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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

Packing for a five week mission to the moonscape of Petersburg Alaska is a interesting task. It starts several weeks in advance in the form of Primary, secondary, and tertiary piles of equipment, gear, and comfort items. Books, magazines, computer, water colors, music, pens and pads, movies, and spare parts make up the entertainment and sanity pile. Avy gear, harness, radio, survival gear, helmet cams, batteries, cameras, protective pads, gloves, monoscope, Ripxx, and tools are part of the equipment list. Skis, backpack, boots and outerwear make up the standard gear list. All this packed into a ski bag, a duffel, and a backpack with a total weight of nearly 150 lbs. And really I am traveling light, most of the things in the tertiary pile got left behind or canceled out by a lighter counter part.  Non the less we are here, and all ready most everything has come into play.

I should have known. The call came in the form of a one sentence email, ” Jackson Monday, you in?”All season long Jeremy Jones and I had been talking about linking up for a mission and now was the time. I responded, and 24 hours later was on the road heading off on an unknown adventure.  Before leaving I managed to get some information about what I would need. Crampons and an ax? yep. Sleeping bag and a tent? yep. The will to survive? …yep.

Pulling into Jackson the nerves were firing still, what was I getting myself into? I had never been snow camping, Jackson is notoriously cold, and the Deeper crew were animals. Soon I found out our plan, the following AM we headed out early into the mountains, off to set up camp and scout our lines for the following day.

The terrain looked sweet, the Tetons are big and different aspects give way to all types of terrain, huge rocky Europe like peaks, steep pillow walls, massive chutes, faces are everywhere, and long pitches with perfect placed trees make skiing great.

At 3 AM we rose, had some warm drinks and loaded up our gear, and got on the trail by 4. An hour into the mission I realized that I was missing a valuable electronic, by avalanche beacon! I had no choice but to return to camp, winding my way down the heavily forested skin track in the dark. Four and a half hours later I was more than halfway up and saw the rest of the crew above in a critical assessment zone determining if we would be able to push on to the summit with the current conditions. After some big red flags we decided that stability was suspect and would return to some of the lower terrain that was more manageable. We shredded some mini golf pillow lines, and enjoyed the day staying out until sunset before heading back to camp. The Hi Pro Glow was cut short when we realized that fuel supplies where low and we went into conservation mode. trying to keep what little water we had from freezing.  we awoke to gray skies, and a few snow flakes so we packed up and headed back. afterwords I was incredibly tired, sore and worked, but it felt good, and the mission was a success, and fun. Over all an amazing experience and great part of the season.

Jeremy Jones finding some air