Alaska: Post 3/4 April 9 & 10

After the initial one drop and our first ski down we are back to skinning. By far human power is the most satisfying way I know to get up a hill. Having said that and although reticent to be the cause of more choppers getting into the back country, it comes with one benefit that really kicks but: The first downhill run is on perfectly fresh legs!
In my view what sets Alaska apart as a destination is the combination of gnarly terrain - no people. This is one place where there is a lot more ski terrain than population density which makes for a unique and very different experience. The solitude on extraordinary ski terrain and the sheer infinity of it is in my book what makes Alaska such an amazing destination.

Here are some pictures (click to enlarge):

Long meandering skinning sessions.

Those long fun steep runs? Well they are long and steep on the up too...

Spires and more peaks than you can count.

The beauty of rock and ice.

Nothing like some glacier cruising to relax
from those pesky avalanches...

Did I mention Alaska also has powder...

Then there's just hanging out...

This is the kind of stuff you have to get through to make it back
to the Richardson HWY...

...in addition to fording streams...

...but eventually you get there...

In Alaska you don't even have to be good
with a camera to land shots like this one.

Alaska: Post 2/4 - April 8

This is where the fun starts for me, I get out and I get to ski! I popped a fair amount of uppers and got myself convinced that I'm as good as new. If attitude is everything this should be a cakewalk!
It starts off easy enough; we are "one drops" off of the Valdez Heli Ski Guides operation. An operation that I will characterize as efficient and unpleasant. Mostly I experienced a bunch of people taking themselves waaay to seriously and an assembly line approach to skiing that I don't care for. In all fairness it doesn't help that I, in the first place, have an uneasy time embracing choppers in the back-country. Having said that the general ambiance at the Tsina lodge and the heli operation does not help. In any case, there is no arguing that the terrain configuration off of Richardson HWY on or about Thompson Pass is such that it does lend itself to this type of transportation or the approaches are going to be fairly time consuming. The main claim to fame that Valdez Heli skiing has today is that it once, a long time ago, was pioneered by Doug Coombs. Now he pioneered something a lot larger than just Valdez Heli, he pioneered heli skiing in Valdez! He was a towering figure of back-country skiing with remarkable stints in Jackson Hole, Valdez and La Grave, France. He met an untimely end looking to assist a friend down an icy Couloir de Polichinelle at La Grave where he lost his edge and fell 2000 feet down. A truly tragic end for definitely one of the absolutely best skiers that ever lived.

Every day starts at the helipad for a drop of somewhere we like and that the conditions allow (click to enlarge any of the pictures).

Valdez Heli Ski Guides - The heli pad.

...we get pretty intimate with these birds...

...and the reward is that you get to places like this:

In the Iguana Backs

...and the drop zone is not too bad either:

A cosy mountain corner

Now finally after all that travelling, the transiting and prepping we finally GET TO SKI!

In the slope: Mike in blue, me in orange
and Ray with his ski tips still up

FINALLY!

...and there's yet a long way to go...

...reaching for the island of safety...

Mike's turn...

...and reaching for the island...

Safe!

Alaska is huge so one slope each., one to the left..

The other to the right...

...and that's a wrap!

After a good ski never neglect the reward upon the reward:

Mike, Adam and Pierre in the art of eating the cake and having it left...

Alaska: Post 1/4 - April 6 & 7, 2014

This post is not really about skiing, this first one deals mostly with the trip in and views mostly from the car. This is a trip I took the initiative too in September of 2013. This was going to be my very first trip to mythical, epic Alaska. For the whole season I couldn't wait for it and two bays before taking off: I get a high fever debilitating flue that I am not sure if its not going to kill it. I figure I have two days till the trip plus two days of traveling to get better so I'll go because not going just does not feel like a viable alternative. This is Valdez we're talking about: heard too much and been anticipating too much and too long to give it up now. So I pop everything I can get my hands on and hope to get better real soon.
The trip from Salt lake to Anchorage, although it's a flight, takes up the most part of a day mainly on account of a longish layover in Seattle. After a day of travel check in to a hotel in Anchorage:

Taking off from the hotel in Anchorage
for a six hour road trip.

...and in the am get the car loaded and its off over Richardson HWY to Valdez. 

That's a 300 mile drive for a distance as the crow flies of maybe 80 miles, see 

below for that efficient route selection:

In any case the group still seems excited half way into the drive.

Excitable bunch on the road

Mount Billy Mitchell where the Rendez Vous Heli guides hang out...

Rendez-vous heli guides a bit before Thompson Pass on the way in.

My buddies do a quick late PM tour - It's daylight forever in AK

Off they go...

And here they are somewhere on or around Billy Mitchell

Nice glacier picture taken by Adam

The Bookends

Girls Mountain...

...and at the end of the road, Valdez and the plush
accommodations we drove all this way here...

Milly-Wolverine-Twin Lakes Pass-Patsy Marly-Brighton 03-09-2014

This is an easy but fun tour that Richard and I did in great conditions: a bluebird with a stable snow-pack. This tour starts off on the Milly Express lift (one way ticket). At the top of the lift we boot-packed to summit Mt Millicent then skied down to  the saddle and then skinned up to the top of Wolverine. From there we did four laps down Wolverine bowl and into hidden bowl. On the last lap we went up to Stupid Chute and dropped down below Wolverine cirque and on to Twin Lakes. There we transitioned back into skins to get up Patsey Marley via Twin Lakes Pass and got a nice and long ski out down Heaven's Gates and past the lake and into Brighton. There we skied the resort slopes going down Exhibition back to the Milly Express base.

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

View of Devil's Castle from the saddle between Mt Millicent and Mt Wolverine

Hidden Bowl

Entrance to Stupid Chute

View of Mt Superior from Stupid Chute

Looking back up at Stupid Chute

The woods by Twin Lakes on the way out

Main Days, March 5, 2014

This is an Alta - Main Days round trip by Mike, Richard and I. Skinning up to the top of West Bowl via Flagstaff Gully at 10020 we dropped in at Hideaway Park in Days Fork down to about 9000 then skinned back up to the top of Main Days at 10561. The snow was absolutely fantastic, light and fast. Going down Main Days in those conditions makes it feel like the fun just never ends. Definitely worth doing again - so we did. This was a sunny and stable kind of day so everything was perfect except maybe for the noise level introduced in that fork when the chopper came in. It wouldn't stop that day for a long while. While skinning up the choice line that Main Days is, I was worried they would drop a dozen skiers on "our" line which would have made that day significantly less perfect. But they didn't the first time, nor the second time we went up. They dropped on West Bowl just south of us and then a couple of drops on Crystal Palace just north of us but not on Main Days. I was wondering; could this be a coincidence? and as often in those cases you don't get a definite answer. Well a couple of weeks later I stumbled into my friend and mountain guide, Brian Redding, at the supermarket in Park City. He told me it actually is policy over at the Powderbirds to leave alone any line that back country skiers are skinning up. They have the ability to pick any other line and so that's what they choose to do. This does make me feel a lot better about that outfit. I don't like compromise in the BC more than the next guy but I always felt that the temporary encroaching by heli operations are less of a threat than the always permanent aspect of resort expansion. So, thank you Powderbirds for not "robbing us" of "our" line...

Here a few pictures (click to enlarge):

Richard and Mike on the way up with Superior in the distance.

Transitioning on top of Main Days

What that line looks like when you are looking at it from the good end...

Cardiac Pass Feb 26, 2014

This tour started and ended at Our Lady of the Snows in Alta. Richard and I went up to Cardiff Pass, proceeded to contour Cardiff Peak and dropped in for our first ski into Power Outage. From there we went straight to Cardiac Pass and having had a bit of a late start decided to not continue into Mill B South but to just ski down through Cardiac Bowl. Once down to about 9200 we skinned across to a point south-east of where we started from getting us closer to the LCC/BCC ridgeline. Once on top of the Powerline we had a great ski down till a bit below Holy Moly. After a quick lunch break we skinned back up to Cardiff Pass and dropped from there back into Alta. The conditions were fantastic; Sunny and Stable. And as a bonus sunny did not mean baked south faces so the ski out was actually a lot of relaxing fun too.

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

Richard at Cardiac Pass. Clearly the proud owner of a pair of skis.

Richard skiing down and across Cardiac Bowl, going, going....

Gone!

View into Cardiff Fork and the Powerline buttress.

Lunch rock somewhere below Holy Moly

Richard back at Cardiff Pass and...

...a fun relaxing ski out back down to Alta - A day well spent.