Heli-skiing offers the kind of alpine experience that the 99 percent typically only get a glimpse of through photographs and movies: skiers are flown by helicopter to glorious, long, steep slopes of pure, untouched powder in some of the most spectacular and remote locations in the world.

It may take some cash, but contrary to popular thinking, you don’t need to be an expert or an extreme skier to give the sport a go. Rather, people have to be solidly comfortable on blue runs and in decent physical shape. And for first-timers in particular, it helps to take a few tips from the pros. As the medical director of Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing, Dr. Dave Watson has some advice for newbies: don’t hit all that fresh, deep powder with a brand-new pair of boots you’ve never worn before.

“That’s one of the biggest mistakes first-timers make,” says the former emergency-room physician in an interview with the Georgia Straight in North Vancouver. “We’ll have skiers say ‘I’ve got a sore’ here or there will be a skin abrasion there. We can fix them up and help them, but it’s better not to have that issue in the first place.”

With more than 18 operators, B.C. is apparently the place to be when it comes to epic heli-skiing. Earlier this year, Forbes picked the world’s five top heli-skiing trips; two of them were in our very own province. (Canadian Mountain Holidays has several lodges and has hosted Richard Branson; Bighorn Lodge in Revelstoke is 15,000 square feet of pure luxury.) Meanwhile, Outside did a ranking of the top 10 heli-skiing destinations in North America in 2012, with six of them local. These included the Bella Coola Valley (Bella Coola Heli Sports), Revelstoke (Bighorn and Revelstoke Mountain Resort), and Blue River, which is the home base of Mike Wiegele and its 1,200,000 acres of terrain.

For newcomers, the whole experience can be daunting at first. But Watson says the top priority of operators and guests alike is staying safe.

“Safety and prevention are what we try and do all the time,” says Watson, who’s also president of the Canadian Society of Mountain Medicine and a member of the International Commission for Alpine Rescue. “Let’s go skiing safely.”

To do that, everyone is required to attend a safety seminar and watch a safety video. Each skier must carry a backpack with a probe and a shovel and know how to use a transceiver. “If something happens, we’re all rescuers,” Watson says. Some people choose to use air bags, which are designed to keep people above moving debris during an avalanche.

At Wiegele, groups of up to 10 go out with a lead guide and a tail guide. The latter tells skiers when to go, one at a time; they must stay close to the lead guide’s tracks. If the lead guide stops, people need to do the same.

“Always obey your guide,” Watson says. “Never ski below your guide. If your guide stops, there’s a reason. Stay close to your guide’s tracks. If you don’t see any tracks, stop.”

Although serious injuries and fatalities are rare, high-alpine mountain and wilderness backcountry skiing come with hazards. Among them are avalanches, crevasses, icefalls, rock falls, cliffs, creek beds, tree stumps, and “tree mushrooms”. “If you get 20 feet of snowfall, mushrooms that are eight by 10 feet can form on top of trees,” Watson explains. “If you’re standing underneath a tree and the wind blows, it could be trouble. Stand [on the hill] above the tree.”

Tree wells are another, often overlooked, hazard. They’re created when a hole or void forms around the base of a tree while snow accumulates. A snow-immersion-suffocation incident can happen when someone falls, usually headfirst, into the gap and becomes stuck in the snow. As loose snow packs in, breathing can become difficult, and suffocation can result.

Of the injuries that do occur, the most prevalent are those affecting the knees, Watson says. Even though new bindings are cutting-edge, people can still tweak those joints, with damage to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the tibial plateau being common. A back injury that can occur results from a “scorpion”: a fall where people fold their bodies in half the wrong way, their legs coming toward the back of the head like that arachnid’s tail. It hurts, Watson says, but effects are usually temporary.

Newbies also need to learn how to be safe around helicopters. They should avoid having anything loose on them, like a hat or goggles, that can come off due to the wind that the blades create; those objects could end up in the rotor or engine intake. “Stay low and go slow” is the mantra, while Watson points out that you can get an electrical shock from touching a hovering chopper due to the buildup of static charge during flight. “Never touch a helicopter unless it’s grounded,” he says.

He also suggests that first-timers spend a day skiing hard-packed snow before making the switch to so much magnificent powder. “If you haven’t been on skis that year, get out for a day at Whistler or Sun Peaks to get yourself familiarized again, to get your timing so you’re sharp and ready to go. Then you’ll get more out of it.”

And remember, if you do take a minor tumble, falling on powder is a lot gentler than landing on corduroy. “Having untracked powder is by and large easier skiing than hard-packed, rutted crap and the broken-up stuff,” Watson says. “It’s a soft landing. What’s going to happen? A snow enema, that’s about it.”