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When I was up in Alaska, everyone kept telling me that I would now be ruined for skiing anywhere else. But for me the exact opposite seems to be true because as with any true addiction, a good dose just makes me want more. Fortunately for me, this April in Colorado has been stellar and provided me with numerous opportunities to get fresh fixes. Yesterday it was Loveland’s turn to deliver the goods -- when the morning report said 8″ overnight and snowing hard (16″ by lunchtime) I called everyone on my list but no takers so was forced to shoot the following video of myself just to prove how good it actually was.

Surfing USA

One thing there was no shortage of on my Haines heli trip was helmet cams. Every one seemed to be sporting one in every shape, size and manufacturer. Because of safety issues, there was no setting up for shots so unless you had a super long telephoto or optical zoom a helmet cam was your best bet. The problem with helmet cams of course, is that without anyone else in the picture they quickly get boring no matter how good the skiing was. So I have a good 30 minutes of endless face shots and untracked terrain which will mean very little to anyone except me in my old age. I did pull still frames out of any good footage I had of others or scenics from my still camera which can be found here. As for the rest of my footage I’ve decided to just post this one little excerpt from a run called T-Top. It wasn’t the steepest or the deepest and it went on for a good 5 minutes longer than this clip, but it’ll give you a good idea of what the riding was like including my favorite new snow terminology -- “sluff management”.

The view from our cabin - the massive face of "Hangover Helper" (first run day 2) Haines Alaska

For years I’ve been hearing epic tales of  heliskiing in Alaska and seen numerous film segments of mind boggling terrain. I always assumed that terrain would be off limits to me as while I’ve spent a lot of time on a snowboard I’m certainly no alpha dog. But thanks to the prodding of an old heliskiing associate, I decided to give it a shot and boy am I glad I did.

First taste of some Alaskan fresh

The Alaskan heli scene is quite different from your typical heli operation. Out go the luxury lodges, 5 course meals and highly structured schedules. Here everything is about the skiing and everyone is on board with that. We’re staying in what is known as the “plywood palace” where the big challenge is trying to get hot water in the shower. However, the views are spectacular, the company good and as they say in real estate it’s “location, location, location”.

Typical run at Haines - notice guide circled in red

And it’s not just the accommodations in Alaska that are different – what really stands out is the terrain. This is true big mountain, technical skiing the likes of which I’ve never experienced anywhere else. Had they shown me pictures first of where we were going to ski I probably would have passed but once they dropped us off I discovered that not only was it rideable, it was a tremendous amount of fun. If you look closely at the picture above, you will notice a skier circled in red – our guide who is posted up in a place where he can keep an eye on us while we’re doing the run. The guides here are just like the clients in that they are huge powder hounds albeit with a lot more experience and thus would take us to places they wanted to ski – in other words to what is more commonly known as “the goods”.

Scouting from the heli

Where's Waldo - can you spot the two skiers in this photo?

The two pictures above best demonstrates how we worked with our guide. First he would point out potential routes from the helicopter on the way up. Then he would scout the slope, set up in a spot where he could keep an eye on us, and then send us down one at a time giving us instructions via radio when we needed them.  I had never skied terrain like this but was very pleased to discover I could.

Ripping it up on Old Faifthful

Mike avoiding the slough and enjoying some turns

The gods really blessed our group on this trip as we managed to hit the best conditions of the year so far with deep light snow, great stability, and most importantly good visibility.  The forecast before we came called for rain/snow every day and the week before they were down almost all week but fortunately for us the forecasts were wrong and we’ve flown all week till today. But when they are down it usual means it’s dumping up top and that was the bounty we found when we got out there. When our guide warned us to watch out for our “face shots” on a particularly steep run we knew we were in for a good time.

Yes, we really did ski the mountain I'm looking at

And here's what it looked like from above

The two shots above are of a run called “Indy 5000″ – the 5000 being a reference to the 5000 vertical feet that the run covers. It is the kind of run you can only find in Alaska and one I never imagined myself riding. But with a couple of feet of fresh snow it was a blast and a learning experience at the same time. I’ve had to totally reorient my skiing up here – back in Colorado you look for the gullys where all the good snow is – in Alaska you have to stay up on the spines and out of the gullys where all the slough runs into. It’s a whole different way of approaching a mountain but is tons of fun once you get on the program.

Dave airing it out on Old Faithful

There were mellower runs too but what they all had in common was a thick layer of fresh light snow. This provided plenty of opportunities for enjoying the natural features of the terrain as Dave demonstrates above. By day 4 we are all fine with the weather turning funky as our legs were all ready for some rest.

The scenery isn't bad either

What is also hard to imagine even with the help of cameras is how spectacularly beautiful and impressive the Chilkat Range is. Ragged peaks, huge spires and glaciers everywhere you looked. It would have been worth the trip just to see these mountains no less to get to ski down them.

Guide shack at Alaska Heliskiing - note the pirate flag

Of course none of this would be possible without the tremendous folks at Alaska Heliskiing. From the office folk to the guides to Jack who gives us rides everywhere – everyone is super nice and more importantly on top of their game. I had anticipated maybe some attitude since this is one the premier heli spots in the world but no attitude here just a bunch of folks chasing the best skiing in the world.

My partners in crime

Also have to give a big shout out to David Cole (the guy on the right) who convinced me to come up here and his buddy Mike who is more than happy to share any and all beta on a run (and cooks a mean piece of salmon). One of the really fun things about these trips are the people you meet and this one is no exception. I’ve made a bunch of new friends up here in Haines and any time someone leaves the closing line always seems to be “see you up here next year…”

]]> http://www.glutenfreesnowboarder.com/2011/04/alaska-the-last-frontier/feed/ 13 http://www.glutenfreesnowboarder.com/2011/03/helmet-cam-fun-berthoud-pass-32311/ http://www.glutenfreesnowboarder.com/2011/03/helmet-cam-fun-berthoud-pass-32311/#comments Sat, 26 Mar 2011 03:09:01 +0000 bgilbert http://www.glutenfreesnowboarder.com/?p=874

Who needs a photographer?

Got to admit I’ve been slacking lately on updating this blog. It’s been a combination of less than epic conditions and spending time breaking in new gear. I finally broke down and bought a split board (Voile Mojo RX 66) after one too many post holing sessions in the backcountry. It’s a lot of fun and lot easier to use than I thought and is opening up a whole new range of possibilities. So between testing out the new board and my lack of luck at the resorts I’ve been spending a lot of time at my favorite local haunt -- Berthoud Pass.

Laying tracks on "Outlaw" - Current Creek, Berthoud Pass

The other piece of gear I’ve been experimenting with lately is my helmet cam (Contour HD). What I quickly discovered is that without a person in the shot the helmet cam footage gets old quickly -- you really need to be following someone else or get yourself in the picture somehow to give some perspective and visual contrast. In looking around the web, I saw all sorts of clever ways to do this including Joel Bettner’s reflective googles trick. But clearly the most frequently seen approach to better utilizing a helmet camera is mounting it on the end of a ski pole like I do in the video below.

Berthoud was fun as always even though it was probably the least snow I’ve ridden there all season (that’s the other problem with the helmet mount -- the face shots on a good powder day obliterate most of the footage). But now that I’ve got my equipment dialed in all I need is a good storm which could happen as soon as this weekend. Worse case, I’m headed up to Alaska in a week so with any luck I should get some good footage there -- I’ll keep you posted…

Hi Mom

It’s been a tough season for Wolf Creek. Their ski patrol director died in an avalanche back in November and seemingly in remorse the snow gods have been withholding their usual bounty from the area. Although I did not know him personally, I’m sure I had met him because I’ve always made it a point to thank the patrollers there for the incredible effort they put in keeping open the entire area for what is often only a few people. This includes extensive hike to terrain where my friend Kevin and I spent most of our weekend enjoying turn after turn of deep untracked snow despite the presence of several thousand Texans who were enjoying the President’s Day Weekend.

A typical turn at the Wolf

If you’ve followed my blog at all you know that Wolf Creek has a special place in my heart. I have had more epic days there than anywhere else but more than that it’s just got a relaxed vibe that you can’t find at the major ski areas. The lifts may be slow and the runs short but few other places can deliver the powder as consistently as the Wolf. This weekend was no exception but the irony was that the supposed bigger snow day (Sunday -- 14″ new) was just a tease for Monday (a supposed 6″ in 24 but more realistically overnight) when the sun came out and the crowds went home. We worked hard for our turns but boy were we rewarded as the video below can testify.

So once again we left the mountain shaking our heads at how good the skiing and riding was and how lucky we were to be there. Long live the Wolf!

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Joel Bettner

After the first big snow of the season I saw a blog post about skiing at Berthoud by Joel Bettner that both warmed my heart and made me jealous. Since then I had seen several of his videos that were posted on everyone’s favorite forecast site, Colorado Powder Forecast. When Joel Gratz, the forecaster himself, invited me on a East Vail tour with his namesake I jumped at the chance since I’d had never done any of the terrain but had always looked at it longingly whenever I drove by on the way to Vail.

The two Joels - just follow the guy in red and blue...

You get to the East Vail terrain by hiking off the top of the Siberia Bowl poma. There were lots of folks headed out on Thursday as Vail had gotten more than 30″ in the previous 3 days. As usual there were folks who didn’t belong out there and in particular one gentleman who had no idea of where he was going (right towards the most avalanche prone area) and fortunately for him several folks yelled for him to come back before we ended up reading about him in the paper the next day. Joel Bettner is a former Alaska heli guide and is incredibly knowledgeable with a very healthy respect for the mountains which is the only reason I was comfortable being out there in the first place. The Vail sidecountry is no joke and just because it’s relatively easy to get to and lots of people do it doesn’t make it any less dangerous.

The view from the top - East Vail sidecountry

Since Joel  was giving the tour it was totally up to him what terrain we were going to ski and it turns out he has a little thing for cliffs (check out the January highlight video on his blog which includes footage from this trip). Now I like to catch a little air now and then but wasn’t quite ready for the 20 to 30 footer that started the tour. Joel, on the other hand was primed to go and we captured the moment in a variety of ways.

Joel B coming off the top

Jeff follows suit...

But doesn't quite stick the landing

Seeing the boys go for big air (not to mention the three feet of powder you were landing in) encouraged me to do a little launching of my own.

it's fun to fly...

and meanwhile when the other Joel wasn’t honing his photograph skills (all the photos in this post except for this next one are his) he was showing us that he was just as good at shredding the powder as predicting it

Joel G coming up for air

All in all, a fabulous tour that left me wanting more and knowing that I would be back sometime in the future. Many thanks to the two Joels for making it happen and capturing the action – otherwise it could all be just another tall tale…about East Vail…

It was beautiful day in the neighborhood - Monarch 12/21

Your mom probably told you this but it’s worth repeating -- don’t believe everything you hear. Take for instance, this last storm that’s been making headlines for ski resorts around Colorado. While it’s true that several feet of snow has fallen in the last couple of days, it takes more than quantity to make for “epic” conditions. Unfortunately much of Colorado has been experiencing a phenomena familiar to Californian skiers -- something known as “Sierra Cement”. I got to experience this personally on Monday when despite arriving in the middle of a now 5 foot dump, Crested Butte skied like a 5″ day in spring. Having driven 6 hours in a snowstorm to get there, it was a tad disappointing to say the least. It snowed the entire time we were in town and while it all looked beautiful and everyone treated us great we hightailed it out of town the next morning hoping for a change of luck and praying for a drop in temperature.

Now that's more like it...

Fortunately the gods decided to be kind to us and reward our efforts at our next stop -- Monarch Mountain. Monarch is your classic local ski hill -- super friendly folks, fun terrain and lots of hidden stashes. While the majority of visitors seemed to be sporting Texas accents, that generally only scares the locals way and leaves more untracked for those willing to go off the beaten trail. We had come expecting little in the way of powder so were immediately energized when we discovered lots of good old fashioned Colorado fluff in the parking lot. It wasn’t bottomless “blower pow” but more than enough to make our day. There wasn’t a lot of competition in the woods so we spent several hours whooping it up in the trees as the video below can testify.

After the day was done I tried to talk my compatriot into chasing some more powder at Wolf Creek but the fear of heavy (as in wet) snow combined with the incredible responsibilities of producing the most accurate snow forecast in Colorado led him to decline. Sadly I eventually made my way back to Boulder having learned once again that while you may never know what the snow will be like until you actually get on the mountain  -  if you get out there often enough you will eventually be rewarded and those are the days you’ll remember when you’re planning your next adventure…

The first good sign...the parking lot at 8:30

I knew the day had potential when I heard the sound of someone texting me at 5:40 in the morning. After looking at numerous snow reports calling for 3-6 the night before I had gone to bed thinking Tuesday would be a work day but kept the phone by the bed just in case. Sure enough, Copper Mountain called 9″ new with it still coming down and so I immediately switched into powder mode and started packing up. Roughly 3 hours later we pulled into the parking lot which had not been plowed and thus gave us a good preview of the fun to come.

It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it - Eric Hoerske breaking trail

Riding up the first lift we saw powder piled up everywhere and being early December very few people. We immediately headed over to the Alpine Chair for some steep and deep and quickly realized that we had hit the jackpot. The snow was midwinter light and fluffy and still coming down hard (they ended up calling 13″ at 1:00) so we ended up spending quite a bit of time in the “white room”.

Jean Francois getting all fuzzy

Can you find the skier in this picture?

Or the snowboarder in this one...

As we worked our way through all the open trails we thought it couldn’t get any better but fortunately we were wrong. The snow kept getting deeper and we started venturing into the trees only to discover that there were several marked glade trails that we had never been on before but that we will surely visit many times in the future.

Our two new favorite places on earth

The glades were, to put it mildly, in snowboard speak “totally awesome”. Steep pitches with nicely spaced trees, little or no tracks and a foot plus of powder made us very happy boys. One run deserved another and another and another till our legs started sending warning signals about potential collision possibilities. Even then it was hard to quit as conditions like this don’t happen every day particularly in early December.

Yes, it really was knee deep

So sadly we decided to call it a day and thank the snow gods for what they had blessed us with. I spent a good part of the ride back to town wondering if it was all a dream but fortunately I have these pictures to prove that it wasn’t. Later in the  afternoon, Eric called me to tell me he had made his first ever hole in one in frisbee golf so I guess there was some special magic going on this day but if this was all his karma I’m just glad I got in on it. Like I always say after a day like today, life is good – and may I have another please…

Better than a field of gold - Berthoud Pass - photo by Joel Gratz

Alright -- I’ll admit it -- I’ve really been slacking on the blogging thing. After three years where the I didn’t get out in November due to poor snow conditions, this year has been a very refreshing change of pace. Steamboat set a snowfall record for the month and numerous Colorado resorts were way ahead of typical year to date totals. I was personally lucky enough to get in 6 days 5 of which were legitimate powder days. So why no posts?

Getting up early has its' advantages - on the road to Vail 11/19/2010

You know the old saying “powder has no friends” -- well actually in my case while powder has lots of friends -- most of those friends have jobs and can’t ski/ride during the week. Thus I often end up riding by myself and that doesn’t make for great photo opportunities and this blog without photos is just a lot of cold air. Opening day at Vail was a perfect example of this because despite giving my ski associates plenty of notice, no one was able to make the trip with me. Vail opened with over a 1000 acres and bless their hearts, groomed very little of it. I immediately headed to Game Creek Bowl and was pleasantly surprised to find all the northside trees totally rideable so spent a very fun hour or two laying down first tracks through the woods some of which I captured on my camera in the video below.

Vail has since opened almost the entire mountain with the exception of the new chair 5 lift which will open this Friday. I caught the opening of China Bowl the day before Thanksgiving and even though I had company on that trip it was so cold that the price of getting any pics or video would have included frostbite which is where I draw the line for my faithful readers. Sadly, I missed the opening of Blue Sky Basin this past Friday but heard it was quite fun – all in all, Vail is off to a great start.

Jean Francois bustin' it at Berthoud 11/17/2010

All my other days this month were spent at my favorite backcountry paradise, Berthoud Pass. I’ve documented many a fine day at the Pass on this blog so I won’t go into any details here other than to say the hill is already in great shape and am looking forward to future fabulous forays in the coming year. Thanks to everyones’s favorite forecaster, Joel Gratz, I was able to put together the footage below of a typical run down Hell’s Half Acre. And none of those whoops were added in in post.

Welcome to "Hell's Half Acre" 11/12/2010

As much as I enjoy summer and mountain biking in the beautiful Colorado Rockies, I’d be hard pressed to not trade it all for one good powder day – that’s why they call it an addiction. So when I saw shots of knee deep snow from a late October storm floating around the internet I knew my mountain biking days were numbered. In particular I heard rumors that Berthoud Pass was once more open for business and after a warmup day at ABasin earlier this week, I decided it was time to see if the rumors were true.

It sure felt like winter...

I had heard from my favorite weather forecaster that while there was good exercise to be had at Berthoud, I shouldn’t count on a big powder day. Thus when I casually headed down the first run with sunglasses on I was pleasantly surprised when my first big turn blew up enough snow to blind me the rest of the way. Thanks to Hell’s north facing exposure the snow stays soft for a long time and because it takes some effort to get there, there is generally untracked left when you arrive. Today was no exception as that old good time feeling came flooding right back – back in the powder again.

Ah, the blessed virgin...

Of course, one good turn deserves another so we were raring to get some more as soon as we could overcame the biggest challenge of the day – procuring a ride back to the parking lot. Winter Park not yet being open is a double whammy; more locals on the hill combined with reduced traffic over the pass means the thumb line tends to stack up and pickup trucks with friendly drivers are your only hope. Eventually our ship did come in and round two was even better than one as we now knew what to expect and this time I had my goggles on for greater viewing pleasure.

I'm the little red dot between the trees - happily contemplating my future...

This is not to say that there were no rocks or hidden obstacles – my copilot Mike was rudely tripped up and I added a few new scratches to the bottom of my board but certainly nothing to keep us from seriously considering not taking a third run in the sweet early season powder. Since Hell’s was so good we didn’t consider going elsewhere although they were tracks headed out in every direction. As John Candy once put it “when something works for me I stick with it” so back up to the top of Hanging Meadows we went for one more photo session.

Hanging ten in the Hanging Meadows

The third time was definitely the charm as well I’m sure the  fourth, fifth and sixth times would have been had we had the legs and time to hike it again, but we were more than satisfied with what the snow gods had given us this day.  After all it’s only early November and while I’ve ridden Berthoud in October before, the last two years my board didn’t even come out of the closet till December so I’m counting my blessings.  Once again, I got a little taste of heaven in Hell’s Half Acre!