It was the middle of our New Zealand lockdown and it was 8 April, our 20th wedding anniversary. We had planned an overseas trip in January, but couldn’t take it because my husband injured himself. The weekend he was finally cleared to drive, was the weekend New Zealand went into lockdown. We’d gone from one type of enforced staycation over the Christmas break into another type. We were well practiced when lockdown hit.
Our kids tried hard to make our wedding anniversary special. My eldest son cooked us dinner and the others set the table as nicely as they could. Perhaps after all, it was the best anniversary. Because of the love they showed us, I won’t be forgetting it in a hurry. But right there and then my husband and I also committed to a heli-ski because it was one of those things that was on our bucket list that we wanted to do together.
To have a bucket list or not
Elizabeth Scott, a wellness coach specialising in stress management and quality of life wrote for verywellmind that a bucket list is important because peak experiences are likely to be those that you remember the most in life and that may change who you are in a positive way.
Psychologists seem to have a more cynical view of bucket lists. One says that unless they’re filled with good deeds then they’re not so good, just more hedonism and showing off on social media. Another psychologist said “I like the spirit of a bucket list, if not the exact phrase. I like exhilarating memories but not the exclusion of meaningful experiences. And I like lofty goals if they do not obscure the rest of what matters”. Perhaps a better approach is to reverse engineer a bucket list, like this editor suggests.
“Life is too amazing for me to let this disease get in the way. What makes one truly alive is not just living. It’s the way in which we live”.
Pat Quinn, fo-founder of the Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) Ice Bucket Challenge
Facing a lifetime of incurable chronic illness, creates a sense of urgency about living the best life I can. I have a rather loose and small list and I think my bucket is not the most well-designed or well-thought through. It’s more a collection of vague ideas. Peak experiences from my holey “bucket” help me feel like I’m growing and learning. I need to push myself to stay open to what is possible because fatigue and pain have a way of shrinking my comfort zone. By being willing to operate outside my comfort zone, I can have new shared experiences with my husband and/or family. Sometimes, these experiences are large like our heli-ski. Other times, they’re smaller like being there for milestones and celebrations.
The heli-ski was a shared celebration with my husband of our twenty years together, with a large chunk of them involving us learning how to adapt and work around my chronic disease. It was also a celebration of my learned sit-ski skills, my health, and a “taking notice” of our beautiful and magnificent country. So while it was an exhilarating memory it was not a meaningless experience.
If you are a thrill seeker chasing an exhilarating experience then I’m fairly sure that a heli-ski in the Southern Alps of New Zealand will turn it into something more meaningful and deeper than you first realised. The beauty and majesty of the Alps cannot help but influence you into taking notice.
Heli sit ski tips
I chose to ski with Harris Mountains Heli Ski because they hadn’t taken a sit skier before. They were very inclusive and able to adapt what they usually do to work for us. I was keen to ski with them to give future sit skiers greater choice in providers.
The following tips are useful for preparing for a heli ski for sit skiers, but also skiers and boarders.
- expect to land on a small peak, even if you’re a blue-run intermediate skier
- its good for your guide to know about your sit ski brakes, and that you know how to stop
- make sure you can do a slide for life well and know how to stop the slide
- work on your pendulum and slide slip skills before you go on a heli ski
- think ahead about being caught in an avalanche or falling in deep powder and how you might cope with that.
AdaptiveGo 