Whistler Heli Drop! | Sickest shuttle ever, now to ride back down...

This week we're looking at one of the highlights of our PNW road trip last summer: an mtb heli drop to the top of Rainbow Mountain, in Whistler, B.C. I had lost most of the footage of this ride after an SD card error. But with all this stay-at-home time, I fought the SD card and recovered a good chunk of the footage and managed to put this shorter-than-usual video. This one was a dream come true to me, and I'm super stoked I get to take you along. In addition to mountain biking, I love aviation. While airplanes make intuitive sense to, I find the complexity of helicopters mind-blowing, so in addition to digging the riding, I was stoked just to get to fly. With the bikes mounted on a bike rack which doesn't look to different than a regular hitch rack, just much beefier, we were off. The flightpath taken is just the right length, you don't take a direct route, instead flying over some interesting scenery, but not enough to get bored of what you're seeing. In no time, you're way above the treeline, celebrating the oh so beautiful high alpine of british columbia. With apparent extreme ease, the pilot sets down in the tiniest flat patch. Once the rotor has slowed down, but not turned off, the person riding in front gets off and unloads the bikes for everyone. Rear seat passengers can get off as soon as the left side rack is unloaded. The last person to get off, in this case me, is tasked with closing the door, which sound super simple, but think of how many times you've struggled to get that stupid mini van door to work, this is the same but with a rotor spining a couple of times a second above your head. After everyone is clear, the chopper goes on his way, leaving you and your crew with no choice but to ride down. At this point, you and your crew are on your own, and if you're geeking out like me, you'll probably be giggling like 5 year old about the ride. So, its time to make our way down. As always, I'd recommend you have trailforks with you as you're dropped of just off the trail. The initial traverse is marked with tiny handmade rocktowers. Once you've spotted them, the route becomes more apparent, but it still goes over some mossy/rocky odd spots that may be confusing. We ended up crossing this snow patch, because it had track on it, but I'm pretty sure the real route was around it, as we ended up getting to a vertical rock which was a step up instead of a ridable section. The first part of this ride is without a doubt the most challenging, Trailforks has it rated as a double diamond, and I'd agree with it. Well, let me clarify, most of the trail is, by whistler standards a single diamond, but its full of commiting sections which I think justify the double diamond rating. If you're watching this video and thinking, that doesn't look steep at all, remember the GoPro effect. That being said, if you're confidently riding single diamonds in the bike park, I'd say you can ride this, just make sure to do it later in the trip to ensure you've warmed up properly first. While the steep natural feeling terrain is a constant throughout this ride, the vegetation is ever changing. You get to ride from the high alpine into the deep forest in this one, typical of terrain at this latitude. I personally love that rate of change, as you lose elevation the trees grow and become thicker, as if an indicator of how far you are along the route. Not everything is slow steep tech, for one, I'm sure better riders can tackle all the steeps at faster speeds, and second, the trail does have some nice open sections where you can relax, a bit. Don't let your guard down because as tempting as it is to gaze into the amazing views, the easy stretches don't last much. To be honest, I was struggling with fatigue at this point, this was our 11th day in a row on the bike, commulatively having ridden 195 miles, climbed 20,000 and descended 48000 vert ft. As you can imagine my riding wasn't at its finest, and while some of these sections could have benefitted from a pedal stroke or two to keep speed up, I just didn't have it in my anymore. But, even with exhaustion, I was enjoying this ride so much, and that makes it extra special, in many ways, a type 2 fun shuttle, which isn't all that common, type 2 fun is usually associated with the climb. Anyhow, if you have the ridding background for it, and you're wondering if its worth the expense to do this ride, the answer is 100% yes. Rainbow's End on Trailforks: https://www.trailforks.com/trails/rai...