Best Christmas Gift Ever! (Christmas 2010)

A Christmas gift can tell you a lot about your relationship.  Some gifts are very impersonal, some gifts are very inappropriate and some gift, for whatever reason, are absolutely PERFECT.  This post is dedicated to the most extreme christmas gift, Expat Adventure in Switzerland!

For Christmas, the GF had decided to surprise me with a heli-skiing adventure in the Swiss Alps. (awesome I know!)  So, in March 2010, myself and 4 other friends (also lucky recipients of a loving Christmas gift) headed down to Verbier, Switzerland to start our Heli-skiing, boys weekend adventure.

The view from our chalet the morning of the big day

Fortunately for us, the weather that day was absolutely perfect (minus 1 metre of fresh fluffy powder...this is Europe after all!).  We put on our climbing harnesses, helmets and avalanche transponders, loaded the backpacks with probes, shovels, water and chocolate, and boarded the helicopter ready for action.  A short 7 min flight to the summit of the mountain and it was time for us to drop in.

Making our way to the drop in point.  Couldn't have asked for better flying conditions

The view from the top was absolutely spectacular.  It's the stuff mountaineering dreams are made of.

The view from the top was already an amazing Christmas gift.   I still can't believe this is only 3 hrs by car from Basel

The descent started with a nice flat bowl which quickly turned into a steep drop down the glacier.  The hard packed snow made for great fast skiing as the skis found their edges.  Unfortunately, one of the party had a minor fall at the top of the glacier which very quickly escalated into a potential high altitude rescue situation.  The hard ice and steep pitch made it impossible to stop his fall as he slid approx 300 vertical metres down the side of glacier, narrowly missing what is now appropriately called the Godfrey Rock (not to mention the crevasses!).

View from the top of the climb out.  The descent was from the top left of this photo (behind the rock face).  Just to the right of the rock face of the left, almost at the bottom, you can see the Godfrey rock.  His slide didn't stop until almost the middle of this photo.  You can see the slide out trails just visible off the shadow

Fortunately, everything ended well.  We then needed to climb out of the glacier valley meaning strapping the skis to the backpacks, roping together and edging our way up the steep ice cliff.

From the top of the cliff, it was a simple descent down a beautiful consistent pitch to the bottom.

A beautiful open pitch down from the top of the ice cliff.  Small black dots just above the shadow are other skiers either making their way up or already skiing down

A hearty swiss mountain meal at a mountain side restaurant before the bus took us back to Verbier.

The second day was equally as nice as we skiing our brains out making the most of another perfect day.

Verbier resort in all of her glory.  We couldn't have asked for a better second day!

I will never forget the feeling of gaining altitude so quickly, seeing the glaciers from above and jumping out of a helicopter to start a ski run.  Truly, the best Christmas gift ever....for now!