Whistler Heli Drop! | Sickest shuttle ever, now to ride back down...
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- This week we're looking at one of the highlights of our PNW road trip last summer: an mtb heli drop to the top of Rainbow Mountain, in Whistler, B.C.
I had lost most of the footage of this ride after an SD card error. But with all this stay-at-home time, I fought the SD card and recovered a good chunk of the footage and managed to put this shorter-than-usual video.
This one was a dream come true to me, and I'm super stoked I get to take you along. In addition to mountain biking, I love aviation. While airplanes make intuitive sense to, I find the complexity of helicopters mind-blowing, so in addition to digging the riding, I was stoked just to get to fly.
With the bikes mounted on a bike rack which doesn't look to different than a regular hitch rack, just much beefier, we were off. The flightpath taken is just the right length, you don't take a direct route, instead flying over some interesting scenery, but not enough to get bored of what you're seeing. In no time, you're way above the treeline, celebrating the oh so beautiful high alpine of british columbia.
With apparent extreme ease, the pilot sets down in the tiniest flat patch. Once the rotor has slowed down, but not turned off, the person riding in front gets off and unloads the bikes for everyone. Rear seat passengers can get off as soon as the left side rack is unloaded. The last person to get off, in this case me, is tasked with closing the door, which sound super simple, but think of how many times you've struggled to get that stupid mini van door to work, this is the same but with a rotor spining a couple of times a second above your head. After everyone is clear, the chopper goes on his way, leaving you and your crew with no choice but to ride down. At this point, you and your crew are on your own, and if you're geeking out like me, you'll probably be giggling like 5 year old about the ride.
So, its time to make our way down. As always, I'd recommend you have trailforks with you as you're dropped of just off the trail. The initial traverse is marked with tiny handmade rocktowers. Once you've spotted them, the route becomes more apparent, but it still goes over some mossy/rocky odd spots that may be confusing. We ended up crossing this snow patch, because it had track on it, but I'm pretty sure the real route was around it, as we ended up getting to a vertical rock which was a step up instead of a ridable section.
The first part of this ride is without a doubt the most challenging, Trailforks has it rated as a double diamond, and I'd agree with it. Well, let me clarify, most of the trail is, by whistler standards a single diamond, but its full of commiting sections which I think justify the double diamond rating. If you're watching this video and thinking, that doesn't look steep at all, remember the GoPro effect. That being said, if you're confidently riding single diamonds in the bike park, I'd say you can ride this, just make sure to do it later in the trip to ensure you've warmed up properly first.
While the steep natural feeling terrain is a constant throughout this ride, the vegetation is ever changing. You get to ride from the high alpine into the deep forest in this one, typical of terrain at this latitude. I personally love that rate of change, as you lose elevation the trees grow and become thicker, as if an indicator of how far you are along the route.
Not everything is slow steep tech, for one, I'm sure better riders can tackle all the steeps at faster speeds, and second, the trail does have some nice open sections where you can relax, a bit. Don't let your guard down because as tempting as it is to gaze into the amazing views, the easy stretches don't last much.
To be honest, I was struggling with fatigue at this point, this was our 11th day in a row on the bike, commulatively having ridden 195 miles, climbed 20,000 and descended 48000 vert ft. As you can imagine my riding wasn't at its finest, and while some of these sections could have benefitted from a pedal stroke or two to keep speed up, I just didn't have it in my anymore. But, even with exhaustion, I was enjoying this ride so much, and that makes it extra special, in many ways, a type 2 fun shuttle, which isn't all that common, type 2 fun is usually associated with the climb.
Anyhow, if you have the ridding background for it, and you're wondering if its worth the expense to do this ride, the answer is 100% yes.
Rainbow's End on Trailforks: www.trailforks...
This trip seems like such a dream. A whistler Heli Shuttle and Top of the World are two lifetime bucket list rides I want to accomplish one day. I'm glad you were able to salvage the footage. This was a great video.
Thanks Dan! It was an absolute dream, spent years chasing this one until everything finally lined up to make it happen. Definitely work them into your active bucket list haha. Glad you enjoyed the video.
Does that dump you out on Lord Of The Squirrels and Into The Mystic? It all looks the same up there, hard to tell. Awesome place though, just a couple hours up from home!
Different mountain, lots is on sproat, this is rainbow mtn. They are literally next to each other though. You're so lucky to have that close by!
just saying we got 20 inches of fresh pow, isn't time to be nice,,,,,lol!?! Great video as always, keep up good job, cheers V!
Thanks Verdon! 20 inches of pow, wow, so tempting to head out for a tour. Are you getting any skiing done during this craziness?
BlindstuffMTB some, not much as I would like but hey. The month of May will be back in normal🤞
Weird. I found a video of yours I haven't commented on. Even worse, it's easily one of my most favorite videos of yours (I've watched your PNW and Colorado trail videos the most by far, but even among those I've watched this one more, to the point where I can recollect scenes from it without haven't seen it in months). I'm also a huge fan of aviation, which might be why I love it so much. And I also haven't gotten my license. Bucket list goal, hopefully sooner than later. What did you end up doing for work?
Thanks Daniel! Same page, I rewatch this one often just because of the aviation portion haha. Hope you can get that license someday, it still remains a dream for me, no idea when I'll be able to pull it off yet. Maybe it'll be my old person objective once I'm not able to ride anymore haha
@@BlindstuffMTB hopefully sooner than that :) I was never able to take formal education in flying, but my uncle is a pilot and I've been able to go up with him a couple of times for short (couple hundred mile) flights.
Such a sick ride, roughly how long does this trail take top to bottom, obviously with a few stops to shake out the hands and take in the views
KOM is around 30 minutes. We took about 2 hours from landing on the top stopping a few times. Reasonably, for most people I'd say 2 to 3 hours depending on pace and how much you stop etc.
Heli biking is a thing? That is epic! Definitely one of the coolest videos I have seen in a long while. I’m stoked you managed to recover the footage to share with the world. This was awesome
Riding those steep and gnarly trail on Jeffsy that’s crazy 😜, i wonder the difference if you’re on bigger bike/enduro bike 👍.
I absolutely love my Jeffsy, but here it would have been nice to have a slacker beefier bike.
You must have had so much fun! I watch your frend #BCpov
One of my all time favorite experiences. bcpov rocks, amazing channel and rider
Great video as usual. I just made a new channel, Deep South MTB
Very cool! Thanks.
This is incredible love the voice over and the awesome footage
Thanks Jack!
Hey do you think you could give me some tips on starting up my UA-cam channel
Bucket list item!
Absolutely, I had been dreaming about this one for the longest time!
Dude! That's an epic ride! In heli and down the mountain. I love having to navigate when the trails aren't visible. So exciting. Glad you were able to salvage the footgae. I thought it was more than enough !
Thanks Ben! Agreed, its always fun to get that sense of adventure out there! Happy you liked it.
That was Epic for sure :D
C'mon! you did that! amazing..... so Jealous :)
Thank you very much! Has been a long time dream, stoked everything fell into place for it to happen.
Nice..whatcha doing with your old bike...selling it??
Yes, will be selling it soon.
God the SD card errors are the absolute worst. Got to add this to the bucketlist tho, great video.
Happy you enjoyed this!
Absolutely beautiful! What an awesome experience
It was!
We are glad you salvaged the footage, it would have been sad to lose it. Keep up the good work.
Thanks 👍 I got most of it back, but I think it was enough to put together a good (albeit shorter than usual) video.
Nice video, that and Revelstoke are on my heli bucket list. I've done it in Queenstown NZ, it was nice but no where near as epic as that. 👍
The Mt Cartier drop looks amazing, that's definitely something I hope to do someday. So much elevation to drop on that one.
@@BlindstuffMTB 100%
Sick! Glad you recovered the footage
Me too! Totally worth the effort!
Great vid bro! 💯🔥🤙🏻
Thanks man! 🤘🤘🤘
Sick man! That looked amazing
Thanks a ton! It was something that I had always wanted to do. Happy you liked the video.
What was the heli cost?
We used blackcomb helicopters and it was 695 CAD for up to 5 passengers with bikes. They have other drops in Pemberton which are futher away and more expensive, really depends on what you want to ride.
Watched that one till the end. Lol. Great ride and experience.
Awesome thank you!