How Heli Assisted Touring Expands Your Terrain in the Chugach Mountains

I have spent more than a decade guiding in the Chugach Mountains around Valdez, Alaska, and I have seen the way skiers and snowboarders light up when they first realize they can access more than one alpine basin in a single morning. The deep powder snow here is famous, but the real secret is how much ground you can cover when you combine human-powered travel with a helicopter. That combination is what we call heli assisted touring, and it is changing the way experienced backcountry skiers approach big mountain terrain.

When I started guiding, the standard model was either a full-on heli skiing operation, where the aircraft does all the vertical work and you ski only the best fall-line pitches, or a pure snowcat operation that limits you to a single drainage. Heli assisted touring splits the difference. You ride the helicopter to a high ridgeline, then tour on your own skins or splitboard for the rest of the day. That means you get the vertical gain of a helicopter without sacrificing the freedom to choose your own line. You also get the aerobic workout and the mountain sense that only comes from earning your turns.

What Makes Heli Assisted Touring Different

Heli assisted touring is not heli skiing. In a typical heli skiing day, the helicopter drops you near the top of a run, you ski down, and the helicopter picks you up again. You might ski eight or ten runs in a day, each one a steep powder descent. That is thrilling, but it leaves little time for route finding or for reading the snowpack at your own pace. In heli assisted touring, the helicopter lifts you and your group to a starting point, usually a high saddle or a glacier bench, and then you spend the next several hours touring on your own. You might skin up another thousand feet, drop into a neighboring bowl, and then skin out to a rendezvous point where the helicopter collects you for the next lift.

For snowboarders, this often means carrying a splitboard instead of a solid board. Touring skis with climbing skins are the standard for skiers. The gear matters because you are covering real distance between helicopter landings. You still need to be comfortable with skinning and with basic avalanche safety. If you are new to touring, most guide services require at least an AST-1 avalanche course before they take you into heli assisted terrain. That course teaches you how to use an avalanche transceiver, a shovel probe, and how to evaluate slope angles. I have seen too many people skip that step and then struggle when they need to dig a quick pit or perform a beacon search in a whiteout. Do not be that person.

The Chugach Advantage

The Chugach Mountains receive some of the deepest maritime snowpack on the planet. The elevation is moderate, rarely above 12,000 feet, so there is no altitude sickness and the snow stays dense enough to bond well. But the terrain is serious. Steep couloirs, convex rolls, and long unsupported slopes mean you need to make good decisions about when to commit and when to walk around. Heli assisted touring gives you the luxury of time. Instead of rushing to get as many runs as possible before the light goes flat, you can pick one or two objectives and work them methodically. That slower pace lets you study the snow, dig a quick pit, and discuss the line with your partners before anyone drops in.

One of the most common questions I get from clients is whether they need to be expert skiers to join a heli assisted tour. The honest answer is that you need to be a competent backcountry skier or splitboarder, comfortable on steep terrain with a pack on. You do not need to be able to ski cliff bands or 50-degree chutes. The guide will choose terrain that matches the group's ability. But you do need to be efficient with your transitions. If it takes you twenty minutes to switch from touring mode to ski mode, you are going to waste a lot of helicopter time. Practice your skin-to-ski transition at home before you come to Alaska. It makes a difference.

How a Typical Day Unfolds

A typical day starts before dawn at the helipad. The guide service runs a safety briefing that covers radio communication, landing procedures, and emergency plans. Everyone checks their avalanche beacon, making sure it transmits on the correct frequency and that the battery is fresh. The A-Star helicopter, the workhorse of the Chugach, can carry four passengers plus the pilot and guide. It is nimble enough to land on a small snow patch near a ridgeline, which is exactly what you need for heli assisted touring. The pilot sets you down on a bench at maybe 6,000 feet, and the rotors fade as you click into your touring skis or splitboard and start skinning toward the first objective.

By mid-morning you have made two or three laps, each one accessed by a short skin or a bootpack. The snow is often untracked powder because the helicopter lets you reach slopes that see very few skiers in a season. Around lunch you regroup, eat something, and discuss the afternoon plan. Maybe you want to work a south-facing slope that has softened in the sun, or maybe you want to find a shaded north face where the snow stayed cold. The guide will check the snowpack again and then radio the pilot for a pickup. The helicopter swings by, you load up, and you repeat the process until late afternoon. At the end of the day you fly back to Valdez, tired and happy.

Safety Gear and Mindset

Safety in heli assisted touring is not optional. Every person in the group carries an avalanche transceiver, a shovel probe, and a rescue sled if the terrain warrants it. The guide carries a more advanced transceiver and usually a satellite messenger for communication. The helicopter itself is a rescue asset, but you cannot rely on it for everything. If someone gets caught in a slide, the first response comes from the people on the ground. That is why the pre-tour safety briefing is so thorough. You learn how to perform a beacon search in a group, how to dig a buried partner efficiently, and how to call for a helicopter extraction if needed. It sounds grim, but it is the same mindset that makes backcountry skiing sustainable over a long career: respect the hazard and manage it with tools and training.

I have done pure heli skiing trips where you ski twenty runs in a day and never touch your skins. That is a blast, but I find heli assisted touring more rewarding because it feels like a partnership with the mountain. You are not just a passenger being shuttled from one ski run to the next. You are a participant in the whole process: reading the snow, choosing the line, earning the turns, and then getting a lift to the next zone. That mix of human effort and mechanical advantage is what keeps experienced skiers coming back to the Chugach year after year.

Who Should Try It

If you are comfortable on steep terrain and you have taken an avalanche course, heli assisted touring is a natural next step. It suits people who want more than a single run but less than a full expedition. It also suits photographers and filmmakers who need to cover ground quickly without burning out their legs before the best light arrives. The helicopter gets you to the alpine fast, and then you move at your own pace. That flexibility is hard to beat.

One thing I always tell clients: do not underestimate the value of a good guide service. The difference between a mediocre day and a great day often comes down to the guide's knowledge of the local snowpack and their relationship with the pilot. In the Chugach, the weather can shut down flying for days at a time. A guide who knows the microclimates and can read the cloud formations will find you a window when other groups are stuck at the helipad. That local expertise is worth paying for.

Heli assisted touring is not for everyone. If you hate skinning or you are not comfortable with avalanche terrain, stick with lift-served skiing or a guided snowcat operation. But if you have the skills and the curiosity, it opens up a side of the Chugach that most skiers never see. The combination of a brief helicopter ride and a full day of touring gives you the best of both worlds: big vertical access and the quiet satisfaction of moving through the mountains on your own power.