Mountain Life: How to Go Heli-Skiing and Not Be a Climate-Changing Jerk

Ian Morrison skiing at Northern Escape Heli-skiing near Terrace.

Welcome to a new era of carbon-neutral heli.

Imagine endless miles of big-mountain terrain as far as the eye can see, and a perfect slope of untracked powder below your skis just waiting to be ripped. You drop in with your buddies, turn on the Go-Pros and make your own ski porn. This and much more comes with the ultra-adventure experience of heli-skiing.

With the continuously changing climate, flying around in the mountains and burning buckets of jet fuel seems like the epitome of jerk-dom and disregard for the planet. And for many years it was. Lately, some heli-skiing operators have started to minimize their impact on the environment and offer their services in a more climate-conscious way, starting a new era of carbon-neutral heli-skiing.

Carbon-Neutral Heli-Skiing

Sliding down the deep snowpack and breathing in the crisp air while enjoying gorgeous views of pow-covered mountains counts as an “A+” day. Warmer climate, however, means that these experiences might become a thing of the past.

“I spend my life in the mountains and wilderness, and I’ve seen the incremental changes in our climate, in our snowpack and our glaciers,” says John Forrest, Co-founder & General Manager of Northern Escape Heli-Skiing. “We need to do the best we can to mitigate this and become a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.” 

Offsetting, lowering the impact of operations, and mitigating the impact of helicopters on wildlife is only the beginning of Northern Escape’s more sustainable journey for a future of adventure skiing and brisk winters. Dive into our full descriptive article featured on Mountain Life.