If you have not read the first part to this two part blog posting you can read it here

Rainbow Mountain Sledding Day 3

The day after we a descended from Rainbow mountain without my 2002 Skidoo Renegade, Shaun and I did a bunch of research to determine why my sled’s clutch wouldn’t engage. We compiled a big list of things to try, we asked a few fellow sledders as to what they think the problem is. They told me everything from the engine being blown to a simple relay on the computer.

After 36 hours of research to determining possible fixes and figuring out a plan B, Matty, Shaun and I headed back up to the lake to rescue my sled; and you wouldn’t believe what the problem was. The problem was as simple as a little piece of metal on my key had separated and wasn’t centered. So my sled wouldn’t engage the clutch because it didn’t have the proper identification confirming it was the correct key for my sled.

It’s so funny how it’s always the simplest things that are the problem.

All in all I was excited that my sled fired up first try! This was awesome because I was able to enjoy a couple hours of sledding through out the alpine of Rainbow Mountain with a couple friends on a spectacular day.

If you enjoyed this blog post you can read more about my other sledding trips with the links below.

Brandywine Fresh Powder Tracks – Brandywine Chocolate Bowl to Kite Boarding – Brandywine Snowboarding with Eddie

Third asent of Rainbow Mountain, the rescue. is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

About a week and ago Shaun, Johno, Courtney and I went sledding up Rainbow mountain on a beautiful. We zipped up the groomed cat tracks till we got to the clear cut where we stopped the sleds to take a look around. I decided it would be a good idea to do a few runs down the powder trail which meets up with the cat track so we could shuttle back up on the sleds.

At the time I was so pumped to do some boarding because it was going to be my first run on my new Prior Snowboard. Let me tell you it was totally the best feeling of the day.

We where able to ride some decent powder on the slopes while jumping over some short tree tops and slashing the snow down the glades. We had our fun and decided to continue up the mountain into some tight single track. We had to navigate threw some tight trees and steep climbs but it was all in good fun. We struggled a bit threw a  few spots that where super tracked out; Not to mention the fact that we where doubling threw this terrain which doesn’t make it any easier.

We finally reached the lake for some food tunes and some drinks before we got into some fun. We sledded around in some pow and Johno hiked some snowboarding terrain. While everyone has ripping around we snapped some fun photos and enjoyed the heat that the blazing sun provided for us on that beautiful day.

As it was getting late in the day we decided to pack up and head out. This is when we ran into some trouble.

I just had my sled tuned up the night before so it was working mint. But when the engine was running and I pushed the throttle nothing happens. The engine would rev to about 3,000 rpm but the transmission wouldn’t kick in.

No good!

We tried for awhile to get the the tranny to work but still no luck.

Eventually we had to make a decision on how we where getting out of the alpine before dark. Shaun decided we should try to toe my sled off the mountain. So we grabbed a tie down and attached it to both sleds. We gave it a test pull, and it looked like it would work. So I gathered my gear and got ready for a big journey of toeing the sled out. We had Shauns Artic Cat toeing my Renegade and we didn’t even make it 10 feet before the we heard.

SNAP!

The tie down breaks! Nothing was going our way that day. So Johno Courtney and I hike to the next peak and strap in for some boarding down to the base of Rainbow. It took awhile for us to get off the mountain but we had some fun getting toed by Shaun’s working sled with friends threw some fun terrain. We finally finished off the day by drinking some beers at Johno’s place to plan out what we where going to do to get the sled out the next day.

If you Enjoyed this post of Sledding and Snowboarding in Brandywine you can view some other blog posts of Sledding and Snowboarding here:

Fresh powder tracks

Branywine Mountain Snowboarding with Eddie

And you can check out the rest of my Snowboarding blog posts in my Snowboarding section

Rainbow Mountain, day 3 sledding, second asent of Rainbow is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

So on December 12th 2008 Whistler finally opened its long awaited highly anticipated Peak to Peak chair lift. The largest chair light spanning 2 peaks of 2 mountains in North America. I wasn’t able to attend the opening ceremonies due to shifts at work, but I got to enjoy it Chaos free a few days later on a beautiful Bluebird day. I was totally excited my first experience of the peak to peak was on a beautiful day.

To start off the day I went up the Whistler Creek Gondola which brought me to mid station where I hopped onto Big red lift which brings be to the round house on the top of Whistler. I then snapped a few pictures frantically while my fingers where freezing in the bitter cold. Then I waited in luckily a short line up to load onto the huge gondola car. Once we where in the gondola and hanging high above the trees, I warmed my hands then I was able to capture a few shots of the beautiful valley and the glaciers in the back ground.

After a pretty quick 10 minute gondola ride where were all on Blackcomb, such a total luxury. I then did a quick park lap to see who was out shredding on the beautiful bitter cold day, then continued back onto the Peak to Peak Gondola to head home for some hot chocolate. Taking the gondola from Blackcomb to Whistler was pretty much the same, although I was able to snap the same photos that I took previously while incorporating some of the passing gondola cars into the photos.

All in all I had a great introductory day to the Peak to Peak Gondola experience, and If you live in the area I would recommend you definitely go check out the Peak to Peak gondola.

If you enjoyed this blog post you might also enjoy some of my other blog posts including:

Musical Bumps to Singing Pass Whistler Hiking – 2008 First Snow Fall in Whistler Landscapes

Peak 2 Peak is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

This year in winter Whistler was a bit of a late starter to the snowy season. But the best feeling in the world are the first mornings of the season when you wake up to the lushes’ powder in your drive way and seeing the beautiful pillows of snow on top of the trees. It just turns into one of those mornings your glad to be where you are. Here are some pictures I was able to capture on this beautiful morning in Whistler Village.

If you enjoyed this blog post you might also enjoy reading about my Musical Bumps to Singing Pass Whistler Hiking or Whistler Blackcomb Peak 2 Peak Landscapes blog post.

2008 First Snow Fall is a post from: Nick Vail Photography

So this summer was my second summer living in Whistler. Since last summer I had always regretted not getting out and hiking around on Whistler. So I talked to a friend of mine Brian Hockenstein who has lived in whistler for along time and has hiked some of the trails on Whistler before. So Brian, Steve and I wake up one sunny morning to go hike Musical Bumps threw to the Singing Pass on Whistler mountain. We where blessed with sunny days for our 8 hour venture to Russett Lake near which is near Fisile peak where we would camp for the night before we hiked down Singing pass.

Brian, Steve and I all left the peak of whistler at the same time, but were all different people and we each went at our own pace. Some slower, some faster, but about half way (after some of the steeps that we had to hike) we spread apart by quite a bit. I believe Steve hiked the whole trail in about 3 1/2 hours. It took me an additional hour to get to the camping spot and Brian about another 2 hours. But we all had enough time to settle in before we hiked back up to a look off to shoot and enjoy a beautiful sunset.

Later on that night we had a raging camp fire and were able to shoot some star trails. I was only able to  shoot 1 star trail shot before I got spooked and went to hide in the tent. As we woke up the next morning to another beautiful day we packed all our gear and headed down the mountain for another 5-6 hour hike. All in all we ended up on Tapleys patio ready to suck down some beers and relax after such an intense hike.

If you enjoyed this hiking blog post you might also enjoy my blog post about Brian and I hiking on Tricouni Mountain

Musical Bumps is a post from: Nick Vail Photography