Rewind

From a Sheep Herding Helicopter

Photo: Tony Harrington

“Kent Kreitler in the McKerrow Range above Makarora, NZ, in 1997, a tiny farming community at the head of Lake Wanaka. In the early to mid-90s, big mountain athletes often went down to South America during the Northern Hemisphere summer, in big part due to the Extreme Skiing events. But until that time the media focus hadn’t really hit New Zealand. That all changed once the World Heli Challenge (WHC) got up and running in Wanaka in 1995. The WHC brought down the likes of Kent, Chris Davenport, Chris Anthony, Shane McConkey and Ian McIntosh who in turn attracted the media, not just around the event, but after it. Following the WHC, athletes and media would explore every nook and cranny of New Zealand, seeking out the gems of the small club fields like Temple Basin, Oahu, Craigieburn and Broken River that were previously unknown to the wider public. On this day, WHC had just wrapped up and Kent, Chris Davenport and I were out on a shoot with the revered heli hunting and search and rescue pilot Harvey Hutton. The back seats of the Hughes 500D were tiny and cramped, and there was often the blood of a freshly killed deer that hadn’t been hosed down properly from the floor of the machine.” Photo: Tony Harrington

“I was on downhill skis with fake GS graphics, well before fat skis. Wanaka was a small village, and the trip felt like we were back in the 1960s. We were heli-skiing from Harvey’s sheep herding and hunting helicopter with a makeshift ski basket that he would wheel out of his barn for us. We were cowboy skiing first descents and exploring terrain with Harvey the sheep rancher.”
—Kent Kreitler