Heliskiing in Haines. (Hayley Total Heliski)
While other towns in Southeast might recognize spring by the trickle of melting snow or the return of songbirds, Haines marks it differently: with a stream of adrenaline-seekers and the hum of helicopters.
It’s officially heliski season in Lynn Canal.
With the end of February comes the beginning of the heliski season. It’s been a tough start, according to Ryan Johnson, co-owner of Alaska Heli Skiing.
“There’s been a lot of weather in March so far. Last year, we had a really shallow snowpack with a lot of wind that made skiing difficult,” he says. “This year, we’ve had a really shallow snowpack with an ice layer in it from January’s rains.”
Luckily, heli-ski guides are also tough. They train, test snowpack, and troubleshoot slopes, in order to send skiers from all over the world rocketing down the mountains of the Chilkat Valley safely. Which is easier said than done: the Haines Avalanche Center has issued unusually strong warnings about avalanche danger this month.
“From an operators perspective, it’s about snowpack structure and avalanche safety,” Johnson says. “Not only do we like to see good surface conditions for our clients, but we like to see stability within the snow. And up until now, that’s also been an issue this year.”
Weather isn’t just a safety concern: It has a big impact on business.
Alaska Heli Skiing usually employs about 15 people, Johnson says. So far this year, poor conditions mean they’ve only needed about seven.
Haines’ three heli-ski companies charge $6000 – $8000 per customer for a week of skiing. No matter how far they come from, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to ski when they get to Haines: whether visitors get what they’ve paid for depends on having good weather. Johnson says they’ve started working with the travel insurance industry to make that more palatable.
“If they come here and the weather’s bad and they’re unable to ski, that they’ll be some level of reimbursement for them possible,” Johnson says.
The industry faces other challenges besides weather. Ben Anderson, co-owner of Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures, says an unstable permitting system has been the biggest hurdle.
“We’re just trying to grow a business, but it’s hard to get confidence and investment and all that when you don’t have government behind you with a stable permit. And, you know, hopefully we’re going to get there.”
Heliski copmanies are required to get a local permit from the Haines Borough, and a federal permit from the Bureau of Land Management each year. The Borough tells them how many days they can put skiers on the mountain. BLM gives them a certain number of helicopter landings.
“Right now they’re giving us a hundred landings a year,” Andserson says. “Which is something we could go through in two to three days if we, you know, went for it,”
Companies have been negotiating with local, state, and federal government officials in the last year to expand their operations. So far, concerns about wildlife, especially mountain goat and denning bear habitats, have stymied requests to open new terrain and increase landings. The Borough Manager recently formed a working group to look for solutions.
Anderson says it’s difficult to plan their season in advance, not knowing what they’ll be allowed one year to the next. But in the meantime, skiers and snowboarders are still coming to the Upper Lynn Canal, thanks to its world-class opportunities to shred some powder.
“People really like the spines that we have here,” Johnson says. “They’re kind of rare in the world. They offer, at times, very skiable stability.”
Those spines are the shallow vertical valleys that stripe the sides of Southeast’s mountains. The region’s token wet snow sticks firmly even to steep rock, creating towering but predictable channels for skiers and snowboarders to fly down.
And though the beginning of the season was rough, March has already seen 30 inches of new snow. As Johnson puts it,
“We have our fingers crossed. Time heals all snowpacks.”
Conditions are looking up. And skiers are piling into choppers to meet them out there.
