Elite Traveler January-February 2015

INSPIRE HELISKIING

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Make a first descent in the Alps and you’ll dine out on it for life. Here you can do six in a morning

fades to silence and our little group of four is alone. To one side is the fjord, to the other are rows of white peaks, stretching into the distance, totally devoid of any sign of human existence. Below us lies a 1,000-meter slope of smooth, untouched, buttery- soft snow, sparkling in places where patches of ice crystals catch the afternoon sun. We grin at each other, clip into our skis, and push off for a run none of us will forget. This is a ski experience like no other – a world away from the crowded pistes and throbbing après- ski bars of the Alps and Rockies. We are on the Troll Peninsula – a frozen finger of mountains, pointing out from northern Iceland towards Greenland and the North Pole. It feels exhilaratingly remote – the furthest, wildest edge of Europe – but getting here is actually surprisingly straightforward from both Europe and the US. The season runs from April to June, long after conventional ski resorts have shut. I’ve come for a long weekend, leaving London sweltering in the May sunshine, and flying north to Akureyri, Iceland’s second largest city (though it has a population of just 18,000). The flight gives the sensation of time travel – with each degree of latitude we gain, the clock seems to turn back a week, from spring to winter. Stepping onto the tarmac at Akureyri, surrounded by snow- smothered peaks, balmy London seems like a distant dream. We’re picked up in a monster-tyred 4x4 van and drive north for an hour, at first sticking to the coast, then turning inland up a lonely valley. The Tarmac road gives way to gravel track, the houses become fewer and farther between. Eventually, at the head of the valley, we come to a white-walled farmhouse that is to be our base for the trip. The helicopter is parked by the barn, chickens pecking at the grass around it. Waiting inside are Snorren and our guide Jökull Bergmann – a name that literally translates as glacier mountainman, though he is usually known as JB. His family has farmed in the valley for 300 years; in the

living room is a bookcase built by his grandfather, whose initials are carved beside the date, 1921. One wall shows a black and white photograph of the valley, apparently taken in 1940, though nothing has changed. A decade ago, few outside Iceland had ever heard of the Troll Peninsula, let alone skied here. But, unlikely as it might seem, this year it is emerging as heliskiing’s new hotspot, with three operators drawing wealthy guests from around the globe. JB was the pioneer, his company Arctic Heliskiing running its first full season in 2011. Then Viking Heliskiing, another small operator, launched at Ólafsfjördur, at the tip of the peninsula, to be followed this spring by Deplar Farm, to the west.

undreds of feet below our helicopter, the cold black sea churns into frothing white waves. We pass over a small fishing village, where brightly colored boats bob at anchor, then follow the frozen shore north, until our objective, Kerahnjúkur peak, comes into view. The nearer we get, the more it becomes clear that there isn’t really anywhere to land, and the louder my heart thuds inside my chest. We close in, Snorren, the pilot, inching the helicopter towards the narrow summit ridge. As he gently rests the left skid onto the snow, he maintains the power so the helicopter stays hovering – best not to think about the right skid, hanging out over the abyss. Gingerly, deliberately – my head swimming slightly – I clamber out and crouch motionless on the sloping snow. The guide unloads the skis; Snorren gives a smiling thumbs up then tips the aircraft on its side and just falls away, back towards the fjord. The noise of the beating rotors