Mayor Jan Hill appointed two members of the Haines Borough’s heli-skiing work group to a map subcommittee at a Nov. 23 meeting, after discussion had shifted to global positioning system technology for monitoring helicopter flight paths.

Hill instructed Sean Brownell of Alaska Heliskiing and resident Rob Goldberg to “try to incorporate some of the suggested new areas and possibilities or tell us why some of those areas just won’t work” as they prepare a map for the group’s next meeting, set for 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 6, in the Haines Borough Assembly chambers.

The work group includes Hill, assembly members Daymond Hoffman and Joanne Waterman, residents Goldberg, Joe Ordonez and Carolyn Weishahn, Brownell, Sean Gaffney of Alaska Mountain Guides and Scott Sundberg of Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures (SEABA). Sundberg was absent for the Nov. 23 meeting.

Group members are to make adjustments to a proposed assembly commercial skiing tour ordinance that has been put on hold.

Borough manager Mark Earnest, who provides staff support at the work group meetings, had said a map subcommittee should be formed to “start drawing some lines.”

Ordonez said the overall group would succeed only if it could rebuild trust that has eroded over years of heli-skiing debates in Haines.

“I’m proposing, right here and now, that we consider – because it’s November and February’s not too far away – all agreeing that GPS monitoring be in place for the 2011 season, and by doing that, we can at least start to re-establish trust among the community and the operators and one another,” Ordonez said.

According to borough code on commercial tour permits, “Heli-ski operators shall submit to the borough clerk, on forms provided by the borough, bi-weekly use reports detailing daily activities. Heli-ski activity reports shall include GPS track logs showing all flight paths, and landing and drop-off locations of skiers and photographers.”

“Right now, we have a GPS requirement on the code,” Weishahn said. “It’s just a matter of having it implemented.”

Brownell said some parts of the heli-skiing map are unrealistic, especially when skiers must travel outside boundaries to get picked up by helicopters.

“There’s problems with it, because it doesn’t follow the contour line at the bottom of the mountain, so we’re never allowed to go beyond this contour line,” he said. ” … So I can see how a GPS thing could play into defining our ski range; here’s where we actually go.”

Resident and helicopter pilot Sean Cone, who said he has never flown in Haines, said advanced GPS technology would be expensive.

“The ones that track you, in-place, while you’re currently moving, you’re talking at least $150,000 to install one of those,” Cone said. “Just the software alone on the last one that I used was 50 grand, annually, so it’s not an inexpensive program … I think it would be a good idea to get somebody with some helicopter experience on the group at some point, if this is going to continue.”

He said the operators would have “occasional loss of data” with more affordable GPS technology.

“To get a live stream of information is a radically different thing than to go download information out of the helicopter at the end of the day,” said Gaffney of Alaska Mountain Guides. “To download the info out of the helicopter, end of the day or weekly or such, is not an unworkable thing in any way, but it’s not real-time.”

Gaffney’s company also is seeking a heli-ski permit starting early next year. Alaska Mountain Guides, which has offered heli-skiing in Skagway, then would join Alaska Heliskiing and SEABA as heli-skiing tour operators in the borough.

“If we’re going to talk about our fears, I want to say that I have, first of all, a longtime friendship with Sean Gaffney here, sitting next to me,” Ordonez said. “Great guy, and a great company, but I do have a fear of adding another company to the mix here. I think, already, with two companies, we’ve got, already, some real challenges.”