Back from AK, still smiling

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Hello all, I’m now back in Seattle, flew back two nights ago, and as always I’m playing catch up with the blog, but here are some highlights, and most importantly I’ve posted a bunch of pictures.

So I did do another couple of days of backcountry in the Alta area before leaving Utah. I met up with some friends from Bozeman and we did two days on the lifts and two days of hiking for our turns. So if anyone heads out that way for backcountry (well worth it) talk to some patrollers at Alta to get info on where the good snow is and where not to go. Those guys were great, usually patrollers just will tell you to avoid the backcountry in any conditions, but the Alta guys pulled out maps and gave us all kinds of options, and thanks to them we found better snow than Alta or Snowbird had to offer. Our first bc day we hiked from the Alta parking lot north to the ridge opposite the ski area, then skied a bunch of runs off of that ridge on north facing slopes down toward Big Cottonwood canyon. We sort of stumbled upon stashes of great sugar snow, and by the time we were back down to big cottonwood canyon road our grins were ear to ear. Our next bc day was a trip to Wolverine Cirque, which is a large bowl which wraps around nearly 180 degrees, and is filled with nothing but great chutes. This is a little bit of a mecca of backcountry skiing, it gets written up in magazines and there are a lot of video segments shot in the area, so that alone made for an exciting day. Even if the snow was no good I wanted to at least see it first hand. Kyle and I (Kyle was the guy I went to Cooke City with) skied two runs there, admittedly in two of the easier lines. The snow was ok, not the sugar we had found the day before, but the terrain was pretty exciting. After a few more lift days I was off to Tahoe again to meet up with some friends in South Shore, and to enjoy the endless series of storms that is hitting the Sierra Nevada this year.

One of the people I met up with in Tahoe was Bryan, a college friend who is living in Seattle. I had one week before my flight to Alaska and we decided to ski Tahoe and then take that week to drive north to Seattle. The original, overly ambitious plan was to climb a bunch of mountains in between Tahoe and Seattle in that time, Shasta was even on that list, even though both of us were pretty unprepared for that kind of an expedition. But the weather made our decision easy, it stormed on us most of the trip so we stayed in Tahoe an extra day and got three powder days at Kirkwood, then drove north up to the Crater Lake area. We still had plans to climb and ski Mt Mcloughlin but when we crawled out of the tent the morning of the climb we found 2+ inches of new snow on the ground and we couldn’t see the peak (we were camped right below it). So our immediate plans changed to include looking for a coffee shop in the town of Klamath Falls, which strangely enough didn’t seem to have any coffee shops or ski shops. So plans changed again and we decided to do the drive to Crater Lake. We ended up doing a small skin and ski trip in the afternoon around part of the rim of Crater Lake. We started from the parking lot on the south side of the lake (the farthest that the plows get), and headed up the west side for about 2 1/2 miles. The rim around the lake has some small peaks, so we chose one, skinned to the top and skied down for a whopping 800 feet of vertical that day. The skiing was fun while it lasted, but 5 miles round trip for maybe 40 turns isn’t a great return on investment, but a fun day none the less, and it gave me some inspiration for another Crater Lake ski trip. There is a island in the middle of the lake called Wizard Island, which is a small cone shaped thing. So if I get myself some real fat skis I could ski down from the rim toward the lake to a waiting power boat which could then tow me (water skiing at this point) across the lake to Wizard. I could then climb Wizard, ski it back down to the lake shore and the trusty boat which would tow me back to the outer shore for a climb back to the rim. Who’s with me!!

Bryan and I made a stop in Bend, OR, skied a great powder day at Mt. Bachelor. Even on a good powder day the place felt empty. We found a huge gladed area with no one else around, and we were enjoying ourselves so much that we skipped lunch and skied strait through the day before checking out one of Bends local breweries. A fine day. Then it was off to Seattle, and I flew out to Alaska on the 26th.

So, I made my decision to head to Alaska not long ago. The snow in Montana was melting far too fast and I wasn’t having much luck chasing storms. Weeks before, I actually stopped at a rest stop on the side of the highway in Idaho for lunch and ended up on the phone to three different heli ski places. The next morning I booked the trip and the flight, done and done. It was a hasty decision, for a ton of $, so I was definitely worried about how it would all turn out. I arrived in Cordova in the afternoon, basically with enough time to settle in before dinner (the meals were amazing by the way). All the new clients (myself included) were transfixed by the ski posters on the walls, it seemed like there was a personally signed poster from every big name skier I’ve ever heard of, they had all skied with Points North and based on what they wrote on the posters they all were blown away. The excitement grew. But the next three days were the biggest tease of my life, grey weather day after day with no change in the forecast, so our daytime activities included hiking, skiing at a local ski hill, some people got some fishing in, ping pong, foosball, etc. All fun for a lazy Sunday afternoon, but not what I went to AK for. And each night the weather forecast for the following day would be announced, and each night Kevin (owner, manager) would tell us most likely we were staring squarely at another down day. There was one point when I was fairly convinced I wouldn’t get a real heli day in, some depressing thoughts.

Then Thursday morning I woke up at 6:30 to blue skies and no wind. No one expected this, the guides were caught off guard, the cooks didn’t have breakfast ready in time, no one was prepared for a clear day. But we all hustled, and we skied five runs that day before the weather set in again. The next two days were clear again, Friday was one of the best (if not THE best) ski days of my life, and the polar flip flop of my moods was complete. It is next to impossible to describe the skiing, and I would probably sound like a bumbling fool if I tried, but all I can say is that it is jaw dropping. We would stare down runs that dropped over 2000 feet vertically below us, and we found nothing but beautiful Chugach powder. Just check out the pictures, and keep in mind everything is probably bigger than you think.

So now for a little plug for PNH. I think the best aspect of the trip was the guides. These guys were completely in tune with the level of the group (always 4 riders to a guide), and excited to challenge us all. I skied with Jimbo most of the time, and he quickly figured out that I wanted to ski chutes, what can I say, I love ‘em. On Friday, our biggest day, we found run after run which lead my down tight little coulars into big wide open powder fields. We skied glaciers, snaked our way around huge seracs and ice falls, and just skied our brains out. We left the heli pad about 8:10 that morning and didn’t return until nearly 7 pm, easily the biggest ski day of my life, and the more I remember little details it could definitely be the best.

So if any of you head to Alaska to do the heli thing, and want to ski big, steep, huge, scary runs that will leave you giddy, then I give PNH a resounding two thumbs up. Plus the food is great and nearly endless. So if you go say hi to Jimbo, Kevin, and the kitchen staff for me. Oh, and be prepared to run into some pretty famous skiers (I met Kasha Rigby and for one moment she mistook me for a guide, I should have run with it).

I hope everyone is doing well wherever you are. Until next time keep skiing.

Eamon

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Photos

Wolverine 1
Smack in the middle of this shot is a y shaped chute. We skied the left leg of the y into the gut of it.