Haines was named the best place in the world for heli-skiing by POWDER Magazine. And for now, the town’s heli-skiing rules aren’t changing. That’s after the borough assembly landed on an ordinance that mostly upheld the status-quo, including the number of permits and helicopters.
While Switzerland is a great destination for heli-skiing, Haines, Alaska is even better. That’s according to POWDER Magazine, which placed the tiny Southeast Alaska town first on its list for helicopter-accessed skiing back in November.
The magazine describes Haines as home to “some of the steepest terrain in North America.”
Haines currently has four permits for commercial heli-skiing but only three companies have used their permits. At a Dec. 17 borough assembly meeting, the three active heli-ski companies testified that the terrain is crowded, even without the fourth company.
Nick Trimble is co-owner of SEABA Heli Skiing. He wants the borough to maintain just three heli-skiing permits.
“The fourth permit would just do nothing but more damage to our existing businesses,” Trimble said. “We’re in the smallest heli-ski area in the world, and we just need to protect it. And it’s quality over quantity … There’s no room, and most of us that have been at it for a while, we just really don’t want to fight anymore.”
The assembly voted to keep the four permits, at least for 2025. Assembly member Cheryl Stickler explained that the assembly didn’t have a mechanism in place to give out 2025 heli-ski permits. She felt the best path was to keep the status-quo and allow time to talk about heli-ski mapping in the next year.
“That would be the perfect time to come back and revisit this code and get into the details and make it cleaner,” Stickler said. “Do any amendments or changes we need to at that time. But right now, we need to make it feasible for the manager to award these permits so that the heli-ski industry owners can get to work.”
Assembly member Gabe Thomas flew over the run areas with two heli-ski operators. He spoke to the need for reassessing where heli-skiing is allowed.
“It is kind of ridiculous when you fly up to a run, and the whole mountain is cut off because they need 15 more feet of the mountain, which would open up more area for a lot of these guys,” Thomas said. “And there’s numerous runs that I went with these guys and witnessed, and it just didn’t make any sense.”
Alekka Fullerton is now Haines’ interim borough manager, but last year, she was the borough clerk and present for conversations about the health of heli-skiing.
“…All of the operators when we talked to them after last season, their comments were that it is too crowded,” Fullerton said.
Assembly member Kevin Forster said he personally felt three was a more appropriate number for permits, but questioned how to revoke a permit.
“Looking at the heli-ski reports, particularly the one in 2023 where we saw a whole lot of the GPS data, the way that the map exists currently and where these heliports exist, it sure does point to that it’s appropriate for three operators,” Forster said. “That being said, it feels philosophically inappropriate for me to imagine which one we’re going to axe without having a conversation with the four. It being that they’re all in good standing and have maintained permits.”
While Haines works its way through the complicated process of growing its economy while keeping mountain goats and ski customers safe, at least one other community is watching.
Nearby Skagway took note of Haines’ heli-ski accolade. Skagway Assembly member Jonathan Hillis brought it up in a recent assembly meeting.
“Hanes was voted as number one, recognized as number one, heli-ski destination by POWDER Magazine, pretty big ski snowboard magazine,” he said. “And our winter recreation is right next door. We have heli-ski operation options as well. I’d really love to see Skagway start to be a place that people come as well.”
POWDER Magazine says the best time to heli-ski in Haines is mid-March through April.
