204 Chapter 8 *Canadian Mountain Holidays Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) is the world’s largest heliski operator, with lodges and concession areas throughout the southern section of the Canadian Rockies. The lodges offer 1-week packages, which include bus transfers from Calgary to the nearest staging point, helicopter shuttles to the lodges, full board and a nominal 30,500 m vertical elevation skiied (CMH Heliskiing, 2002). Shorter packages are also offered from a hotel base in the town of Revelstoke. The company’s headquarters are in Banff. CMH also offers summer helihiking at a limited number of its operating areas. As its Galena Lodge, CMH uses a Bell 212 helicopter, which carries 11 skiers plus the guide and pilot, and a smaller Bell 206 to shuttle vehicle to bring guests, staff and lunches from the lodge to the operating area and back during the day. While the lodges and their immediate surrounds are on freehold land, the ski areas are concessions leased from the provincial government forestry agency. They include both clear-cut and densely wooded areas, as well as alpine areas above the timberline. The terms of the leases allow CMH to carry out glading in some of the wooded areas, according to plans agreed with the forestry agency. Glading is restricted to smaller trees of low timber value and effectively doubles as thinning for forestry operations. Within the heliski concession areas, the shape of logging coupes is modified to improve their value for skiing. CMH pays a per capita fee to the forestry agency for each of its clients. It is not clear whether the presence of heliskiing influences forestry operations in any way that affects the conservation value of the areas concerned, e.g. through reserved areas, longer cutting cycles, connected wildlife corridors, etc. Since logging takes place in summer and heliskiing in winter, it appears that there is rather little direct interaction between the two uses of the same land areas. Historically at least, however, there has been an important link in that helicopter logging has provided summer contracts for the helicopters, so that they are available in the area for winter heliskiing. Even though there is now cross-ownership between the helicopter and heliski companies, summer charter work for the helicopters is still a critical economic and operational consideration, since, despite its growth in recent years, summer helihiking does not involve nearly such an intensive use of helicopters as winter heliskiing operations. A range of environmental management practices are used to minimize impacts at the lodges, within the constraints of guests’ expectations and health regulations. For example, until recently, the lodge at Galena ran a small on-site pig farm to recycle food scraps and catering residues, but during 2001/02 this has been closed because of concerns over foot-and- mouth disease. Most of the backcountry lodges, as well as the CMH headquarters in Banff, use a range of measures to minimize energy, water and materialsTest Cases 205 consumption and waste production. Such measures include energy-saving appliances in the kitchen and laundry, energy-saving light bulbs, water- saving shower-heads and guest programmes to reduce laundry. Biodegrad- able soaps, shampoos and other cleaning products are used in most lodges. Glass, aluminium, used tyres and paper are recycled at head office and some lodges. Measures to minimize soil and water contamination include bunding on fuel storages, drip trays under fuel-transfer areas, recycling of waste oils and lubricants, grease and sludge traps in kitchen and grey water drains, and the use of biodegradable detergents, cleaning agents, soaps and shampoos. Some of the lodges use basic septic systems to treat sewage, some have small-scale secondary treatments, and a few use tertiary treatment or self- contained integrated digestion systems. As with most heliski operations, CMH is careful not to leave any litter in operational areas, notably at lunch sites. Some of CMH’s operations are above the timberline, but some are well within forested areas. The animal species and populations present in these areas and the precise impacts of rotor noise and associated disturbance do not appear to have been studied. Heliskiing is expensive, and the top priority for most heliskiers and snowboarders is to maximize the vertical metres skied during the week. They are not there to learn about the natural environment, except in terms of wind and weather, skiing terrain, snow conditions and avalanche hazards. They are interested, for example, to see wolverine tracks while waiting for a helicopter pick-up, but not if looking at tracks would delay the next ski run. Similarly, while they would probably notice an obvious environmental impact such as a fuel or sewage spill or litter left at a lunch site, from a lodge management perspective they are concerned with quality of service and hospitality, not the details of day-to-day operational environmental management. For summer helihikers, however, the mountain environment and the opportunity to learn about it at leisure are the key attractions. For summer operations, therefore, environmental education by the CMH guides is a critical component of the tourism product. While some summer guests may view the mountains simply as a scenic attraction and treat the helicopter ride as a joy-flight, others have a long history of hiking in the mountains and have turned to the helicopter as a means of access to remote areas which they, or perhaps their young children or other friends and family members, can no longer reach on foot. Clients in this category are likely to be well informed about environ- mental management issues associated with both helitours and backcountry lodges, and to scrutinize CMH’s operations in order to assure themselves that as CMH clients, they are behaving responsibly towards the mountain environments, wildlife and other human users. In addition, the immediate environs of backcountry lodges are much more accessible to guests during206 Chapter 8 summer than during winter, and the details of environmental management practices, such as track erosion or sewage-treatment systems, are much more visible. Accordingly, CMH runs an annual training workshop for helihiking guides, covering CMH’s environmental management practices as well as interpretation of alpine and montane environments in the Canadian Rockies, and more general environmental and land-use management issues. CMH makes a number of contributions to environmental research within its operating region. This includes funding a Snow and Avalanche Chair at the University of British Columbia, a Snow and Avalanche Research Program at the University of Calgary and a number of graduate projects (GORP, 2002). CMH pays a heliski lease fee to the provincial government forestry and land management agency, but the fees are not earmarked for any specific purpose, such as conservation works or research. The degree to which forestry management practices may be modified because of heliski operations and the significance of any such changes for the conservation value of the land concerned have apparently not been examined, except for the glading and coupe-shape modifications outlined earlier. During operations, CMH guides record any wildlife sightings, and these records are reported to the land management agency. *Himachal Helicopter Skiing, India Heliskiing and snowboarding in the Himalayas are a recent innovation. The terrain is eminently suitable, but because of the latitude and relatively low precipitation, skiable snow is generally only available in alpine areas at 4000 to 5000 m elevation, which is close to the practical operational limits for most skiers, as well as most helicopters. In addition, relatively few areas have the necessary access and infrastructure to support a safe and commer- cially viable heliski business. To date, in consequence, there is only one commercial heliski operator in the Himalayas, namely Himachal Helicopter Skiing (HHS, 2002). HHS was established in Himachal Pradesh in India because of concerns over political instability in Nepal, which have indeed proved well-founded. It operates from a hotel in the hill town of Manali and a lodge in the nearby village of Patlikul. Well-known in India for its hot springs, temples and orchards, Manali is a well-established summer holiday destination for Indian domestic tourists, and is reputed to be particularly popular among honey- moon couples. During winter, however, there are very few domestic visitors and most of the tourist shops are closed. During the heliski season, heliskiers provide the bulk of the clientele for Manali’s major hotel, the Manali Holiday Inn. The main road to Manali continues over a high mountain pass to Kashmir and the border with Pakistan, and there is a substantial Indian army garrison on the outskirts of Manali, responsible for opening the road during