Greenland is one of the most spectacular places to ski in the world. And now, thanks to a partnership between Y.CO and Powderbird, you can access its powdery slopes from the helideck of your superyacht.
This is not your average day. Waking up on a luxury expedition yacht in a pristine, sparsely populated Greenland. Greeted by an extraordinary clarity of light on the water, the raw power of nature all around you, a helicopter waiting to carry you from the yacht’s helipad high up into the mountains, where the best day’s powder skiing of your life awaits.
Visiting Greenland, let alone skiing there, has never been easy – an island archipelago with few towns, very few hotels, virtually no roads, no ski lifts, minimal infrastructure, a very complex fjord system to navigate and a total population of just 55,000. But now Y.CO, in collaboration with Utah-based heli-skiing operation Powderbird, is opening up yacht charters to the region – unlocking a world of snow-capped wilderness, deep untracked powder and glacial runs dropping as much as 2,000 metres to the fjords below. “These yacht charters get guests right up into the midst of nature and allow them to have it all to themselves,” says Kevin O’Rourke, Vice President of Operations at Powderbird. “No catching the last lift. No going back to your hotel. Just a day of extraordinary heli-skiing in the most heavily glaciated, dramatic mountains imaginable, then a night spent on the open ocean, under the stars.”
A Y.CO charter with Powderbird will offer seven to ten days of sensational skiing, typically lifting off in the helicopter around 9.30am, skiing four or five untouched runs before stopping off for an idyllic picnic lunch on a peak or beach, and then skiing another four or five in the afternoon. Eight or ten helicopter flights and subsequent descents a day is the norm, but more aggressive skiers may do as many as 15. You’ll have one Powderbird guide for every three or four clients, another guide on standby, a helicopter pilot at your disposal, and, if desired, a professional powder skiing instructor dedicated to helping you improve your style. All the necessary safety equipment is provided — rescue gear, transceivers, avalanche airbags — giving you peace of mind. And at the end of the day the helicopter flies you right back to your yacht, which, in Kevin’s words, is more like “a floating five-star hotel”, with all the gourmet dining, fine wine, cinema rooms, spas, jacuzzis and attentive, round-the-clock service that comes with it.
"A Y.CO charter with Powderbird will offer seven to ten days of sensational skiing, typically lifting off in the helicopter around 9.30am, skiing four or five untouched runs before stopping off for an idyllic picnic lunch on a peak or beach, and then skiing another four or five in the afternoon."
Powderbird’s expeditions focus on the wild west coast of Greenland. There’s some world-class backcountry skiing around Maniitsoq Island, with wide, immaculate slopes descending along the fjords all the way to the water. It’s also home to colourful little clapboard villages, pristine rivers and pods of visiting humpback whales. Maniitsoq Island opens the gates to vast and deep fjords encompassing the most beautiful mountains in the region, including the 100km-long, endlessly forking inlet that is Eternity Fjord, where glacier upon glacier pours down from towering peaks. Here you can ski glaciers, couloirs, vast bowls and virgin snow that’s never once been skied before. “It’s hard to imagine that places like this still exist for skiers,” says Kevin. “But Greenland really does redefine the meaning of ‘first tracks.’” Further north again is Disko Bay, carving the most impressive icebergs of the Northern Hemisphere. This is a magnificent fjordscape and a UNESCO World Heritage site, offering mythic vistas, empty blue skies and spring snow so light it’s like skiing on a cloud.
The west of Greenland offers skiing at its purest and most thrilling. Nowhere else can you drop from summit to sea in a single descent. But a heli-skiing yacht charter to this part of the planet offers more than just epic slopes and virgin snow. There’s fascinating culture here too, born of a unique blend of Inuit and Danish blood, and giving rise to a Greenlandic society all of its own. “You’ll meet everyone from subsistence fisherman to Inuit hunters and dogsledders, to Danish lawyers and doctors,” says Kevin. Folk arts, crafts and local traditions flourish – everything from soap carving to kayak building, ice fishing, igloo building and drum and mask dance. If you come to Greenland early in the main heli-skiing season, which runs from late March to mid-May, you might even catch a glimpse of Aurora Borealis – those storied, luminous lights, dancing mysteriously in the Arctic night.
"It’s hard to imagine that places like this still exist for skiers. But Greenland really does redefine the meaning of first tracks." – Kevin O’Rourke
Culture and adventure. Yacht and helicopter. Ocean and slope. Spray and snow. This is not just a heli-skiing trip. This is an escape from civilisation as you know it. A chance to experience the most dramatically beautiful island by water, air and ground in a single day. To savour an unspoilt landscape steeped in fascinating indigenous tradition. To spend the day flying through virgin powder, and end the day sipping champagne in a bubbling hot tub at dusk.
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