Garibaldi Park is the wilderness park for southwestern BC. Since 1990, motorized recreation has been prohibited throughout Garibaldi Park, with one exception: commercial heli-skiing by Whistler Heli-Skiing (WHS) in the Spearhead Range. WHS’ Park Use Permit for the Spearhead Range now faces renewal and BC Parks must decide whether to continue, modify, or end this exception.
The Federation of Mountain Clubs of British Columbia (FMCBC) asks BC Parks to deny WHS’s application for a new Park Use Permit and to end the exception.
The reason for the heli-skiing exception no longer holds. When heli-skiing was allowed to continue in 1990, it was on one condition: that heli-skiers and ski tourers could share the Spearhead “with minimal impact.” Back then the Spearhead had no huts and few tourers. Today it is one of the most popular touring areas in the region. The Kees and Claire Hut opened in 2019. The Macbeth Hut is under construction, and the Pattison Hut is planned. Both the Macbeth and Pattison huts will be in the heart of the Spearhead Range. When the huts open, almost every heli-ski run in the park will overlap with the touring terrain accessible from the huts..
Heli-skiing harms what the park is meant to protect. BC Parks names wilderness quality and quiet enjoyment as core values of Garibaldi Park. Rotor noise, landings and tracked-out slopes undercut both.
Garibaldi is one of the region’s last motorized-free refuges. Outside the park, heli-ski and cat-ski tenures in the Sea to Sky cover about 1.73 million acres. With the exception of the Spearhead, Garibaldi is the one large area where self-propelled tourers can count on terrain being free of motorized recreation.
In contrast, WHS has terrain similar to the Spearhead in its tenure outside the park. WHS’s use of the Spearhead, which represents less than 3% of its tenure, has fallen 82% since 2018/19. The main benefit to WHS is that the Spearhead is close to its heliport, and saving an operator money is not a park value.
Park users oppose heli-skiing in the park. In FMCBC’s 2026 survey of 1,326 park users, 85% opposed heli-skiing in the Spearhead. With self-propelled recreation growing every year, conflict between heli-assisted skiing and self-propelled ski-tourers will only increase.
Read FMCBC’s full submissions to BC Parks. FMCBC’s submissions to BC Parks detail why WHS’s application for a new Park Use Permit for heli-skiing in the Spearhead should be denied. However, if BC Parks needs time to collect more relevant data, before making its decision, FMCBC asks that the current permit be extended by only one year, conditional on reporting requirements being met and the public being consulted on the permit renewal. Given the current significant self-propelled use of the Blackcomb Backcountry zone, FMCBC believes this zone should be excluded from the one-year extension of the Park Use Permit.
To learn more, we encourage you to read the Executive Summary or FMCBC’s full report submitted to BC Parks on October 26, 2026. Read the full submissions below:
What’s next?
We are waiting for updates from BC Parks about their decision-making timeline and what, if any, additional information may be needed. At the moment, we only know that WHS has applied for a new PUP to allow heli-skiing in the Spearhead, but the term length and scope of terrain are unknown.
This blog post will be updated as new information becomes available. If you have any comments or questions for the FMCBC, please contact us at advocacy@mountainclubs.org or leave your comment below.
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