HELISKI LA THUILE

 

Hans Gmoser, a mountain guide and Austrian immigrant to Canada, is generally credited with starting heli-skiing in 1965 in the Bugaboo Mountains of British Columbia with his company, (although he experimented with helicopter accessed skiing in the years proceeding in the front range of the Canadian Rockies west of Calgary). Evidence suggests that heliskiing may have even taken place earlier in the late 50s or early 60s in Alaska, Wyoming or Utah.

Heliskiing is very well promoted in ski films and has its own star athletes: Seth Morrison, Mark Abma, Glen Plake, etc. which along with its significant expense has helped to create heliskiing as a status symbol to some degree.