Powder: How a Kid From Missouri Became the Owner of Sun Valley’s Historic Heli Ski Company

Meet Alex Kittrell, the owner and lead guide of Idaho’s storied Sun Valley Heli Ski.

https://www.powder.com/news/missouri-owner-sun-valley-heli-ski

Sun Valley Heli Ski has ferried skiers into the mountains around Ketchum since the 1960s.Photo: Drew Daly/Courtesy Sun Valley Heli Ski

Somewhere ahead of Alex Kittrell, a client went down.

Kittrell—then working alongside Erik Leidecker of Sawtooth Mountain Guides—was worried about the fallen skier. He headed over to help. When Kittrell reached the client, though, he wasn’t disgruntled, hurt, or angry at himself for taking a spill. Instead, he was laughing. Thanks to soft snow, skiing sometimes rewards mistakes with fun memories.

“That was awesome!” the client told Kittrell.

Watching the spill crystallized Kittrell’s path. He wanted to keep helping others experience joy in the mountains. As a guide, that’s one of your foremost jobs—alongside safe backcountry terrain navigation, of course.

Along the way, Kittrell’s ski patrolled in New Zealand, shadowed avalanche forecasters with Idaho’s Sawtooth Avalanche Center, and guided clients amongst Alaska’s towering peaks.

When he decided to expand his guiding skill set, he absorbed as much as he could. That persistence paid off. Now, Kittrell is the owner and lead guide of Idaho’s storied Sun Valley Heli Ski, an outfit that’s ferried skiers into the mountains around Ketchum since the 1960s.

The operation helps guests access and ski the western Smokys, among other ranges. The terrain, for the most part, starts above treeline, featuring steeps, bowls, and other slopes. Kittrell preferred not to share the exact extent of the acreage Sun Valley Heli Ski accesses, but said “it’s large.” 

One advantage Sun Valley Heli Ski has is that it’s in the Lower 48 and based near an airport, unlike some more remote operations. The outfit doesn’t just cater to experts, either. “Sometimes we can step it up if our clients are up for it, but we don’t scare people,” said Jay Levine, the former owner of Sun Valley Heli Ski.

Despite being embedded there for years, Kittrell isn’t from Idaho—or even the West Coast. Rather, he was raised in the lowland state of Missouri, first moving west in the 1990s at 18 with some inspiration from Tim Toula’s rock climbing guidebook Rock ‘N’ Road. 

He spent time in Boise and Missoula, alongside working as a lift operator at Beaver Creek ski resort for a few months. It was there, in Colorado, that Kittrell, who was then a snowboarder, found the inspiration to try skiing—or, more accurately, teleskiing.

One day, while enjoying the winter view at Rabbit Ears Pass, Kittrell spied two skiers who emerged seemingly out of nowhere. They’d been ski touring and asked Kittrell if he wanted to help them car shuttle back up for another lap. He obliged and, at the end of their day together, had a question for the skiers.

“So let me get this straight: You guys climb mountains with skis? And they were like, ‘yep,'” Kittrell remembered. Afterwards, he followed their figurative skin tracks, taking up telemark skiing and then alpine touring as he participated in the rare snowboarding-to-telemark-to-alpine pipeline.

Another serendipitous moment introduced Kittrell to the heliskiing business. He’d landed a job at Ski Tek, a shop in Ketchum, Idaho, but was searching for more winter work to supplement his summers spent in the commercial timber business. A friend of Kittrell’s helped by tipping him off to an entry-level opening at Sun Valley Heli Ski. He was passed over at first, but the outfit soon hired Kittrell to fuel and dispatch the helicopter.

Kittrell knew then that ski guiding existed—and had previous opportunities to be a rock climbing guide—but he didn’t join Sun Valley Heli Ski to pursue that vocation. Instead, he said, dispatching was simply “a good job.” 

Yet, after he saw what the outfit did, Kittrell’s interest grew. He began sitting in on guide meetings, even though promotion seemed unlikely—especially as he’d become indispensable as a dispatcher. Kittrell explained what he was feeling to his supervisor at the time. The next day, he walked in the door of Sun Valley Heli Ski to work and got a surprising nod: he was going to guide.

“I was blown away. I had no expectation of that,” he said. “I had to have a pep talk with myself and say, ‘Dude, this is your shot. You got to kill this. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.'”

Kittrell must have met the standard he set for himself. Before taking ownership, he would go on to become Sun Valley Heli Ski’s operations manager, overseeing the parts of the business that involved fueling and heliskiing. 

Levine, the former owner, described Kittrell as “so damn smart,” adding that the Missouri native taught him a lot, like not cutting corners and always being on top of your game—two important lessons in a complicated business where operators have to juggle aviation, avalanche conditions, and client expectations.

Given Levine’s review, it makes sense that he ultimately chose Kittrell as his successor. But Kittrell, at first, didn’t think Sun Valley Heli Ski was available to him. That changed when he approached Levine and expressed his interest. “Well, you know, I want you to buy it,” Kittrell recalled Levine saying.

Levine, first with partners and then on his own, had owned Sun Valley Heli Ski for 16 years. He was ready to move on. While Levine noted that there were plenty of other interested buyers, he said he didn’t want to pass the business off to someone who might “change what we do.”

“I would just rather sell it to a brother than sell it to another,” said Levine.

For Kittrell, it was a turning point, not unlike the one years earlier when he’d first been invited to serve as a helicopter guide. It was scary, he said, when he learned that Levine wanted to pass him the torch. Still, he secured a loan and moved forward with the purchase, officially taking over in June 2024.

Challenges, of course, loomed. For his first year, Kittrell didn’t feel much emotion about taking over Sun Valley Heli Ski, instead focusing on putting his head down and working. But he’s also had moments of reflection.

Some days, Kittrell asked himself, “What have I done?” Other days, he paused to consider the circuitous path he’s taken, thinking, “Wow, I’m from Missouri, and I own a heli ski company—that’s crazy.” Perhaps above all, Kittrell’s original north star hasn’t vanished.

“I’m still excited to take people skiing,” he said. “When people walk back at the end of the ski day and they say that their minds are blown, that’s the goal, right?”