Pulseline Adventure Review: Alaska Heli Skiing Review
Our ski trip with Pulseline Adventure was a complete disaster. The owner’s gaslighting and condescension were extremely hurtful and traumatic. We were left feeling deeply disappointed and frustrated.
Three of us booked an 8-day Heliskiing package with Pulseline Adventure in the Chugach Range. The weather was good with partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies and wind speeds of 0–15 mph. However, after skiing for 1.5 days, we decided to quit due to the amount of disrespect we had to deal with. This is an honest review of our experience, with evidence to support every claim, such as GPS records, screenshots, website archives, instagram posts, text messages, emails, or the owner’s own words.
TLDR
Pulseline Adventure’s advertised experience is drastically different from what we experienced.
Runs per flight hour
- Advertised: 6–8
- Actual: 3
Guide Maturity
- Advertised: 1 seasoned guide per group
- Actual: my guide has one season of experience in the Chugach, pun intended?
Safety
- Advertised: top priority
- Actual: Despite their diligence toward safety, we still observed an egregious gap that the lead guide arranged a heated, emotional discussion before flight, continued to guide immediately after the discussion, broke his leg a couple of hours later.
Size of run
- Advertised: massive
- Actual: 2160 ft on average, only one exceeded 3000 ft, 3 runs were < 1500 ft.
Quality of run
- Advertised: always another run of a lifetime right around the corner.
- Actual: 77% of runs were not fresh, 22% of runs were tracked out by 15 people or more.
Pickup delay between runs
- Advertised: streamlined operations that reduces wait time for pickups.
- Actual: 25.8 minutes on average, the max was 90 minutes.
Condescending Remarks To Customers
The owner (Gabe Monroe) made some remarks to me in the conference room when my group shared feedback, I literally teared up at the bully.
[On my frustration about mostly being the last group to drop]
Me: The group that drops in first and the group that drops in last have much different experiences. And our group is just following you.
Gabe: That’s what happens when there are 3 groups in the field, 2 groups are always following, is this difficult to understand?
Me: Is it fair though?
Gabe: Is life fair?
[On my feedback about flight time efficiency]
Me: 1.9 Hobbs hours for 5 runs, is it fair, on a sunny day?
Gabe: Fair is arbitrary as well, I want you to listen, you need to just pay attention, if we stay in one zone, you may get 6–7 runs in one hour, no one’s gonna be happy.
Me: No, I may be happy.
Gabe: It’s not about you.
[On my terrain aspirations]
Me: We saw good terrains when we were transporting, but we didn’t get to ski those terrains.
Gabe: Would you like to be in charge when we ski?
Me: No
Gabe: Ok so let me do that and you do your best to appreciate what I’m trying to show you
[On my intention to write honest review about the experience]
Gabe: You can do whatever you like, you have the right to do that, but that’s not professional, ethical or respectable.
Gabe: I certainly hope you wouldn’t intentionally cause damage to people.
Me: No, I will reflect the truth in my reviews.
Gabe: It’s still damaging.
Me: If the truth damages you, your business has a serious problem.
Settlement efforts
As of the time of writing, it has been 50 hours since we last communicated with any senior leader of Pulseline Adventure. While our group’s ski guide has been responding to us, they do not have the authority to make any decisions on behalf of the owner or the company. In the midst of a significant PR crisis, Pulseline Adventure has sent a junior ski guide to handle the situation and appease upset customers. Given these circumstances, would you hesitate before considering working for Mr. Monroe?
Facts to back the claims
Flight time/Hobbs Hours
Advertised
Guests typically average 6–8 runs per Hobbs Hour. (link, archive)
Haircut by the owner
Gabe Monroe:
“Average runs per hour is 5–6 runs, I’ve been here for 20 years.”
Actual
We burned 2.9 Hobbs hours(~$5400) for 9 runs in 1.5 days.
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$600 per run
$3600 per day
Faulty Flight Time/Hobbs hour metering
We were told we burned 1.44 hours on the first day after flying only half a day with 4 runs.
We confronted them and found out that they mistakenly attributed the private filming group’s flight time to us. They recalculated and came up with 1.08 hours.
We added more information about when exactly we started in the field, and they recalculated and came up with 1 hour.
Would you trust the reported flight time after these alterations?
Vertical of runs
Advertised
These are massive vertical Alaskan lines, in remote big mountain terrain. So 6–8 Alaska lines are far bigger, longer and more significant ski resort runs. (link, archive)
Actual
The average vertical of the 9 runs was 2160.56 ft, there are 59 North American ski resorts that have more vertical drops.
Verticals of each run we did, recorded by my GPS watch: 2982 ft, 1978 ft, 1445 ft, 1148 ft, 2624 ft, 2129 ft, 2516 ft, 1332 ft, 3291 ft.
Guide Maturity
Advertised
1 seasoned Alaska heli guide per group of 4
Actual
- Our guide has only worked in the Chugach range for 1 season, not sure if it’s pun intended.
- Gabe Monroe also confirmed that the guides are junior:
I’m the only guide in our pod that opens up new terrains, that’s not because my group is more important, it’s because I know the range better than [Guide Name] and [Guide Name], they’ve both only been here, not even 2 years.
Quality of run
Advertised
With a few thousand square miles of mountains available to explore, there’s always another run of a lifetime right around the corner. (link, archive)
Actual
- Because our guide is not allowed to open up new terrain, we were following other teams most of the time and skied tracked-out terrains.
- Only 2 of 9 runs were fresh before our group dropped.
- 2 of the 9 runs had 15 tracks before our group dropped.
How about paying $600 to put on the 18th track?
Pick up time from the field
Advertised
Our method reduces wait times for pick ups and lets us slow down the pace of skiing (link, archive)
Actual
On average the wait time for pickup was 25.8 minutes. There was one 90 minute wait, two 50 minute waits, and one 30 minute wait.
Safety
Advertised
Your safety is our top priority. Every decision that we make is rooted in conducting safe operations.(link, archive)
Actual
On April 19th, the lead guide wanted to discuss our feedback before the flight, even though we suggested talking the day before. The conversation got very heated and emotional. We were worried about our safety since the lead guide was so affected, so we chose not to ski and left. Despite this, the lead guide, Gabe Monroe, continued to guide other clients. Unfortunately, he ended up breaking his leg later that same day and had to be taken to the hospital.
In the final minutes of the heated conversation:
Pulseline Guide: So you don’t want to ski today.
Me: After this conversation I don’t feel safe to go skiing with Pulseline today.
Pulseline Guide: Safe, why?
Apparently Pulseline Adventure wasn’t aware that human emotion was an objective risk.
We must honestly admit that this incident was the only egregious safety gap we observed, our guide mostly treated safety seriously except for not wearing a helmet on one of the two days we skied. Other than that, we did not observe much about safety.
Closing words
To my fellow casual skiers, my group tried 4 heli operators in the last 3 years. 3 of them were good to superb, but Pulseline Adventure was terrible. The Chugach location is great, but Pulseline’s disorganized operation, insincere management, and disrespectful owner have made them a disaster.
For filming crews, professional athletes, and other VIPs, Pulseline is still a decent choice in the short term. Gabe is an acclaimed guide. However, keep in mind that Gabe has a condescending attitude towards non-pro skiers. Do you really want your hard work to be associated with his business in the long term?
If you have also had unsatisfactory experience with Pulseline Adventure, please share!
