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Outside Magazine February 2004

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I Did It Friedl's Way
What happens when a veteran mountain guide has to follow someone else's lead for a day of heli-skiing? Heads swell, powder flies, and somebody gets handed a big slice of humble pie. Dave Hahn confesses.


	(photograph by Chris Buck)

COUPLE OF WINTERS AGO, I was invited by the Calgary, Alberta-based energy-investment firm Peters and Company to give a slide show about my alpine adventures at their annual conference at Lake Louise, in the Canadian Rockies. The organizers flew my girlfriend, Deirdre, and me up there first-class from my home in Taos, New Mexico, and made it clear that we were going to get rock-star treatment. Having spent much of the last 18 years as a professional mountaineering guide and ski patroller in cold, harsh places—I had just gotten back from three months of guiding in Antarctica—I felt justified in soaking up the good life, and the gravy seemed to be coming my way, right on schedule. The immigration agent in Calgary who checked my passport asked if I was the Dave Hahn, the one who did all that climbing. Deirdre, a Scottish expedition doctor, rolled her eyes, figuring that I'd somehow paid this guy ahead of time for the compliment. He let me into his country, with my head swelling uncontrollably.

For three days, Deirdre and I lived better than royalty, enjoying swank housing at the Chateau Lake Louise and reveling in the fanfare of a hundred energy-company CEOs from Canada and the United States. Normally my ego is kept in check by my colleagues—guides who have accomplished more than me and who make fun of me every time I screw up. But I didn't see any of them being wined and dined and retiring to a private hot tub. I lapped up the attention, begging—I see now—to be put in my place.

It didn't take long. Almost immediately, my Canadian tour de force was plagued by setbacks. For starters, I'd caught a vicious case of laryngitis. There I was, ready to pontificate about what a big-shot climber I was, and my voice wouldn't put out. A little adversity never hurt anyone, except perhaps my listeners, who had to endure 50 minutes of me croaking and choking like a cat coughing up a hairball. I did my best to entertain, showing slide after slide of yours truly doing the Tiger Woods fist pump on one summit after another: McKinley, Rainier, and Everest, with a couple of stories tossed in about being part of the 1999 expedition that found George Mallory's body. These were nice people, and they clapped when I finished—or perhaps because I finished.

But there was another, more profound glitch. The slide-show invitation had included such sweet incentives as free lift tickets for nearby Lake Louise Alpine Resort, but there was hardly a meter of snow on the ground there. If Deirdre and I were going to sample Canada's legendary powder, we'd have to do it via helicopter.

Local knowledge of the mountain range and weather patterns is essential for heli-skiing, especially on the steep faces of the northern Rockies. We would need the full deal—a day of flying and an expert guide. Heli-ski guides have a sexy and dangerous job: They wear one-piece ski suits with belted waists that make them look like Transformers, they work with well-to-do folk (at the time, a day of heli-skiing ran about $800 for two, more than I usually shell out for a day of fun), and they're damn good skiers.

So I called a local outfit and booked the last two seats in a chopper going out the next morning. I decided not to tell the outfitter that I was a mountain guide and ski patroller; I was looking forward to getting out and playing for a day, and I didn't want to tell Everest stories or live up to anybody else's expectations. I also figured I could stand to brush up on my own guiding skills by seeing how someone else did it.

I should have known it wouldn't be that simple.

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