Legendary Freerider Brett Tippie Finally Found His Powder Fix at Last Frontier

April 02, 2026 Steve Rosset

Brett Tippie has ridden off cliffs that made headlines. He spent years at the edge of what mountain bikes and snowboards could physically handle, pushing into lines that didn’t exist until he and his crew made them. These days he describes his approach as “freeride light,” which still means considerably more than most people will attempt on their best day.

We sat down with Brett after his trip to hear about his time at Last Frontier Heliskiing, and he didn’t hold back. “It’s truly one of those bucket list things you have to do,” he told us. “It’s the best. There’s nothing better.”

Tippie is Métis, a Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductee, and a fixture in BC’s action sports world for the past three decades. He calls North Vancouver home now, splitting his time between announcing races, coaching riders, and still finding the odd cliff worth dropping. He knows what a great line feels like. He knows what real snow feels like. And by the time he headed north to Bell 2 Lodge this past winter, he’d been without powder for too long.

Southern BC had been warm. Rain pushed to the mountain tops. He was grinding groomers just to stay sharp.

“My internal snow addiction was needing it.”

Bell 2 Lodge sits off the Cassiar Highway in Northern BC, closer to the Alaska border than to any significant city. The mountains up there are genuinely big, the kind of big that takes a moment to register, and Last Frontier’s tenure covers 10,100 km². That’s the largest single heli skiing area in the world, and when Tippie saw it mapped out before the first flight, it stopped him.

“I saw all the mountains, the runs, the valleys, the drainages, and just how much terrain they can access. It blew me away.” He pauses. “I believe it’s the largest tenure of any single operation out there.”

What Brett didn’t expect was how much the lodge felt like it belonged there. Thirty years of history on the walls, timber and warmth throughout, a horseshoe of cabins tucked into the property. “Fancier and nicer, but still raw,” he says. It’s the kind of luxury ski trip that doesn’t announce itself — it just feels right.

The first helicopter flight is the moment everything Brett knew about powder changed scale. They flew up the valley, turned left, the door opened, and he stepped out.

“Poof. Right up to my knees in powder. I’m like, this is happening, this is really happening.”

The first couple of days managed some weather carefully, with the guides keeping the group in the subalpine and trees until visibility and snow conditions were right. Then the sky opened and they flew to the summit. The actual top, not partway up, not a good vantage point, but the summit. Skiing 360 degrees in any direction, runs that ran up to 6,000 vertical feet of untracked powder skiing in every direction.

For someone who has spent years chasing individual powder turns on bike trails or picked-over resort faces, the volume shift is hard to process.

“You go to a ski hill and maybe you get one or two powder runs,” he says. “Up at Last Frontier, you’re going to get untracked powder runs every single run, 10 to 14 runs a day. You’re just pounding laps. It’s extravagant. It’s the dream.”

Last Frontier runs four guests per guide, using A-Star helicopters rather than the larger 12-passenger machines common at bigger operations. Tippie has experienced both and he’s direct about what changes — fewer people means the mountain stays fresh longer, a good run stays good, and the energy of the whole day shifts from a managed group experience to something closer to a backcountry skiing experience with your own crew.

“It’s more like an adventure with your little crew than a full assault with a dozen people.”

His crew included a couple from Italy who were strong skiers, and one other guest who was operating in full stealth, on a business trip his wife had no knowledge of. When Brett climbed on the bus at the end of the day with his camera rolling and started working down the aisle giving fist bumps, the guy’s cover nearly cracked. They were good friends by the end of the week.

Off the mountain, the Bell 2 Lodge routine is straightforward and immediately welcome. Into the dry room, boots on the blower racks, then straight to appetisers from the kitchen, a drink at the bar, and everyone swapping stories about the day. Family-style dinner brings the whole lodge together at seven. As Brett put it, when everyone in the room has just had the kind of day on snow that most people only see in films, the energy takes care of itself.

He names his guides before signing off: Dave Stimson, Johnny Smoke, Split Gypsy. He gets the cooks in there too.

For the skier or snowboarder sitting on the fence about whether heli skiing in British Columbia is actually worth it, his answer is the same as it is for everything he believes in.

“Do it. Obviously. It is the dream.”

There’s no fake snow up there. No tracked-out runs by lunch. No fighting for what’s left. Just a helicopter, four of you, a guide who knows every feature of the terrain, and mountains that don’t end. If you’re looking for the best heli skiing in BC — the kind of heli skiing experience that earns its place on any serious skier’s bucket list — this is it.

For the team at Last Frontier, having Brett up at Bell 2 was a genuine pleasure. Welcoming someone who has spent his career chasing the best that mountain sports has to offer, and watching him find exactly what he came looking for in the mountains of Northern BC, is exactly the kind of thing we’re here for.

If Brett’s trip sounds like something you’ve been putting off, there’s no better time to make it happen. Get in touch with our team and we’ll help you build the trip that’s right for you.