Fluxes of geomagnetically trapped energetic helium ions in the immediate vicinity of the geomagnetic equator have been unambiguously identified and measured with Explorer 45. The observations presented span and L shell range 2.25≲L≲5 and extend the observational coverage of radiation belt helium ions. During geomagnetically quiescent conditions these fluxes are found to peak sharply near L=3.25 with equatorially mirroring intensities of 80 and 34 ions/cm2 s sr keV in the 1.16-1.74 MeV and 1.74-3.15 MeV per particle passbands, respectively. The helium ion fluxes are observed to exhibit a significant B/B0 dependence and indicate that the ion flux pitch angle distribution j (&agr;) is very anisotropic. If j (&agr;) ?j⊥ sinm &agr;, then m values of 8 and 10 correspond to the responses of the two passbands within the B/B0 range of 1.0-1.4 observed. When the B/B0 dependence is removed, the fluxes exhibit no detectable decay over a 2-week period covered by the study.