In June the Haines Borough denied a permit application for a fourth heliski operator because borough code sets a limit at three operators per season. Borough assembly members are asking: why is there a limit?
It depends on whom you ask. The borough codified the limit in 2011 after Alaska Mountain Guides applied for a third heliski tour permit. At the time, there were two operators in town—Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures and Alaska Heliskiing. Both said they wanted a limit at two to maintain safety, lessen conflict among operators and preserve the industry’s product: fresh powder.
“Ever since we started dividing that terrain into pieces and adding more operators, the quality of that product started to degrade and our numbers went down,” said Sean Brownell of Alaska Heliskiing. “It’s not really a function of anything other than we’re putting too much pressure on these mountains.”
Other residents argue a limit protects wildlife, mainly mountain goats, cuts back on noise pollution and reduces negative effects on other backcountry recreationalists. “The limits were put in place to mitigate the impacts on people and wildlife,” said Cary Weishahn, who served on a helicopter service area board that helped devise the borough’s first heliski regulations in the early 2000s. Weishahn said limiting the number of operators works hand in hand with limiting the permitted ski area, the number of skier days, season dates and hours. “If you increase any of those things, you will increase impacts.”
Although a limit was established ten years ago, the debate about it is far from over. With a fourth operator, Stellar Adventure Travel, vying for a permit for the 2022 season, the limit will be discussed at the borough’s government affairs and services committee meeting next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
Stellar Adventure Travel owner Reggie Crist argues that Haines’ heliski industry has room for growth given the amount of unused skier days in recent years. Only 817 out of an allotted 2,600 days were used this year, according to the season-end report released last week. Local operators say a string of bad weather years and the pandemic are to blame for the low numbers.
“I don’t think it even should be a question of whether there should be a fourth operator,” said Funny Farm manager and former heliski guide Mark Kelly. The scene has changed, Kelly said, and he thinks the current operators don’t meet demand from clients who desire more luxurious lodging.
“Haines is not what it once was. It does not have the numbers it once did,” Kelly said. He thinks Stellar would help bring skiers back to the borough, and he said that the Funny Farm, which lodged Stellar clients in the past, would shutter if the operator doesn’t get a permit next season.
Part of the policymaking challenge is a lack of data and no standard to follow. “There’s an absence of data from the heliski side to help guide and inform regulatory decisions,” said Jordy Hendrikx, associate professor at Montana State University, who researches how heliskiing regulations influence how guides make decisions, particularly in Haines.
Hendrikx called Haines “unique” because its skiable terrain is “segmented,” unlike the expansive swaths of skiable land elsewhere in Alaska. “The land-use management regulations are a lot more complicated in Haines than they are in other parts of Alaska,” Hendrikx said.
It’s exceedingly rare for a municipality to have code specific to heliskiing. Haines is the only municipality in Alaska that has it.
Each of the four major heliskiing destinations in Alaska — Haines, Valdez, Cordova and Girdwood — has its own regulatory scene. For most operators that means a mix of state and federal permit requirements. But rarely is there a formal limit on the number of operators in any given area.
In Haines, heliskiing is on state and federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. Borough regulations apply on the state land within the borough but not on the adjacent BLM land. BLM permitted four operators in 2021 near Haines—including the three based in Haines and Temsco Helicopters out of Skagway.
Unlike Haines, in Girdwood, Cordova and Valdez some operators can access Forest Service land, which has “no pre-established or regulated number of heli-ski operators who may receive permits,” Chugach National Forest spokesperson Alan Brown wrote in an email to the CVN. Forest Service permits go through a National Environmental Policy Act process, and the Forest Service “considers several factors such as safety, communication, and operational limitations like available terrain and unpredictable weather windows.”
Across the border there’s another set of rules. British Columbia, the only Canadian province with heliskiing, has a strict capping policy. A “tenure” system limits one operator to each permitted use area. “It works really good for lots of reasons,” said Ross Cloutier, executive director of HeliCat Canada, a heliskiing trade association.
“It provides business certainty” and “resolves conflict,” he said. Operators don’t have to worry about getting to fresh snow first or competing with other companies in the field. And tenure can last 30 years, giving operators certainty to apply for loans and invest in infrastructure, Cloutier said.
In 2019, a second company began operating on state land near Girdwood that had supported a single operator, Chugach Powder Guides (CPG), for almost 20 years. Rich Peterson, head guide at CPG said that limiting operators increases safety and improves the experience for clients.
“If you keep adding helicopters and people, you’re going to make the product worse,” Peterson said. More operators, he said, might create “pressure to get to the better skiing” before other guides do. He said a more crowded scene has “definitely made it harder” but there haven’t been conflicts thanks to good communication with the other operator in town, Silverton Mountain Guides.
Aaron Brill of Silverton Mountain Guides, which also tours near Seward, Palmer and Valdez, and in Colorado, said several years ago he thought about expanding business to Haines but that “it didn’t seem like the prudent thing to do” because there were already two operators in town.
“There is a limitation on how much the mountain can hold,” Brill said.