Wing Ridge Ski Tours Staff

All staff are trained in Avalanche Safety as well as First Aid and CPR.

Byron "Whip" Whipple (Manager)

Whip has been an avid snowboarder for many years, and he spends the year round in the wilderness. Before his wilderness career, he served 22 years in the military where he was trained in special skills such as cold weather extended survival and water survival. Whip is also trained in wilderness advanced first aid and avalanche safety. In summers he is a professional mule packer in the Wallowa Mountains and Eagle Cap Wilderness and considers the outdoors his home.

Charla Whiting (Lead Guide and Office Manager)

Charla has over 30 years of alpine skiing experience. Involved in mountaineering and ski instructing since 1986, she has experience with National Ski Patrol, as an EMT, and in Outdoor Emergency Care. Charla moved to Joseph in 2000 and works as a backcountry pilot and flight instructor in the summer and is a member of the Wallowa County Search and Rescue.

Jerry Hustafa (Lead Guide)

Jerry began skiing on the man-made glaciers of the Great Lakes state. Later, while attending the University of Montana, he spent a LOT of time learning to telemark at the Snow Bowl ski area near Missoula and at Big Mountain in Whitefish. Since 1987, Jerry has been living in the Wallowa Mountains, working as a botanist for the US Forest Service and becoming a slave to gravity every winter. For Jerry, backcountry skiing has become a way of life. He and his dogs Sierra and Aluco have a peculiar attraction to tree skiing and double fall-line terrain.

Ken Bronec (Lead Guide)

Ken has been skiing in the Wallowa Mountains since he moved to Joseph over 20 years ago. He is a member of the National Ski Patrol at Ferguson Ridge, near Joseph. He is employed by the Forest Service, where he works as a fisheries biologist. Ken is active in the local nordic ski club, and is on the board of directors at Ferguson Ridge Ski Area.