Heli Skiing is Dead in Jackson Hole

Our local Heli operation High Mountain Heli Skiing has been operating in a Wilderness Area and this feds have caught up to the company. The feds are forcing the company to limit the number of skier days to 65 per year in the Wilderness area which accounts for 90% of their terrain.

In my opinion this will shut down the company. I assume that after paying for the chopper, guides, and management overhead a heli company would need to clear about $500K to be profitable. I suppose they could sneak through the cracks by charging just under $10K per day!

I think loosing the heli operation is a big loss for the winter ski atmosphere, but a win for the environmentalists. These types of decisions are very challenging and always result in winners and losers. I hope that High Mountain can find additional terrain and expand their operation outside of the wilderness area.

I was lucky enough to fly with the company in 2001 and I must say that the company runs a very safe and professional operation and the skiing was fun. It's hard to have a bad day when you are skiing knee deep powder and catching rides with a heli.