Friends have been talking about Alaska for years. The land of perfect, stable, bootable snow that sticks to everything. Massive unridden spine walls, endless couloirs, huge alpine faces and large glaciers running from the sea to giant serac’d capped peaks. It snows at night and is bluebird in the morning. There are wild but friendly unicorns and rainbows atop every spine line. The climate heals any weak layers in the snowpack. It’s not that dark in the winter. Ok, the unicorn part may be a tall tale but everything else is absolute fact.
The past five years I’ve saved all my pennies to get to Chamonix and going to Alaska just seemed out of the question. I always thought, “Alaska couldn’t be much radder than the Alps could it? A girl just can’t have it all.” I tried to remain content with staying in the Alps, which I totally was… BUT this year I got lucky and decided to go find out for myself what the BFD was with AK. And boy oh boy Alaska did NOT fail to deliver.
We flew into Anchorage, and Emily from Silvertip Aviation, picked us up and her lovely fiancé, Matt flew us out to the Tordrillos. I’d highly recommend Silvertip, they fly out of Wasilla to the Chugach, Talkeetna, Tordrillo and Alaska ranges. Super nice couple, great service and solid pilots.
We set up camp then went for a little evening sesh on some west facing glowing slopes near our tents. The new snow that had fallen in the last 2 days was kind of baked with a nasty sugary layer underneath. I made some sweet fast turns then got up onto a spine to let my slough pass through the choke at the bottom. After it passed I pointed it over the shrund and out onto the glacier. SO FUN! It took us a couple days to figure out the snowpack, the weather and where the good snow would be then we crushed for the following 8 days.
Overall Alaska was an AMAZING experience and now I’m begrudged to make it happen every year. Oh dang. I’d really recommend camping out on the glacier for an extended period to get to know your zone and maximize shredding potential. I taught a splitboard course in the rain at Mt. Baker in a white out yesterday, dreaming of being back in AK.
–Liz Daley, Instructor and Guide