February 2005

Guides just want to run their businesses. Conservationists want to ensure the safety of wildlife. Locals don't want to see their backcountry stash tracked out. Is helicopter skiing and snowboarding on public lands really an environmental emergency, or simply a matter of powder envy?

The Ruby Mountains rise from the Nevada Desert with little fanfare. Driving along a desolate stretch of Interstate 80, it's easy to mistake the snowcapped peaks in the background for mounds of sand and scrub-brush in the foreground. Speed between Salt Lake City and San Francisco, and you might not even realize that those peaks climb to 11,000-feet, and that those wide-open bowls of limber pine and aspen are full of dry, untracked powder.

But 30 years ago Joe Royer learned that secret and decided to start a helicopter skiing operation in the Rubies. Back then, getting permission to operate a commercial guiding business on public lands was easy: You simply asked for-and almost always received -a five-year permit. "In 1977," Royer says, "you walked into the place and the rangers just said 'Yeah, go ahead.' They were happy to see the use."

When he reapplied for his permit in 2001, however, the Forest Service instead issued him a temporary, year-to-year authorization. The agency then conducted a more rigorous analysis of the potential impacts Royer's operation might pose to the ecosystem, delving into everything from effects on nesting northern goshawks and mountain goats to noise pollution issues to the cutting of dense thickets of aspen to open up ski runs. Under the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), citizens have a right to comment and appeal if they feel the Forest Service has not addressed all of the significant issues in its analysis. When the review of Royer's operation was released to the public, some local environmentalists exercised their option to appeal. Four years later, Royer has yet to receive his long-term permit.

Royer's not alone in his struggle: with mounting environmental concerns, nastier user conflicts and increasingly sophisticated grassroots opponents, it's no longer so easy to operate a heli-skiing business on public land. While the heli-skiing industry is still expanding in Alaska, the permit renewal process for the six operations in the continental U.S. has become increasingly fraught. "There's a fair amount of controversy surrounding the use," says Doug Clarke, the Forest Service District Planner, who is preparing the decision on Royer's permit. "We're in an alpine environment so you're talking about impacts to mountain goats, bighorn sheep, rare plants, wilderness issues, and backcountry skier conflicts, which make the analysis a little more complex."

Royer believes one big reason is that the permitting process allows complaints about the most "miniscule procedure" to force the Forest Service to engage in an exasperating cycle of consultations, additional studies and painstaking revisions. "That's an expensive proposition for the American public," he says. "There are loopholes in the NEPA process and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Anybody can appeal. Some environmentalists just hate what we're doing up there, and they don't really know what we're doing. They just hate motorized guiding."

Whose Stash Is It Anyway?

The environmental impact caused by Royer's airborne presence in the Rubies is not the only thing bothering local watchdogs. "Fairness and access" is also an issue, according to Shaaron Nethercutt, Executive Director of Friends of Nevada Wilderness. She notes that the Ruby Mountain area is "pretty much landlocked by private land," making access difficult for local users, while Royer's 300 annual clients gain essentially private access to an astounding 200,000 acres of pristine powder. To some locals, that seems like a less-than-equitable use of public land. "That's 300 people getting additional access to the forest," notes backcountry skier Jack Prier, "which is a good thing if they have the money for it."

Still, the debate over helicopter skiing in the Rubies is tame compared to disputes in more populated spots. Heli-recreation is banned in most of the European Alps, and the 15 operations in the continental U.S. and Alaska are facing increasing scrutiny. The issues vary by region, depending on the species of plants, animals and humans who may be disturbed by the distinctive thwack-thwack-thwack of helicopters racing through mountain canyons and of powder hounds hooting and hollering through previously inaccessible terrain.

In Salt Lake City, Wasatch Powderbird Guides (WPG), the Snowbird-based heli-ski operation, has been duking it out with local environmentalists and backcountry skiers for years. In an urban environment where a city bus can take you right to a trailhead, stories abound of clashes between helicopters and backcountry skiers: helicopters spraying picnickers in rotor wash; backcountry skiers getting out early to track out their private stashes so the heli clients can't enjoy it. "It's not a huge mountain range, and snow is a fleeting thing as well, so there are people who fight for powder," says Mike Olson, co-owner of WPG. "And we have a bigger shovel for the sandbox."

WPG's presence in the Wasatch has been controversial for years, and a local group called Save our Canyons has long used the NEPA public comment process in its efforts to restrain the heli operation's activities. WPG's 1999 permit renewal study was an especially heated process. Ultimately, the Forest Service renewed the company's permit but declared the canyons closest to Salt Lake off-limits to helicopters on Sundays and Mondays. WPG's permit is up for renewal again, and if Olson gets the increased flexibility and flying days that he is asking for, the decision will almost certainly be appealed.

"Unfortunately all it takes is one pro bono lawyer for an environmental group to create a lot of monetary problems for small businesses by opening up a can of worms with the Forest Service," says Olson. "It doesn't cost them much to do it but costs us hundreds of thousands. You've got to hire attorneys and consultants and pay for biology studies."

Environmentalists respond that they are using the system as it's intended--to raise substantive concerns, including impact on nesting Golden eagle populations, safety issues (such as a helicopter outfit kicking off slides near other skiers) and the quality of other users' recreational experience. "We don't just say we don't want heli-skiing here. We comment on specific issues," says Lisa Smith, Executive Director of Save our Canyons. "It's not private land; it's public land. When there's a lot of controversy, you want the public to have as much information as it can."

Indeed, the purpose of NEPA, says the Forest Service's Doug Clarke, is to involve citizens who use those lands. "The public has the right to comment and appeal, and if they take advantage of it, well I guess that means the process is working correctly."

Copters Versus Caribou

You only have to look north to Canada to see how these conflicts might unfold without the NEPA process. Helicopter skiing is huge business in British Columbia, and citizens don't have a similar means to contest industry "tenures," as permits are called there. "In the United States, you've got an albatross of everyone seeming to be litigation-happy," says Kat Harwig of the East Kootenay Environmental Society, "but on the other hand in the US, we'd be able to go after them legally. In Canada we are not."

This inability to appeal land management decisions became an especially sore issue after 2001 when a new provincial government took power in BC with a goal of doubling tourism within 10 years and issued dozens of new heli-ski and heli-hiking tenures, both to existing companies seeking to expand terrain and to new operations. Many of those tenures were in terrain that overlaps the habitat of the gravely endangered mountain caribou, of which only 1,800 remain in the world.

There has been little research on the effects of helicopters on caribou herds, although studies on other ungulates indicate that in winter months when the animals are under particular stress, helicopter noise and human presence may undermine the herds' viability. In the absence of decisive evidence, however, the two sides of the issue counsel very different approaches to the problem: environmentalists argue that the government should exclude new tenures in caribou habitat, while the heli-ski industry argues for more study and careful management.

Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH), the largest heli operation in Canada-and a frequent target of criticism because of numerous tenures in caribou territory-has funded research analyzing the effects of flying and skiing on wildlife. The company has found no conclusive evidence either to support or dispel the hypothesis that helicopter skiing may contribute to the caribou's decline. What's clear, says Dave Butler, Director of Land Resources at CMH, is that "mountain caribou are decreasing in numbers everywhere, in places we're not operating, inside national parks, and in areas not exposed to snowmobiling or backcountry skiing."

Nonetheless, the company has voluntarily sought to implement a set of detailed procedures to avoid interactions with the caribou. Because wildlife management guidelines are voluntary, however, there is no way to ascertain whether violations have occurred. "CMH was told that if there was an effect on herd, the government would take their tenure away," says Eva Riccius, of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. "But there haven't been any mechanisms set up to answer 'yes' or 'no' to that question."

The Long Term

Ultimately, the heli-wars are being fought over the same values that have long dogged debates over mining and logging on our forests. What is the best use on public lands? When do wilderness values trump economic values? All too often, say environmentalists in both Canada and the US, short-term economic viability of companies that operate on public lands trumps the long-term view. "Our concern is that the Forest Service shouldn't think their job is how to let concessionaires make the most amount of money off the forest," says Lisa Smith of Save our Canyons, "because that's not always going to lead to the best decision for long-term management of these areas."

Joe Royer, for his part, believes that the Forest Service has a responsibility to make sure the forests are still there for "my kid's kids to enjoy." But he also thinks it is entirely possible to take care of the land and, at the same time, make a living ferrying skiers through its glades and couloirs. "I've been doing this for 30 years and there's no impact," he says. "I do care about my ground, but I also believe that people have the right to use it."

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