HELISKIING IN RUSSIA

DAILY MAIL SKI AND SNOWBOARD – DECEMBER 2003

The tune was unmistakable, the theme from a James Bond movie. As the music blasted from the speakers sitting millimetres behind our heads the significance wasn't lost on me.

To be cramped into the back of a moonlighting taxi while being subjected to the theme tune of the West's most famous spy was one thing, but to be experiencing it as we swerved through the bustling streets of Moscow was irony indeed. The Cold War was over, and it seems that the west is the victor.

Outside the cosy cab, Moscow was cold, bitterly cold, and shrouded in a sullen cloud of grey. We only had two nights here as a stopover on our way south, but those two nights would prove enough - the piercing cold would see to that. We were headed for the western Caucasus Mountains, which include the giant Mt Elbrus (5672m), and form a massive barrier between Georgia and Russia, to heliski Russian powder.

The taxi was an old wreck, the perseverance of which could only be a tribute to the heavy-duty build of most things Russian. A little unnervingly, this industrial styling extended as far as the Aeroflot plane out of Moscow and the helicopter that would be depositing us, no doubt with the nimbleness of a Bolshoi ballerina, atop a number of Russian peaks. The idea of Heliskiing in Russia had been sprung on us by James Morland, who needed to check the place out for his company, Elemental Adventure, but we didn't take much persuasion to join him. With two of our party ,the UK's Johno Verity and James Stentiford, riding for the snowboard and surf giant Animal. Russia was a great destination for one of the company's Location X trips. Location X is the tag the company has given to the idea of sending outdoor types to far-flung places to do extreme sports and get awesome photos of them wearing its gear. To make it all the more rewarding, none of us could speak Russian and only one of our group, French snowboarder Lolo Besse, had been before.

A two-hour flight later, the Moscow pallor was replaced by the clear blue skies above Sochi. As one of the main seaside resorts on the Black Sea, it has temperatures that allow a person to bend their legs without fear of their trousers freezing to their skin. After a one and a half hour bus journey inland, we arrived at the rustic village of Krasnaya Poliana and settled into the small guest house that would be home for the rest of our trip. Keeping it cheap, we declined the Elemental Adventure four-star hotel option in favour of one of several local guest houses, on the grounds that we'd have a more authentic experience. Authenticity was indeed guaranteed. Among the house's attractions was a tea-urn that sent a numbing electric shock along any appendage that touched it while brewing, and a hungry wood stove that, due to over enthusiastic stoking by the solidly-built owner, threatened to incinerate half of Russia's logging reserves in a single afternoon. Outside on the dirt streets, cattle and chickens wandered the peaceful streets oblivious to the occasional smoke-belching Lada passing within a metre of them - it was all part of rural Russian life.

At the end of our street stood the icing on Krasnaya Poliana's cake; a heavyset helicopter that could swallow up 23 passengers at one time, It was huge, needing the skill of two pilots just to get it into the air. But once up and going, it proved unstoppable; a bit like a runaway traction engine. The sheer weight and power of the monstrous machine meant it could fly and land in crosswinds that would have sent the small A-Star choppers normally associate with heliskiing operations scuttling for cover. We gaped in amazement at the behemoth - this helicopter meant business, we just weren't sure whether we did.

We never asked where the pilots had gained their flying skills, but they soon laid our anxieties to rest, setting the big bird down on a peak without the merest hint of a jolt. Every landing was followed by a flurry of activity as 10 people made for the door like an evacuation drill gone wrong, all eager to get a glimpse of the slopes we’d been skiing. And then, magically catching you by surprise each time, the chopper would give one almighty swirl of the rotor blades and depart to a more solid landing zone, leaving our gob smacked group in silence and at the mercy of the Caucasus mountains and a couple of French guides.

During the next few days we rode lap after lap, in a frenzy of powder-induced psychosis, ticking off the peaks as we went – Crete of Aibga (2500m), Black Pyramid (2500m), Agepsta (3200m). The snow was good and stable. Even days after the last storm, it was light, rising before us, coating our grinning faces and leaving us gasping in a frozen-cheeked state of disbelief. As we dropped another 1500m descent of the wind sheltered slopes and bowels into the perfectly spaced trees of the silver birch forests below, it was hard to accept that we were in Russia, a country that all through my childhood was portrayed as the evil empire. And not only that, we were Heliskiing!

But even a great beast of a helicopter gets grounded when the weather closes in. Although this area isn’t lumbered with the skies of Moscow a thousand miles to the north, the weather that blows in from the Black Sea is alarmingly fickle. Vodka or at least the excessive consumption of it , is just one answer to the frustrations of having your helicopter grounded. The other is to ski at the local “hill”.

As local ski hills go, Krasnaya Poliana ‘s is quite something. Rising more than 1000m vertically, it has loads of snow, and is accessed by a daisy chain of four rainbow painted, two-seater chairlift, the top station of which is at 2300m. The top half of the mountain hangs like a rumpled curtain of steep chutes and powder fields feeding back to the mid station, from where you jump on a creaking lift again and ride up for another lap. At the end of the day you can treat yourself to a lump of cake and a cup of tea for a mere quid in the café at the base, or go and barter for local honey and royal jelly at the stalls opposite. If you’re lucky you can enter into a strange gesticular conversation with a chap on a donkey brandishing a saber. Ah, the fruits of the free market economy.

From James bond to Wannabe Cossacks, Russia has a bit of everything. It might all look a little industrial, but the snow is still white and the powder deep. And rusty taxis, creaking chairlifts and flying buses sure beat walking.