The Powder Chickens Alaska 2011 trip report
Background
It’s been tough to know where to start this. The cost, the 50 hour/4 flight trip it takes to get to Valdez, the constant weather model inspection required to figure out if you might fly on a day and if not what other plans can be put in place rapidly, or simply talking about the desire to do the pilgrimage to Alaska. I decided it was best to just give a bit of a feel for our AK experience rather than thousands of words and let the video do some of the talking too.
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| Landing zone for G-Spot |
Anyway, to try and give a feel for what AK mountain adventures can be; imagine walking out of your house and being on a space the size of a small car on the roof edge of a 50 storey building with no rope, 4 mates and 4 boards 2 minutes later. Would you be able to ratchet up and not have a meltdown? No quick actions, pushing or jostling here at all or you’ll be shouting sorrydown a couloir. This is AK and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. G Spot, Bad Gorilla and Meteorite sound like cocktails but they’re lines and some (not all) have that kind of exposure. Here it isn’t just what you can ride but what you can keep your head on at the landing zone (LZ) of the heli. In AK you can get the same volume of descent in a day as you might in a week in Chamonix. The potential in AK is seriously off the charts and we have only touched the surface.
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| Chris |
Unless you are going to take a more maverick approach to Valdez on your first trip (sleds and split boards would work if you are experienced in back country riding and do enough research) if you think you’re just gonna rock up and drop a line from Deeper you’ve got another think coming. Guides and operators have a reputation to uphold and the last thing they want are dead tourists on their hands – this is glaciated terrain remember. The guides try to build you up gradually as much as possible, increasing the exposure and technical nature of the lines as you do more and more with them and they understand what you can take. As Dave Geis from Tailgate Alaska says: "It is extremely important to follow your guides instructions, not doing so could cost you your life. You need to gain your guide's trust so he/she can take you to the Big Gnarly Lines you came to AK to ride. The fastest way to big lines is to ride within your ability, listen to your guides and ask the questions “can I go there?” and “what do you think of that?”. Ragdolling 500 vertical feet or getting sluffed (chugached) on your second run will close the door not just for you, but for your entire group".
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| Super Ramps |
What went on
AK has had a pretty bad year in terms of snow but we had 20cm fresh one day and 40cm of fresh higher up on another with 2 bluebird days. However, with 100+ mile an hour winds having torn the snow cover away leaving nasty deep sastrugi in the weeks prior to our arrival it was bulletproof underneath and snow just wasn’t sticking to the steeps. We managed about 70,000 vertical feet descent over the week with a couple of steeper lines (55 degree drop-ins) for good measure. We got 2.5 day heli and 1.5 days CAT boarding which was pretty lucky and according to Canyon, Tim and Cameron who guided us throughout the week, we got the best day of the season so far on one of the days. However, in all honesty much of the terrain we hit wasn’t as steep or intimidating as we had hoped. The lines were truly great and we had some awesome powder runs with some strong steep sections but there is an itch which has yet to be scratched in the form of 45+ degree 1000 feet faces which just weren’t accessible with the snow cover we had. We will be returning with a bit more experience, a clearer plan and hopefully deeper snow next time.
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| G-Spot |
Downtime
You need to be prepared for downtime here. I’ve not seen anything like it anywhere else. Even when it is a greybird day and you think there is no way you wont be flying, the chopper won't go up. The thing is a lot of this stuff is on glaciers and as such the pilot hasn’t many points of reference unlike elsewhere where trees allow some assistance in gauging where the ground (snow) actually is for setting the bird down. If there is a risk that the weather is going to close in then the operator won't take the chance of having 16 people all over the glacier and hence won't fly. Very, very, frustrating when you can see the line you want to have from base camp but they won't fly there.
We spent our downtime fishing for King Salmon, drinking beer and playing pool. We also had the chance to do some invaluable multiple burial pieps practice with one of the guides - Wes Wiley (he did the first descent of Wiley's Wall) – who has a lifetime of experience to tap in to. We hit up Tailgate Alaska (www.tailgatealaska.com) on our last day there as it began to puke, releasing a metre of fresh as we went to board our plane….
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| RV at Tailgate Alaska |
Valdez was a fun place and the people we met there were absolutely awesome. So friendly and happy to give advice. There is so much wildlife to see too if you like that kind of thing during your downtime. We took a package from Valdez Heli Camps who were really experienced and did their absolute best to accommodate us – we asked if anywhere in Valdez did King crab legs for dinner and BAM! there they were, served up for our group dinner that night. Sweet! Truly good people. We’ve put together some footage of the trip but needless to say when the best runs happened the headcam was flat. I know, I know, you don’t believe it.
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| Alaskan King Crab |
The mandatory sticker slapping was in effect too of course…
Thanks to Tim, Canyon, Cameron, Devo, Wes, Ben, Matt and Heidi of Valdez Heli Camps and to Anna for giving us a lift in the F150 up to Tailgate and to the Boardroom and making us feel like friends of the family.
Robin P and Chris Leigh
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