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With the new snow in the mountains all around the west, cold temperatures creeping in, and storms on the horizon I thought it was a good time to share some stoke.  I  put together a helmet cam vid from some mid winter fun last year while shredding in Jackson.

I feel super lucky to get to head down south to Argentina for a Atomic photo shoot.  The crew is Dana Flahr, Tim durtshi, myself and Adam Clark shooting photos. We rolled into town and met up with Mark Lasseter founder of Southamericaski.com who has been helping us out with logistics while we explore Bariloche. The skiing has been spring like but it has been a blast, any turns made in the summer are great, so we have been stoked.

Buenos Aries Argentina from the air

ice cream culture in S.A.

Utah is full of amazing places, there is a place in the south that is called Virgin, or Zion, and we call it paradise. Red dirt spines drip down from mesas in all directions. Huge rock formations create walls and pillars of stone that are breathtakingly dramatic. Etched into the landscape are nearly unrecognizable trails that lead down cliff band after cliff band as if mountain goats created them. The mountain goats that created these trails are bikers, with a warped sense of whats possible.

Virgin Utah is  the Alaska of mt bike spine riding…

Shuttle rig loaded up…

Dustin Schaad and I shuttling up …

freeriding aint free…

Dustin Schaad sending it off a sweet hip

This one is me hitting the hip, fun fun fun…

camping good times…

Alaska is a mecca of big mountain riding, skiers and snowboarders, film crews, guides, ski bums, and wealthy clients migrate to Alaska looking for adventure. The combination of amazing terrain, and good snow make it a crown jewel, snow sticks to the steeps and forms into amazing creations, cornices, pillows, spines, bergshrunds, and flanks. The mountains are rivers, the snowpack sits on top of flowing glacier that can move up to 2 meters per day, things change rapidly in Alaska.

This draw toward adventure has changed the game in some places. Less about exploring, on a nice sunny day its like a ski area,  10 groups of clients, 5 film crews, hungry riders…. terrain gets eaten up, it becomes a race. Not a good combination for following safety protocols. Countless client runs, and film lines have been done over and over on runs like  Tomahawk, or, Super Bowl. The area is mapped out and the  new strategy is to be one step ahead of everyone else.

This year we decided to focus back on the adventure, and take a gamble exploring a completely new zone. Our search brought us to Petersburg, a small fishing village on a Island in South East Alaska. It is a big risk to leave behind the easy pickings of a well known established zone, chasing the hope that there is something more out there. The Crew at TGR worked extensively to arrange all the logistics that would be necessary to pull off a mission like this, riders, cinematographers, photographers, guides, and pilots, committed to the plan and saw it through with hardships, adventure, highlights, and powder.

Photo By Adam Clark

Ian MacIntosh pow turn

Seht Morrison

Photo Adam Clark

Exploring a new zone has been an amazing experience, the mountains here are the gnarliest we have skied and explored,  massive glaciers surround rocky peaks, ice is everywhere, from huge alpine glaciers that cling to peaks, to massive crevasse strung ice fields that are maze like. the terrain is big, runs that look small are huge, ski lines are the steepest I’ve encountered, and the challenges of each run involve cornice navigation, slough management, speed mitigation, changing snow conditions, xxl bergschrunds, with multiple stages.

the landscape is out of this world, alien, and prehistoric.

A yetti leaving his ice lair…

the heli parked on a castle

Filming the flight into the Devils Thumb

massive Ice maze on Mt Burkett