Pewaukee native leads heli-skiing adventurers
Barney guides travelers on exotic trips
Never in his wildest dreams did Pewaukee native Michael Barney think he would end up being a helicopter ski guide in such exotic places as Iceland, Chile or Alaska.
“No way,” said the understated Barney when I interviewed him recently at a remote outpost in northern Iceland called Deplar Farm. A former sheep ranch not too far from the Arctic Ocean, the once-rustic farmhouse has been expanded and turned into a posh, 13room lodge and base for heli-skiing on the Troll Peninsula by Eleven, a Colorado-based, highend adventure travel company.
The ski season in this part of the world can last into June and often features great spring conditions with corn snow, kernel-like pebbles of ice that make for easy turning.
“I love skiing and guiding, so this is an incredible job. Not many people get to do this,” said Barney, who often skied at least three days a week in the winter as a kid in Wisconsin. On weekends, he raced at resorts in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. By the time he was a junior in high school, however, he was burned out and tired of the sport.
Then he went to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., and the flame was rekindled. While there, he made trips to Alta, a top resort outside of Salt Lake City, and stayed with Jeff and Dan Withey, a pair of hotshot Wisconsin skiers who raced with Barney in the same Ausblick program.
After two years of college, Barney moved to Alta for several years, met his future wife, then relocated back to Colorado. At age 25, he lucked into a job with H20 Heli-Ski Guides and then Valdez Heli-Camps for 11 years. While in Alaska, he met Alan Bernholtz, the gregarious former mayor of Crested Butte and a lead guide for Eleven.
“When the Eleven folks were thinking of setting up a heli-skiing operation in Iceland in 2012, Alan asked me to come here with him and take a look around and to see what I thought,” said Barney, who was impressed with the big mountains that rise 4,000 feet or more above the blue Arctic Ocean. Some winters, when the snow is abundant, skiers and snowboarders can make turns from high peaks all the way down to the beach. Then they’re picked up by a chopper and ferried back into the high country for more runs.
When I skied with Barney over two days in March, he worked closely with our Icelandic helicopter pilot to find bowls and pistes both steep and mellow. My favorite was one called “Lost Glove,” which we did twice. It was semi-steep and featured buttery snow. There were only four skiers in our group, plus Barney, and it seemed like we had the entire mountain range
to ourselves. When we looked back up the bowl, we could see our snakelike tracks in the footdeep new snow. It was heaven.
For lunch, the chopper flew in a delicious lunch prepared by the Deplar Farm chef and we dined al fresco and told stories about skiing around the globe.
Christina Jeschke of Milwaukee, who usually skis at Jackson Hole, Wyo., said she met Barney last year in the Chilean Andes and he’d told her about Iceland. She was heli-skiing there, too, and Barney rescued her after she fell and suffered a spiral fracture of the fibula bone in her right leg on the second day of their outing.
“He ended up carrying me piggyback down the slope,” she said. “If you get injured in the field, it’s great to have someone like Barney there. He really knows his stuff.”
Barney said other than being away from his wife and two young daughters back in Colorado, working for Eleven in Iceland is a “dream come true. I’ve never been involved with an organization quite like this.
“It’s great to guide for Eleven because you are set up for success with all the tools you need to do the best possible job. The clients have a great time and it makes me look professional. I appreciate that.”
Jeschke, who also skied at the Whistler Blackcomb resort in British Columbia this past winter, called the Deplar Farm an “incredible” find.
“The whole experience there was pretty awesome,” she said after her return to Milwaukee. “The accommodations were great and there was something different to do around every corner when we weren’t skiing. It was kind of an adult playground for the athletically inclined. I went fat-tire biking on the snow, snowmobiling and horseback riding. I left there completely exhausted. But I think it would be a fun place for a family, too, because they can tailor the skiing and activities for all levels.”
Deplar Farm is open year-round and boasts that it offers access to some of the best troutand salmon-fishing streams on the globe. Barney plans to stay in Iceland for part of the summer and bring his wife and daughters over to enjoy it with him.
Then he’ll head down to Chile again to guide with a heli-ski outfit in Valle Nevado.
Jeschke may return to Chile as well. “If I go, it’ll break (no pun intended) up the Midwestern summer and make our ski season up here come around sooner,” she said.
Barney, who also owns a small sawmill in Colorado, said he plans to keep on guiding as long as he can. His mentor, Bernholz, is 50 and he knows other heli-ski guides in Alaska who are in their mid-50s.
“Like I said,” he said with a grin, “this is a great gig.”