Alaska Trip Report! Spines in Haines AK

[BCSKI360]

All great trips start with some motivation a lot of free time and as little planning as possible. Doing just that we loaded up a friends "monstar truck" with two snomobiles and as much gear as we could and began the 52 hour! Drive to Valdez AK.

This is the rig, Loading up in Jackson

We decided to head to Whistler first, it was only about 10 hours out of the way. Unfortunately all we found was rain, fog and underage Canadian women. Back in the Truck and Back on the road.

A few more sleepless nights, 4 cans ofred bull</a> and one full throttle later we found our selfs in Haines, AK. After meeting up with a good friend (the owner of the truck), we finagled the nightly rental of an old rv stationed just outside "MAN CAMP". Man Camp was comprised of 17 dudes some professional athletes and industry insiders who had been waiting nearly two weeks for the weather to "POP". Bordem had demoralized this crew and in hopes of refreshing their spirits they purchased $600 worth of fireworks for the evenings festivities ! I have never been in a war but that night felt like my third tour in Vietnam.


The Fireworks did something and we awoke to 10inches of fresh and mostly blue skies! We drove about 20Miles up the road to the top of the pass, unloaded the sleds and started Sussin out our lines.
This was the first mountain that popped that day, check out the nome shadow! creepy

Spine Lines, we were able to snow machine most of the way, then a 20 min booter.

The possibilities were endless.

We skied until we were spent, Topher wasn't quite done and took his sled for some fresh AIR.

We all passed out early and had images of the lines we needed to ski running rampant though our minds.

Day 2

Another blue bird day! Gas up the sleds and get after it. We had scoped out a nice looking shot the day before and decided to go for it.

Nadahini Mtn was one of the most beautiful faces in the range. For some unknown reason is was also the only face where ryme Ice had collected all over it. The north facing shots in between the Ice Chunks were holding some great snow.

This face was some of the best snow we found on the whole trip. We took two laps and skied most all the feasible lines.

Even though the snow and the terrain in Haines was amazing, we were promised riches beyond out wildest imagination in Valdez, So we loaded up Grave Digger(our truck) departed our 1976 winnebago, said good bye to man camp and began the trek to Valdez.<br>

More to come at gnarwire

[smmokan]

Sick pictures. Make 'em bigger.

[GreenRun]

Now this is what I call STOKE! Your trip looks sick; I can’t wait to see what you tagged outside of Valdez. Thanks for sharing!

Question – when you said that you made it up most of the way on the sleds and then had to do a 20 min hike, did you crest out w/your sleds lower on the ridge? Then ghost ride them down?

Enough of these public arguments and let’s get more TRs like this….

[girlski0912]

Um...damn! Can't wait to see the rest of these photos. Thanks for the end of season stoke!

[AKbruin]

Very cool photo.

Great TR.

[baseWeldr]

looks something like that powderroad crew from what I recall- maybe just the drivin to AK with sleds on an epic mtnslaying adventure part...
great understated pics- man & machine rippin the postcard peaks
those tips look too skinny anymore
stoke on, thanks for sharin

[habituallybored]

Awesome TR...that's what I call gettin' after it.

[Dhelihiker]

Oh do I want a snowmobile- looks killer
cant wait to see the Valdez pics

[fonixmunkee]

Damn, those pictures gave me little goosebumps on my arms. That's how excited they made me. Thanks for sharing.

[Mofro261]

Makings of an Epic TR. Nice reward after a 52 hour drive.


And yeah, bigger pics for the Valdez installment would be $$$$.

[HotCarl]

Baaah
Do you know sledneckripper

[gamma]

for gettin it when the gettins SICK!

[BCSKI360]

thanks for the comments, ill definitely put up some higher res pic's. As far as the sled access we would just double up 2 trips. leave one sled at the bottom hike the rest and we were able to get on top of a bunch of the Heli-LZ's = free heli rides.

[Kya]

Nice. More. Nice.

[IridePow]

Now that's some serious effort! (52h)

Looks like you guys got rewarded.

[akrdubbs]

And to think I made more or less the reverse drive last fall and all I got was a crappy half-winter (Utah, not Jackson, though)

[Atrain505]

That is unbelieveably rad and why I want a sled so badly.

[mountain_man]

Wow looks like an amazing trip.

[GWB]

AK bump.

[sts9andski]

that truck is gangster.