TR: 3 Day Storm followed by 7 days Bluebird+Private Heli+Strong Crew+Chugach=??

[wcf3]

The question often comes up regarding what it takes to have a great AK heli trip. Every season one is helpfully reminded by the providers of ski porn that AK (in its prime) is hard to top for big lines with good snow and that the best way to get on these is with a helicopter. On the other hand, there is no shortage of examples of people who have booked their ‘trip of a lifetime’ and come back to some degree disappointed. In some cases from the terrain they were able to access, in others from the snow quality (not always perfect blower or widespread instability) or finally, and most commonly, from the number of down days.

Over many years living in and doing trips to AK I’ve experienced all of these issues. I’ve been there when (due to a widespread buried surface hoar layer) stability was so bad that approaching an LZ began to feel like riding a landing craft in to Omaha beach. I have seen a wind event convert two feet of new snow into a horrific mine field of variable snow, so bad that I had to break trail for snowboaders in the group who were getting stuck under the crust. I’ve ended up with people in a group who were so far in over their heads that only really mellow terrain could be accessed. Finally, I’ve even had a week where the only flying done was in a flight simulator. (Mags Vailcat, Spanky and BadSki were along for some of these misadventures and can attest to all the fun).

In spite of having seen not only the good, but the bad and the ugly as well, I keep going back. Why?

I’ve been lucky enough over the last few years to worm my in with a crew that regularly does a private at VHSG. At the center of this swirling constellation of odd characters is organizer John Belkin from Crested Butte. John has managed for many years to collect a group that is sufficiently strong and reliable (no cowboys) so that when weather and stability permitted one could immediately go big game hunting. Although not completely accurate, this group has been described (by a significant other) as the “Losers with No Families”. Covering a range of ages, backgrounds, geographic locations and personality types, about the only things all have in common are:

-Ability to ski/ride big, steep, exposed lines without stopping or scaring the guide.
-Ability to take endless abuse for any misfortune encountered.
-A (still) functional liver.

As such, the risk of not getting onto terrain with this group because of a weak link is minimal. Being a private, even if only one day of good weather and stability is available in a week, one can still tag a number of significant lines.

So the question is: What happens if you let it snow for three days prior to the start of a private heli week, then have it go blue for every single day that week with this year’s iteration of the Belkin crew?

The answer to this question is the subject of this TR.




Losers with No Families, April 8-14 2012

This year’s version of the Belkin crew consisted of John himself, Rob (Whistler), Steve (JH), Ken (the windy city), me (NM) and two guys from the Tokyo based PoachNinja crowd, Pinky and Jimmy. StuntCok, another Ninja, was supposed to be along but had managed to trash a knee in the park just before the start of the trip. (What he was doing messing around taking risks in the park right before an AK trip was (and is) the subject of some speculation).

The only FNG in this group was Jimmy, who StuntCok and I were vouching for. (Other than taking an absurd amount of time to get his gear organized he was as ‘solid’ as we’d promised).

John, Rob, Steve and Ken had already been there a week before together with BadSki who overlapped a couple of days with the rest of us and filled StuntCok’s seat on one of them. The rest of the time the seat was filled by either Jeff (the owner of the new Tsarina Lodge) or his son Jake, both superb snowboarders.

I’d been in town for five days prior to the start of the heli week hiking for turns. The highlight of this is described in the TR: http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...-AK?highlight=

As such, the only fully fresh legs in the group were on Jimmy and Pinky (somewhat detuned by horrible jet lag).



Day one:

The first day was fairly mellow as the guides assessed the stability of the new snow. This gave all of us a chance to practice our sluff management for bigger targets ahead.


Away we go.



The new Tsaina Lodge viewed from the air.



Not everybody was completely fresh the first day.

Jake, Rob, Pinky (Rob and Pinky looking like they’re being taken to prison).




John practicing sluff management.




Snow assessment of various sorts went on throughout the day.


Don tests stability using chunks of cornice.



The next test used a meat bomb (big Don skiing).




Looks good to me…



Rob appears to agree.



TBC

[wcf3]

Day two:

Although we had to back off one run because of stability questions, for the most part the stability was looking quite good. As such we were able to start ramping it up.



Ramp it up! Steve, John and Ken having trouble containing their enthusiasm.




Steve decides to help out with stability testing.




Ken curiously watches to see how the drama unfolds.



Have some speed now…



After two (very long) turns, Steve finds frozen avi debris. Powerboating ensues.



Don gives a lecture on speed control using audience appropriate visual aids.



One of the runs done early that day was East Peak. Although perhaps not as well-known as some other Chugach test pieces, the face provides a large, steep, esthetic line having all the features that one might expect:

-Microscopic LZ.
-Tricky, exposed technical entrance.
-Long steep descent.
-Big bergschrund crossing on the exit.


East Peak viewed from PZ.



East Peak looking across lower part of the face with bergschrund.



The LZ provided particular entertainment for the first group that landed. Other than having to form a precariously perched dog pile to get everyone out of the ship, once the pile started to disentangle itself, a voice came from the bottom. With a calm, cultured, Australian accent Jimmy reported: “Umm, Doug, my leg is in hole.”


Get out of there Pinky! There’s a helicopter coming!




John managing sluff on the lower face.




Ken clears the bergschrund.



After our fun on East Peak we moved onto some peaks I’d hiked before but never landed with a helicopter. The first of these was Mt. Francis.


Mt. Francis


I’d hiked and skied the obvious central face below the peak in the past. See http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...d-h?highlight=


That line can’t be realistically landed in a heli so we moved to the right side shoulder. There we found some of the best snow of the trip.



Rob tries out Steve’s ‘hair on fire’ technique in more suitable conditions.




Pinky decides to stretch out the experience.




In the next valley over from Francis lies a peak with a large, steep face and the rather innocuous name of ‘Snoopy’.



Snoopy.




Steve demonstrates technique that combines speed control and product placement.




Toward the end of the day (after many other runs) we hit a line known as Jerry’s Wall.


Jerry’s wall viewed from below.




In the guide meeting that evening Don rated the snow quality there as a “1” (on a scale of 5 (bad) to 1 (good)). Supposedly it was the first time anyone there had heard Don give snow quality a “1”.


Don slashing rib on Jerry’s wall, while sluff pores away to the side.





Yeah, that might be 1.






Day 3:

This day, due to the high perches and clear air, one was able to see peaks at a considerable distance. To illustrate, here is a photo of Cordova Peak (15-20 miles away) taken with my windy little point and shoot.

Cordova Peak.



To my knowledge, this peak has only been ridden once from the summit (by Tom Burt). (Supposedly a second member of Burt’s group tried to get down, ended up stuck somewhere on the face and had to be pulled off with a long line from a helicopter).

To see why this hasn’t seen a lot of action, watch the following:





Although we didn’t do anything of that nature, we still managed to keep ourselves entertained with things like the following:



The Wall, viewed from heli.



Jimmy goes deep on the Wall.



The Ivory Tusk viewed from PZ.




Pontoon.




Ant contemplates route finding problem on Pontoon.



Sluff City. (Perhaps a better name might be ‘Holeville’).



Good place to have some tracks to follow. Rob negotiates the maze.



TBC

[wcf3]

Day four:

By the fourth day, some people were starting to notice some mental and/or physical fatigue while others were starting to catch a second wind. Didn’t change the itinerary much though…

Early in the day we hit a line that has a rather curious name no one was able (or possibly willing) to explain to us: ‘Wife for a Week’.


Wife for a week.




Pinky ripping upper face of Wife for a Week.



Close by is a beautiful steep face called ‘No Sticks’.


No Sticks, looking good.




This skied so well that we ended up lapping it to make sure no one else would find any joy there.


Lapping No Sticks. Watch that last step…



At the base of No Sticks the whole crew congregated while the heli was off on a fuel run. There Steve introduced us to the joys of ‘do it yourself’ snow cones. Tasted amazingly good, particularly in the warmer temperatures we were starting to see. (Apparently you need to be careful about the lemon flavored ones though…).



Steve makes Jimmy a snow cone from scratch.



From this very warm PZ we flew directly to the top of Mt. Dimond (one of the higher peaks in the region) to ski the Gun Barrel chutes.



Gun Barrel chutes of Mt. Dimond viewed from the side.



Gun Barrel chutes seen approaching LZ (on peak at right).



Room with a view. Guide Dylan admires the drop.



Although it is over three thousand feet vertically down just to the bergschrund on these, we were admonished to do it non-stop, since (due to the many large, overhanging cornices) ‘it isn’t a good place to hang out’. Jimmy put an end to this plan though, when he apparently didn’t get all the ice out of his bindings from our earlier, very warm PZ. On turn two (in the most exposed part of the entrance) Jimmy stops.

For those who have been practicing their calm, cultured Australian accent, here is another line you can try it on: “Umm, Don, my ski has come off.”

Dillon and I, waiting at the bottom, get the call to look for ski coming down.

Lot of good places for a ski to hide up there…


We find out that it belongs to Jimmy. Jimmy is on RC112’s, a white ski. Perfect. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time I’ve spent time looking for one Jimmy’s wayward RC112’s. See

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ing?highlight=

In the end, the ski (amazingly) didn’t wander too far and was found quickly by Rob. (Getting to it took quite an effort though).

In the future I’ll have to put a caveat on any endorsements I provide for Jimmy: “Oh he’s solid, great skier, good technique, doesn’t go off line, skis in control. There is this one little thing though…”.

As punishment he had to ride down in the helicopter and got ragged piteously every time he went to put his skis on. Bad Jimmy! No biscuit for you!

TBC

[ecskier7]

FKNA this is noice

[ColoMike]

Wow! The Tusk and now this! Thanks for sharing! Very nice!

[wcf3]

Day 5:

This day went snow shopping south, featuring lots of high quality mini-golf and some bigger lines with the right aspects to provide good snow after four days of sun. Many of the lines were things we didn’t know or by the end of the day didn’t remember the names of. By halfway through the day, our hobbs time had run out so we were now buying extra. How to pay for this? Mortgage the dog, rent out the children, sell your soul to Wall Street. Whatever it takes.

One run we did recognize was a variation on a line we’d done earlier.


Sluff city variation.





Pinky dropping in.




Then sending up a plume.




One of those bigger lines ‘that will not be named’…



Pinky drops in to see if it will talk to him.



This one I call ‘No name II’.



Even unnamed stuff can ski well. Jimmy hides in cloud.



As noted above, some of the stuff done this day would fall into the ‘mini-golf’ category by AK standards. Didn’t mean that it was any less interesting though.



Pinky unpacks his putter.





Just because it’s small doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay attention though.



A great example of quality mini-golf was provided by a small peak with lots of possible line variations that we called ‘Rocky Top’.


Rocky Top.




Jeff riding peak.




Steve, alone, abandoned by heli on shoulder of Rocky Top. (He did figure out how to get down).






Day 6:


Since our wallets had already taken a beating from all the extra hobbs we had been racking up, we decided to go for a shorter day, not too far from base where we tried to maximize quality over quantity. To do this we had to make some sacrifices though.

One of the things we did without was a mellow warm up run. (Guess we should be warmed up by now…).




Our ‘warm up’ run: NBA




If you look closely you can see Doug skiing, half way down NBA.



Our next planned objective was the Elephant. From afar it looked promising.


The Elephant.



Closer up we saw that cornice fall had scoured a large portion of the face we had planned on skiing. Even worse, when we looked at the LZ, we saw that a huge crack ran across the entire cornice line.



If one of those cornices decides to come off…



As such, we moved directly to Pyramid without passing go. To give a better idea of what this line is about, I’ve included a photo taken on an earlier trip, taken later in the day when the face was in the sun.


Pyramid. Photo taken on earlier trip.



A couple of us landed on the small summit perch and geared up quickly, trying to get off and onto the run before the next load in the heli showed up. Pinky and I unfortunately didn’t have time to get (completely) away before the ship landed. Due to the nature of the LZ this season there wasn’t any good place to go on the summit, so we were compelled to go out on the 50 degree plus face and miserably cower there while buffeted by rotor wash. Not so bad for me on skis, but Pinky, both closer to the top and teetering precariously on his heelside was able to extract a full measure of enjoyment out of the experience. The swearing he produced both before, during and after this experience would have done credit to our other token plank-boy, Ken Green. (Famous for his diatribes about couloir entrances and long exposed traverses, apparently specifically designed by our guides to torture snowboarders).

The run itself was quite good with somewhat thinner snow producing less chance of getting ‘chugached’. The bergschrund, like so many this season, was not something that most of us were really interested in getting too close a look at. We avoided its biggest gaps by working one side of the face. Guide and climber Doug (who seems to like exposure as much as the rest of us like beer) took the directissima where (this year) in the event of a fall, one could look forward to getting cheese gratered over rocks, followed by a thousand foot tomahawk to end at the bottom of a huge bergschrund. Enjoy…


Doug skiing the top of Pyramid.




Doug preparing to cross bergschrund.



Watching this (and possibly still upset with Doug for letting the heli land before he had a chance to escape) Pinky commented: “Don’t let it fool you. It isn’t that the bergschrund is so big, it’s just that Doug is so small”.


We then moved to another run in the neighborhood, 420 that at least let everybody get on top at the same time. There Pinky experienced some sort of wardrobe malfunction that Jimmy had to help him with.


Jimmy helps Pinky with ‘problem’ while Doug and Rob look on in horror.





Problem dealt with, Pinky rips the face.


On our final run of the day we revisited Mt. Dimond, this time descending on the large, sheltered North Face.


Mt. Dimond, North face in shade.



On the seventh and last day we still technically had access to the helicopter and guides, although everyone had already gone well into the financial red zone with the extra heli time we had so far purchased. The night before, after extensive ‘hydration’, a number of hair brained schemes were aired as to what we might do with this. Luckily, when morning arrived, a new storm front was starting to move in, so we had an excuse to bag it and drag ourselves home.


Guide Doug, apparently overjoyed to be rid of us, declares victory.

[Blizzard7763]

I have a boner.

Good stuff.

[SterlingSpikeDancer]

UnFuckinMazingAble. Thanks for sharing.

[moose pit]

exceptional

[BaNosser]

EPIC....

EPIC....

EPIC...

Way to fuckkin' slay

[nest]

Wow. That was the most envy inducing TR I have ever seen. Someday.

[StuntCok]

I am dying of a broken heart on top of a broken knee looking at this. I have calculated my total weeks in AK and it comes to 10 or 11 and I have never had the stretch of snow and sun you got. That I managed to fuck myself only days before this trip will likely haunt me to my grave. Nice TR

[_Aaron_]

Nice work.

[anemic]

Wow. Thank you. What a great planet where some people get to do all that - & the Tusk too!!!

[lynchdogger]

Wow. So this is how the other half lives (sans wife and kids)! Living my dream. So f*cking epic. Thank you for the effort of putting the TR together and sharing all of that. I'll be dreaming of a trip like that for the rest of my life. You are having one helluva AK season. Enjoy and keep sharing the stoke.

[kailas]

You guys are so pastie white. Must be rich doctors? I did the math, they charge $72,000 for a group of eight for the week. That's $1286 per day per person, that's a lot of green. If I only was a trustafarian or a lawyer or a doctor.

[Dr. Emmet Brown]

Awesome TR! So jealous right now...

I gotta find a way to do this before I'm too old/knees too shot!

[BigSkyfan]

Great Share! Thanks!!!

[LeeLau]

very very nice

[montanaskier]

wow......awesome

[abe froman]

Whoa! Great TR!

[pfluffenmeister]

very appetizing.

[Karl Stall]

Excellent - love it - lots of memories for me. Great write-up!

[Meathelmet]

Thank god you have exeeded the bandwidthlimit on photobucket...otherwise I would have seen things that would make even baby jeesus cry.

[Lindahl]

Photobucket = fail. Post those pics somewhere else like imageshack.