Heliskiing the Ultimate Powder: Alaska & Colorado’s Best Backcountry Runs with Matt Steen and Jed Workman

Helicopter on mountain

There’s no ski thrill quite like heliskiing—being dropped on a pristine ridge with untouched powder, no crowds, and only the sound of the mountains around you. In this episode of Where to Ski, we dive into the exhilarating world of backcountry skiing in two legendary destinations: the Chugach Mountains in Alaska and the San Juan Mountains in Colorado.

Matt Steen

Jed Workman

Join host John Morgan as he chats with two of the most experienced heliskiing guides in the industry: Jed Workman, head guide at Valdez Heli-Ski Guides, and Matt Steen, program director and lead guide at Telluride Helitrax.

They share insider tips on:🏔️ What makes these mountains the ultimate heliskiing playground📆 The best time of year to go🎿 Choosing the right skis and terrain for your ability⚠️ Safety, avalanche awareness & expert guidance

Their most unforgettable ski runs

Whether you're an expert skier chasing the deepest powder or an intermediate looking to take your skiing to the next level, this episode is packed with insights to help you plan the heliskiing adventure of a lifetime.

Hit play now and get ready to send it!

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Where to Ski. I'm John Morgan. Hear that sound? It's the sound of a heli dropping skiers on a ridge.

Today we're leaving trams, chairs, and t-bars behind and flying. Grab your skis, let's go heliskiing. There's no ski experience that's more fun or more complete than being dropped on a ridge.

No crowds, no sound past that of nature, just a run and some turns. We're heading to the Chugash Mountains in Alaska and the San Juan Mountains in Colorado where I'm joined by two of the most experienced guides in heliskiing, Jed Workman, head guide at Badooz Heliski, and Matt Steen, program director and lead guide of Telluride Helitrax. Matt's been with Helitrax for 12 years guiding and now also is the program director.

Jed Workman is a professional mountain guide, big mountain climber, and skier. He's been the lead guide and director there for 18 years. The Chugash sits just east of Anchorage, Alaska and gets over 500 inches of snow on average each year.

It covers over 10,000 square miles of terrain. Snow here has just the right consistency to stick to some incredibly steep runs that cover an endless array of peaks, ridges, and glaciers. Badooz Heliski specialize in lengthier trips, seven days with stays at their well-equipped Saniya Lodge.

It takes time to get there, but once you're there, you have some amazing skiing. The San Juan Mountains are in southern Colorado and Helitrax bases itself right in the middle of Telluride. They service about 200 square miles of terrain, hundreds of landing zones, and a wide variety of runs for skiers of all levels.

Helitrax is focused more on skiers looking for one or more days of unique skiing experiences while staying in a town with all the amenities that Telluride might have. Heliskiing is amazing, but you need patience. Even intermediate skiers can find some amazing skiing.

Experts will have more terrain to choose from, but if you're a beginner, get some experience before heading out. Skiing in the backcountry has its own risks, but these operations are among the most experienced and they all boast amazing safety records, the newest and best-maintained equipment, and the best-trained guides. Both operations are certified members of Heliski USA.

Enough of this, let's talk to Jed and Matt to get the real deal. But first, if you like our podcast, hit the subscribe button and get notified when a new episode drops. Also, let us know where you want to go ski, and let's get it on our list.

Now over to Jed and Matt. Welcome to Where to Ski. I'm really excited to talk about skiing.

This is something a little new. Usually we focus on a ski resort, and usually it's a place I've skied. In this case, I've never skied with either of you guys, and we're not talking about a ski resort.

We're talking about really regions. This will be a little bit different. You guys have known each other for a little while through the Association for Heliskiing, from what I understand.

You run vastly different operations to a certain extent. Jed runs an operation up in Alaska, which is very different in terms of the mountains he goes to and how he deals with guests and stuff than what you do in Telluride, Matt. Maybe Jed can tell us a little bit about the operation up in Alaska and what it's like when you get up there in the hills up there, in the mountains up there, and then we'll go over to you, Matt.

Well, I think Alaska and Valdez in particular holds a special place for people when they think about skiing. It's something we're really proud of. The Chugach Mountain Range is where we operate.

It's Thompson Pass. There's been many ski movies made about it, and that's how most people know about it. Alaska isn't on the general flight path.

It's a big trip to get there. It's usually a dream that people prepare for for their life, and it's certainly worth it. The Chugach Mountains, it's like hundreds of miles.

I think vast is a good word for it, and our operation is essentially catered to that. We try to utilize about 100 miles in all directions of our lodge, and so I think people refer to it as the Alaska Factor, sort of a general term. When you get to Alaska, you look at the mountains, and you think they're a certain size, and then when you get on them, you realize you're really just a tiny ant, and that's the Alaska Factor.

It's true about the rivers. It's true about the weather. It's true about the mountains.

It's true about the personalities. It's a unique place, so you make a big trip to get there. We are on the road system, but again, there's only three roads in Alaska, so that doesn't really say a whole lot, and you've got to do trains, planes, and automobiles to get there.

But when you arrive, I think everybody is faced, because our lodge is right in the mountains, you just realize what you got yourself into, and you might have some butterflies, but it's really worth it. I think that first trip when you land on the ridgeline is probably one of the most memorable experiences customers have. It's like kind of traveling to another planet.

Wow. So, Matt, what's it like skating the San Juans in the hills you go to? You cover a lot of ground down there, too. Yeah.

I mean, the San Juans are a very unique set of mountain ranges in Colorado, and it has, I would say, some of the most dramatic ridgelines and peaks and couloirs and bowls and such. And we operate out of a ski area mountain town, out of Telluride, so most of our guests are flying in or either here for a long weekend or a week-long trip, and they're skiing the ski area, but they also want to add on an experience like heliskiing. Our ranges, like the folks that flew with us today, I mean, they say half of the trip is just being able to fly around these mountains and to see the terrain from a different perspective.

But it's a very dramatic mountain range, different than Alaska in many ways, because we're just down in the lower 48, but we get a lot of great snowfall amounts. And yeah, like the guests say, I mean, half of it's just flying around, but we've got some pretty sweet terrain that we frequent. You know, we say we've got like around 200 square miles or close to 130,000 acres.

And yeah, it's just a unique add-on to most people's trips, and we're conveniently located in the lower 48. Yeah, and something you said sort of rang a bell, the fact that you've got so many thousands of acres to work from, most people go, 99% of the people that go skiing, they're on a lift system, they're constrained to the runs that are probably marked or maybe just off to the side that aren't marked, you guys provide essentially lift access to pretty much anywhere that's safe, and that you've already vetted out and know how it works, how it skis, what the safety factors are, and it opens up a whole new range of possibilities. How do you guys decide on a given day where to ski? You know, you must do a lot of prep work, and obviously you know your mountains really well, but it changes day to day.

I could go into that. Most of these operations have designated runs, and we call it like having a run list. You know, not every single feature has a name, but a lot of them do, and the 10-year time that we spend in this terrain, we learn it in a very intimate way after different storms and how certain terrain will generally ski after certain storm systems or after a certain amount of time after a storm system.

At Helitrax, we do have an explosives permit, so we do test our slopes similar to what ski areas do. So, that gains us additional insurance for slope stabilities, and so we're able to test it before we put our clients on our terrain. Jed, how about you? When you get up in the morning and you're trying to figure out where to send guests, how does that work? Well, sometimes too many choices is just too much, but like Matt, we don't have a mitigation program, and what we rely on is more of an avalanche forecasting program.

So our safety really resides in John Fitzgerald, who's our lead avalanche forecaster, and his assistance to essentially take all the data from the day before and crunch the logarithms for the choices that we're going to choose for the next day, and that's a discussion amongst the entire team. It isn't any singular person. It's very in-depth.

That guy wakes up before it should be the beginning of the day and goes to sleep before it should be the end, and I'm sure that that's very similar with Matt as he described waking up in the dark and going to sleep in the dark, but it's a preventative program. And where do we choose to ski? Well, personally, I like the sunlight, so I typically fly till it's blue. Sometimes that's two-minute lift right behind the lodge to some of the biggest peaks in the Chugach, and other times it's fly till where it's sunny, there's beautiful powder, and we put together the day as a guide does in any mountain environment.

And there are so many choices on a given day, but there are some specific gems in the Chugach that I think everybody's after, and that requires a lot of stars to align, and people will come for years and years to seek those things out. But in the midterm, we're still skiing amazing terrain in a totally crazy Alaska environment, and those people typically are building a team with their guide that they'll do year in and year out, and progress to a level where they ski things they never knew they could. Interesting.

What's a typical day like for you guys? You work out of a lodge and then you fly everyone out of the lodge, which is a little bit different than Matt. He's got a town that sort of feeds them, and they all meet at a central location and go up. But maybe a typical day of skiing, what does that look like? Yeah, I mean, our lodge is the only building within many, many miles, and so that feels very remote.

At the same time, it can be pretty luxury based on the beauty of the lodge and the experience there. But a typical day, wake up at 4 a.m., 5 a.m., move into the office. I'm the head of the operations and the guide team, and so I interact with the forecaster and some of the other lead guides to prep the day, and that's usually about an hour.

The forecaster is probably up before me, prepping for me to show up to get a good head start. And then we're moving into a guide meeting while everybody else is getting their boots ready, eating their breakfast, and kind of lounging in the leather. And then we do our guide meeting.

We run through, kind of like Matt is discussing, the run selections and the safety factors and what our approach is going to be that day, and the skill level of the different guests and where it's going to be appropriate to function for that day for seven or eight helicopters, which can be 50 people in seven or eight different ships. And then you're out skiing all day long, and we'll bring a lunch with us, and we'll let you eat if the skiing's not good, but if the skiing's good, you're not allowed to eat. And we just ski our brains off because when we have weather, unfortunately there's no trees, so when we have weather, it's unflyable.

So you ski it when you can get it, and you just try to maximize every single day. And then you come back home, you have your five-star dinner, and you're served up a beautiful experience there, and then the guide team is still finishing up their day. They're still meeting and discussing everything they found from the day and verifying what they saw with the forecast and recycling that program for the next day.

Guides are busy. That is one heck of a busy time. Rest is minimal, but we take it on our weather days.

So Matt, you just got through with a debrief, I know that. I assume your day is a little bit different, but a lot of similarities. Yeah, a lot of similarities.

We do have our lead avalanche forecaster, they're producing our weather product at least 30 minutes before our morning call. What we do is the guides get on a phone call, because most everyone lives here, so they're just calling from their home, and that initial call is, can we fly today or not? It's not necessarily snow-related, it's just weather related. Can we get out? Do we need to adjust any of the times for our guests to come in? So our office is conveniently located in the Mountain Village in a hotel, and we have a helipad out back of the hotel.

So our guests come into our office, and we'll maximize with 16 guests in a day with one helicopter. So it is different than Jed's operation with running multiple helicopters and, like you said, 50-plus clients in a day. So our guests come in, and we stagger them coming in the door so that we have a little more one-on-one time with them, and they boot up and give them a briefing, and we head out.

And yeah, at the end of the day, it's just wrapping up, and as Jed said, just a guide discussion on conditions that we found, anything updated, any information we need to relay to any of the other guides that weren't a part of that day, and then start planning again for the next day. Yeah, and Jed, you were talking about weather days, down days. With you, it's a little bit harder.

You're in a lodge. For Matt, you can just let your clients loose in a town, and you just lose a day. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what's nice about the ski area. If you can't fly, then at least they have a ski area to go to or other activities to participate in.

But definitely, these heli-skiers, they're coming for this experience primarily, and so it is a big bummer when we're not able to fly due to weather or any conditions. And with all heli operations, you've got to be able to see, you can't get blown around too much. Most of our terrain is above tree line, but we do have some tree skiing options.

So depending on different cloud levels, we are able to shift our program and stay at lower elevations a little bit. But there's nothing better than just a bluebird day and fresh powder. You both get that in abundance.

You do have to plan for down days when you go heli-skiing. When I've done it, I always planned out of five days, two are going to be unskiable. And sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don't.

That's just weather. Can't do anything about that. You guys are both members of the same organization, and I think a lot of what you focus on is safety and teaching people just how safe heli-skiing is.

You guys take hundreds and hundreds of people up into the hills every year. You train the hell out of the people that work with you. And you've got some of the best pilots going.

What do you guys do to make sure everything is safe? You've talked a little bit about the avalanche stuff and how you vet that and how you map out the days. But past that, how do you guys work through safety? I'll just trail off on the last question, which is the down days in Alaska. I think that when you get a down day in Alaska, yeah, it's a bummer because you're not skiing, but usually your legs are so fried, you're just silently relieved that you don't have to go out another day or another hour.

But what usually happens at the Santa Lodge is we're in this unique location where the sky opens up just around the lodge. So our local skiing can often start at 2 p.m. and you can get a full day skiing in surprisingly fast. So we definitely benefit from that.

I'd say our ski rate or our fly rate is probably 70 to 80 percent when we do the calculations. But some people have more, some people will have less. Well, it's kind of a combination, right? There's a couple different things going on there.

One is the aviation risk and one is the mountain when you're on it. So like the skiing that you're actually doing and the avalanche problems and things like that. The aviation provider that we work with really is the final word on flying.

No guide is going to make the call on whether you can fly, it's the pilot. And so we work extremely closely with the pilots and you have to develop these relationships with them to just really foster an open, communicative environment. Much like you would if you're just a guide working with other guides, it just happens to be aviation.

When a customer shows up, one of the first things that we do before anybody goes skiing is we run them through the safety briefing. I think Matt had just referred to that. And that's like an hour long process of going through all the different mountain hazards that exist, one of which is the aviation component.

And then they get a helicopter briefing and we run them through a dry run with helicopters on the ground not functioning so that people know how to get in and out and they're not figuring that out in the field. There's also an avalanche part where people are practicing with their beacons and we train them up on our systems using our gear the way that we want people to function in the capacity that they're able to because a lot of these people obviously are not professionals. So we get them the baseline skills for dealing with the worst case scenario.

And ideally that never happens. And it's extremely, extremely rare that it does. But people, we take that really seriously.

And sometimes that can be frustrating because people really want to get out and ski. But we're not taking people into these mountains unless they've gone through the proper training before they're ready to go. And that's important.

And Matt, I assume you guys have got the same type of program. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I mean, exactly what Jed said. And then just to add on to that, like chronologically, you know, all these operations, they have flight following.

So there's someone at a base that's monitoring where the aircraft is. There's different ways to communicate either directly with radio or with satellite texting devices like Delorme inReaches. And there's just constant communication back to a base and following the crews that are moving around the mountains.

And then also just the direct communications between the guides in the field and the pilots. So that's typically radio communications. Yeah, that kind of just adds to what Jed started out with.

And you must have serviced those birds pretty regularly too. Can I just tag on to Matt that, you know, Matt makes a really good point about what goes on behind closed doors. When you show up to ski, you know, you might not be aware of all the work that's going in to make sure that you're safe, but it's an extraordinarily big support network.

And flight following is like very important. We know where every single guide and group is at any moment on a map. And we have multiple layers of communicating back and forth.

When I say we, I mean Matt included, all the helicopter operations are doing this. It's of the utmost importance. But there's a giant support network monitoring where all those helicopters are at all times.

And if there's a problem with a helicopter, you're basically too late, right? And that's what you're leading into. And every helicopter operator, it doesn't just come with a helicopter. It comes with the pilots and it comes with an entire mechanic crew.

And when those helicopters aren't flying, those mechanics are going through those helicopters with a fine tooth comb. And that's like any aviation company. You got to keep those things flying because when there's a problem, it's too late.

Interesting, it's almost like running two companies in some ways, you've got an aviation company and a guide company. Absolutely. So, you know, in terms of safety, the other thing I was thinking about this whole while ago, Jed, do you have to take bear swatters out there with you when you go up in Alaska? Well, you know, luckily at that time of the season, most bears are, you know, quote sleeping.

But as spring rolls around and it gets a little later, the sunlight comes out, they're pretty hungry because it's been a long slumber. So I've seen some brown bears from time to time, luckily at a distance. But it's really not the prime time for eating people that comes later in the summer.

So you guys have set people up for some amazing skiing in a day, you know, just in terms of vertical, what do you guys think people do in a day, you know, a typical day for your guests? Or do you even track? Yeah, I mean, I mean, for us, I mean, you know, it depends on each run, you know, our package is that we do six runs as our package deal, and there's options to add on additional runs after six. And, you know, we just we market it somewhere around 2000 vert each run, and sometimes it's more than that, and sometimes it's a little bit less, just depends on where the good snow is and everything. And so that that's kind of our our package deal.

I mean, we cater to more of the single day heli skiers, but we do offer, you know, multiple days and people do go out with us multiple days in a row. But, you know, just a little bit of a different setup than than what what Jed has. But yeah, that's that's what we got.

Yeah, I think I think some of the runs in Alaska, you know, not every run is 6000 feet, but certainly there are those you can land right behind the lodge and ski back to it. And that's a that's a six grand run. So you can get a lot of vertical really fast.

But again, you know, who wants to ski 6000 feet of breakable crust? So we're just going to take you where the conditions are best and we're going to rotate that helicopter as many times to maximize the vertical feet, but not at the expense of skiing crappy snow. I think that, you know, I'm not a Strava person, but, you know, I can recall having a lot of conversations with guests that are tracking that. So like a really, really big day would be like 45000 feet.

And that's somebody who is extremely physically fit and basically able to keep up with a guide for as much as the guide wants to ski. But your average person, yeah, we do a six run day and those runs are anywhere between 1500 to six, but they probably average more like around what Matt's doing. So I'd say it's probably far for the course, but Alaska is a little bigger.

So it's it's possible to get some more vert in. Tell you what, I'm tired after 2000 feet. I need a break myself.

I don't know about you guys, but that's that's a long run. Well, that's why you need fat skis. What do you mean then your next question? Well, I'm going to my next question is going to be about ability levels.

You know, everyone it helps to be an expert skier, but you don't have to be an expert skier to ski to heliski. You have to let the guides know what you're capable of. You know, maybe you could talk about that, both of you guys a little bit.

Well, I'll just say whoever shows up, it's your trip. So it's really catered to what you want to do. And it's best if you show up with a group of your friends.

And then we just go with the lowest common denominator. We're not going to push anybody into anything they don't want to or incapable of skiing. I'd say that if you're coming to Alaska, it's best if you at least can ski blue squares like the bowls behind you.

You can see there's just a ton of variety to the shape of that terrain. And you can land that helicopter pretty much anywhere you want. So we can take people out that are just blue square skiers and ski that all day long.

Huge bowls like you're looking at right there all day long. But there's also that other steep stuff behind you there that looks impossible to ski. And so we'll take you there as long as you're able.

But that's usually a progression. You know, guides want to see what people can do, not what they say they can do. And so we'll just work with you like a team.

And I think that's one of the coolest things about skiing with five people in a helicopter is you get really tight on the team. And if you keep coming back and skiing with your guide, we have people that have been doing it for 10 years and they start out on the blue squares and they finish on that really steep stuff back there. And they're pretty blown away because they never knew they were able to do it.

And I'm pretty sure Matt does the same thing. Yeah, agreed. Nice.

Nice, Jed. Exactly. Like with our six run package, just consider it kind of like a bell curve where yeah, your first run or two is just kind of warming up to the terrain, the snow for that that day, getting to know your group.

And then when conditions warrant, you can step it up and and and take it to the next level. But, you know, just just being being fit, you know, here in Colorado, we're flying and landing north of 13000 feet. So different than Alaska.

So we get a lot of folks that are winded, you know, so falling and getting up and you know, your fuel tank is getting drained because you're just working a little extra hard. So we get that in some guests and but but showing up fit and, you know, being an avid skier really helps. And given any of the conditions, you just have to kind of tune your technique and and most everyone can can handle it.

But but yeah, being fit and being an avid skier or snowboarder definitely helps. And it helps with the enjoyment of the experience. Yeah, I'd say probably any day you flew with Telluride would be a great day.

And it's certainly true in Alaska. It doesn't have to be anything, really. It's just you go out and enjoy those mountains.

It's a beautiful place to be. It's just incredible. And the helicopter, the way you can access terrain is just incredible.

So really, the skill level is so variable. Physical fitness, you know, I always say train harder than you're going to ski. Most people probably don't do that.

They probably eat too many potato chips and sit on the couch. But it doesn't mean that they can't have a great day in the mountains. So what skis are you putting people on or do you recommend people bring? That's probably different for each of you guys, too, because you've got different snow conditions.

Well, I'm really curious about what Matt's recommendation is, and I'm still figuring out how I get on that phone call line when he has an open seat. Hey, yeah, just just let me know. Or maybe you just did.

So he'll just he'll just drop down overnight from Alaska and show up next morning. Yeah. Maybe he doesn't want my riffraff around.

No, we yeah, we'll take you any day, Jed. I've been trying to get Matt to ski with us, but he's so busy with his operation and he has such a great job. He's like really passionate about it.

It's hard to extract somebody from that bubble. I keep dangling carrots, but it's hard. Thank you.

No, I do want to visit up there. Yeah, we're so just in train to our into our zone and the snowpack and.