“Leonardo da Vinci sketched the first helicopter design in the late 1400s. Three hundred years later Comte Mede de Sivrac of France invented the celerifere, the precursor to the modern-day bicycle. Then, in July 2015, a Revelstoke-based company threw the two vehicles together and brought heli-biking to the masses.
Selkirk-Tangiers has spent almost 40 years taking people heli-skiing and boarding in the West Kootenay but this month marks its first foray into summer offerings: from July to September the company has access to a 50,000-acre tenure (its winter tenure is over 500,000) in which to guide its new heli-biking excursions.
Granted, air-lifting bicycles to the top of a mountain via helicopter is an activity that’s been around for years but it usually involves tossing bikes into a heap, lashing them together and then long-lining them to the summit. After reaching the top, you then replace all the bike parts that broke mid-flight.”
So begins my article for the Kootenay Mountain Culture Group website about the new tourist attraction that’s being offered by Selkirk-Tangiers: helibiking Revelstoke, specifically 2,600-metre-high Mount Cartier, located just outside of town. To read the story in its entirety and to find out what its like to careen down a 760-metre long steel cable at 90-kilometres an hour, log on to the Mountain Culture Group website.
