Alaska part 1

First ever trip to Alaska...and defiantly not the last! The journey up here started with a 10 hour drive to Seattle that required 3 redbulls and left me pretty cracked out when I got to DeeJay's apartment so we proceeded to watch snowboard and ski movies that only ampt up my stoke farther. I got to the airport and made it to the security area with my camera bag but had forgotten that I had a leather man tool in there...so I had to deal with that and mail it home. Walked over towards the gate looking for the man,the mystery, the Timmy. I found him geeking out on his iphone and a huge smile on his face. So we sat there and discussed the fact that we were in route to Alaska!!! We met a few Juneau locals and had a nice short flight and one of the girls we met gave us a ride with her boyfriend to our hotel. We schlepped all our gear up to the room and took a much needed nap. Then the next day we had to wait for the ferry that left at 1:30 in the morning so we left all our gear at the hotel and wandered around Juneau and had a danky breakfast!

Then we got on to the ferry and tried to sleep why we cruised up to Haines. Upon arrival we converged on the group of guide schoolers and Seandog the man behind Alaska Heli Skiing. We did a quick grocery mission then it was straight to our WAFA (Wilderness advanced first aid) course, that first day was extremely difficult to stay awake that first day. That night we went to our house and met our roommates; Chris a badass tele-skier and bull rider from Vermont, Josh who laid himself off from his office space style job in Maine, then Jay from Mt. Baker area who brought his Swedish girlfriend and his weird ass ego. Our house is at 35 mile, while the heli pad is at 33 mile, we have an epic view of some of the surrounding peaks and some neighborly moose. After 4 days of learning about injury assessment, cpr, splinting and field procedures it was time to begin avalanche training. Our teacher Bill is a world renowned snow science professional and his assistant Kent who is Alaska Heli Skiing's avalanche forecaster. This 5 day course was amazing, it is considered an avalanche 1 but they said it is equivalent to an avy. 2 course. I learned more about snow in that class then I ever imagined now it is all about applying that knowledge and studying snow on my own as both a tool and for exposure to different situations. Part of that course we got our first 4 days heli days, and I must say my first Ak turns were a bit disappointing, it was a super mellow 200 vertical foot run down to an area to do avalanche beacon drills. then another mellow run to the PZ (pick-up zone). The next day we dug a bunch of pits and learned a grip of stability tests then skied a run thru some gnarly bushes down to our house. Day 3 on the heli was way better, we skied down to "dangerous" pitch and dug a pit and did a snow profile, which I learned a lot from, then we got to shralp! There was a bunch of single and double pillows and some fun pitches. Then at the bottom is what I would consider my first true pillow line, a 7 pillow drop that I made to the second to last pillow and got bucked hard, landed sort of and rag dolled down the landing; you can see my tracks bouncing down the slope bellow the line.

Then the next day we got to strictly shralp! We went out, scouted a zone and got first tracks down it, a sweet 4k vertical run that had some spines and pillows thru-out it. It was called buns of steal and it got the burn on, my legs were still burning when we got back to 33. We got some!!! It was great to get some true AK lines! Then we had our first day off so we slept in and did a shopping mission to town 33 miles away and some laundry. Then we got a morning shralp session...in the heli! It was sick Tim and I destroyed some bushes and had a wicked good time riding some fun terrain. Then it was off to class for an afternoon of knot tying and harness and carabiniere knowledge. Today we learned about snow anchors and other forms of climbing anchors. The afternoon was spent riding with a couple of sweet Juneau kids and one of their dads. It was a sick day except for my first run...the second drop of the run I hit the shitty landing, double ejected, tomahawked and watched my skis shralp the next 1200 vertical feet of the best snow on the mountain without me! I honestly thought they were goners, and my first concern was for my new bindings which were cranked to 14 and still popped off! That walk down the mountain to get my skis was the most expensive walk of my life. I basically killed my heli school budget today so we will see if I decide to destroy the credit card in pursuit of epicness...only time will tell.