Help protect the Garibaldi Park wilderness experience
BC Parks is currently considering renewal of the Whistler Heli-Skiing Park Use Permit for the Spearhead Range in Garibaldi Park. Now is the time to let BC Parks know that heli-skiing is incompatible with the wilderness experience Garibaldi Park has been established to protect.
The Spearhead Range needs your help! Here’s what you can do:
Send an email to BC Parks Decision makers
Let them know that the Spearhead Range should be heli-skiing free.
- Heli-skiing is not compatible with the core values of Garibladi Park.
- Heli-skiing will undermine the value of the world class hut system under construction in the Spearhead Range.
- There are vast areas outside Garibaldi Park currently under tenure for heli skiing.
Sending an email to decision makers is probably the most important action you can take!
Report Observations & Register your Trips
Report all observations of heli-skiing groups or tracks in the Spearhead Range this season (26/27). Use the following link to report observations:
Register your trips this season into the Blackcomb backcountry with Whistler Heli-Skiing. Whistler heli-skiing says they will try to avoid groups in the Spearhead, so let them know if you are heading into the area. In particular, register trips that travel past Mount Pattison to the Tremor, Shutter and MacBeth area.
Volunteer
Volunteer with the FMCBC on the Spearhead campaign. We can use your help in the 26/27 ski season on this project.
Specifically we will need help with the following aspects:
- Creating and editing video content.
- Social media promotion.
- Public engagement shifts at the Blackcomb backcountry gates raising awareness and counting user numbers.
Let us know if you can help by emailing advocacy@mountainclubs.org. Use the subject line ‘Spearhead Volunteering’ and include your name and what area(s) you’d like to help out with.
Learn more about why BC Parks Should Not Renew Heli-Skiing in Garibaldi Park
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 FMCBC’s past blog posts about this topic: