If you take a somewhat detached view of this step, it is not surprising. After all, heli-skiing has been practised in the Bernese Oberland and especially in Valais for a long time. It is an important source of income for local companies and guides. However, there has also been opposition for some time - the environmental associations, for whom this type of winter sport is a thorn in the side.

Yesterday and today

Hitherto, helicopter flights in the Alps in summer have largely served the purpose of sightseeing flights, material transportation and mountain rescue - until now. Now comes helicopter biking, and that is certainly another thorn in the side of many people. I also consider this service to be problematic. But before I give my reasons, I'll expand a little.

The fact that this offer will be available from next spring is not surprising to me. If heli-skiing is practiced, the step to heli-biking is actually obvious. Anyone who thinks that this involves flying around wildly is mistaken. You are only allowed to fly to the official landing sites, which significantly expands the possibilities for the flying biker guild, but does not make them infinite.

I am a very open-minded person and try out a lot of things before I judge. For example, I've already climbed into a helicopter on my skis, even though I'm not a fan of heli-skiing. Consequently, you can also assume that I'm not a fan of heli-biking either. At the moment, I can neither say yes nor no to whether my curiosity will ever make me get into a heli on my bike.

Just because heli-biking has been around in Canada and New Zealand for a while doesn't mean we Swiss have to offer the same. Photo: Screenshot "Spot Altitude Helibike"

The problem - political, environmental and ideological

Despite my understanding of the operators and the restrictions imposed by the planned landing sites, I see this form of mountain biking as not entirely unproblematic. We would like nothing more than to be able to go mountain biking without restrictions - to be able to ride on all trails and move freely in nature. Now we are creating offers that increase the pressure on certain areas, and I'm not sure whether this will have a negative impact on the development of our sport.

Another point is environmental protection: there is a daily discussion about how to stop or slow down global warming, but we let ourselves be flown up somewhere by helicopter because we are too lazy or supposedly have too little time to earn the long descent from mountain X with a lot of sweat. Sure, there probably won't be a huge number of flights, and if you eliminate these flights, the CO2 budget won't be any better off. But there are many small pieces in this big climate puzzle, and unfortunately every single helicopter flight is one of them. Even if many people don't like it, this also applies to winter!

I also take a critical view of this from an ideological point of view: there are repeated reports in various media that people are suffering from work-related pressure every day. The magic word is often "outdoor". There is peace and strength, and the physical exertion washes the mind clean. Of course this is true. But there are fewer and fewer places where there is peace and quiet. And what are we doing? We produce even more noise and exhaust fumes by preferring to fly up because of our greed for trails. After all, we want to ride all the trails in one day instead of tackling the mountain under our own steam for just one trail. We want to experience adventures to get away from it all, but are we destroying them at the same time? In my opinion, that doesn't work.

For some, luxury and opulence are the order of the day, for others a simple bike-carrying system is all they need to reach high-altitude trails under their own steam: The latter suits my nature far better. Photo ©PeakRider - Max Schuhmann

My opinion - your decision

Heli-biking is similar to e-mountain bikes - everyone has to decide for themselves whether they like it or not. But heli-biking is a pretty big shoe-in, where I may be wrong in my concerns, but I'm probably right. Time will tell, but hopefully it won't be too late.