Heli-skiing...

Go for it, I've been a couple of times, and it's been one of the more memorable experiences of my life.

The price seems right as well, but go with the expectation of beautiful scenery and the thrill of being in a helicopter, the rest is secondary, in my opinion.

And pick and choose your day carefully, you want good visibility, clear skies, and hopefully fresh snow waiting for you.

$400 for 2 runs in T-Ride? Hell no. Here's why

- With only 2 runs, the guides have no idea about the ability of the group and more importantly their willingness to listen to instruction. Because of this, you are guaranteed to be skiing uber conservative safe terrain.

 - Unless you can decide day of, you risk having unsafe avy conditions, bad snow/weather etc.

Unless you are willing to pay that for the experience of flying in a heli, and the novelty of being in the backcountry (if you haven't before), I think it's too much. $400 for a full day I would say go for it, but 2 runs, unless they are 4,000+ vert each, is nothing.

$400 can get you a day of cat skiing mid-winter in BC (10-12 runs), it can be cheaper shoulder season or stand-by. I'd save the money or put it toward touring gear/avy class instead.

Level One guys letting themselves down on NS seems to be all the rage lately and Dean Cummings, is by all accounts, a stand up guy, along with being one of THE pioneers of big mountain skiing.

That said, I haven't met the guy, and it sounds like you had a bad experience? What's the word?

Over to you sir...

haha chill out dude, at no point was I ever on the soapbox. I simply said that your comments contrasted with what I'd heard, and therefore asked you to expand on what you had said. which you now have. so far so good. no need to bring clowns into it.

back on topic, i'll add another option into the mixer.

if you are in europe, valgrisenche in italy is by far the best heli op. much much more terrain than those flying out of courmayeur and more diversity than the monte rosa operations. heliskiing in europe is very different to what you normally associate with heliskiing- expect very long runs (up to ~2500m vert) with all types of snow and terrain. it won't be AK style spine walls though. in my experience its more about the overall vibe than super intense skiing. i.e. flying around stunning scenery and long descents in tranquility. worth a day or two but it won't be super dooper gnar like in ak. if you want that you are better off chasing lift-accessed or touring into the big terrain around the like of Cham, Andermatt, Verbier, Tignes etc. 

if you insist, ok, i'll play.

i didn't insult you, i merely stated 2 facts then asked you to expand upon your experience.

statement 1: level one guys have been letting themselves down on NS lately. regardless of your point of view, right or wrong, and regardless of the fact that kids on NS blew it out of proportion, ahmet's comments were, at best, well intentioned but ill-advised and naive nonetheless. other guys from level one wading in and effectively stoking the fire wasn't very sensible either. i forget who, since the thread has been deleted, but was it downey that basically added another jon call-out? call me old fashioned but that isn't terribly productive. freeskiing is, as you know, not a huge community, and inter-pro bitching (however trivial) just makes the perpetrators look unprofessional.

statement 2: dean cummings is, by all accounts, a stand-up guy. by which i meant that everyone i've spoken to that have met him found that to be the case. your experience, evidently, was different, and i offered you the opportunity to make that clear, which you did.

where's the insult?