AK Part 3 -- Turnagain Pass Backcountry

After 3 days at the resort, I was ready for something a little more adventurous. We loaded up Brian's snowmachine and headed up to Turnagain Pass, where we thought there might be some good snow to be shredded. There wasn't much to be found, but we had a couple of days of super fun hiking in some crazy terrain!

Our goal for the first day was Pyramid Peak, which was visible from the drive from Anchorage to Girdwood. Our group was me, Brian and Elias Holt, a ski instructor friend of Brian's. To get there, we planned on snowmachining over a ridge, down the other side and across a couple miles of flat terrain before hiking the mountain. Unfortunately, a combination of a low-power snowmachine and an even lower operator experience level stymied us, and we couldn't make it all the way up the ridge on the machine. Given we'd gotten a kinda late start, we decided on hiking up and unfortunately realized that without mechanical assistance or splitboads, our goal of hitting Pyramid wouldn't be attainable. We ended up having a great time hiking around, finding some fun lines to shred on some decent snow. Pictured here is one of the lines we took, down from the little peak through the open field on the right side of the trees.

Even though the snow wasn't amazing and we didn't hit our objective, it was an awesome day hanging out in the mountains, hiking around with some cool people and drinking in the awesome energy of the mountains that went on forever in all directions. Even when the riding isn't as good, a day exploring in the backcountry beats all but the best conditions at a resort. Although you have to ride more conservatively, taking into account where you are, how stable the snow is, inconsistent conditions, unfamiliar terrain, it's a great mental and physical challenge. It takes patience to point yourself up hill and trudge for an hour through a featureless snowfield. I don't mind trudging though, it's a nice way to center your mind. You end up spending a lot of time looking at the snow, too, appreciating every aspect of its being--how the wind moves across it creating little dunes, where the surface crust is hard enough to support your weight and where you will sink through, the way its consistency changes thoughout the day as the sun moves from aspect to aspect. You have to like hiking to snowboard the backcountry: you spend a hundred times as long trudging as you do with your board strapped on.

Since there aren't any designated runs or ski area boundaries, it's up to you to decide where to go and which line you want to shred. There's an infinity of possibilities, limited only by your legs, lungs, and routefinding abilities.

The next day we hiked another peak across the road, called Magnum. It's the ridge on the right in this picture. We hiked up and dropped back down on the sunny side, far right and kinda out of the shot.








It was a long hike, and visibility was bad, but it was an awesome spot to be. Riding down in an infinite field of white was pretty cool too -- white snow, white sky, white light all round, blowing snow obscuring all ability to judge terrain features.



The flat light and inconsistent snow surface led to a lot of tomahawking: where the nose of your board suddenly drops under the surface of the snow, catapulting your body forward. It's akin to going over the handlebars of your bike, but way more fun. That's where the snow on my head came from.

Dirtbag Adventurer finds gainful employment

So I got a job working for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources - Moab Native Aquatics. I'll be floating the Green, Colorado and San Juan rivers studying endangered fish for the summer. Two nights ago I drove from Bellingham to Salt Lake, slept 4 hrs, and then drove on to Moab. I was tired but stoked to be there.

The dirtmobile held up to the trip with flying colors. 

The next day, Mark Rineer, one of my new housemates, took me trad climbing up Potash road, about a 15 minute drive from our house. Here he is leading 'Bad Monkey Roof' an intimidating crack line that took me a little bit of flailing to accomplish on a top-rope.

AK Part 2 Saunas, supermoons, shredding

The night I arrived in Girdwood, Bryan Gehring already had an adventurous scheme in mind. We went to the Baña (sp?), a little sauna built into a hillside in the forest. There was an old oil drum on its side through the front wall that served as a heat source. It had been built by some open-minded girdwood residents and was open for use by anyone. We spent a few minutes gathering firewood and stoked it up. A gurgling stream ran next to it, and we drew water from that in milk jugs with the tops chopped off for pouring on the

rocks atop the stove and on our own steamy bodies. A great welcome to the last frontier. That night was the supermoon, an extra large full moon -- rumor had it the moon was closer to the earth than it had been in 30 years, and its brilliance lent a mysterious and magical energy to the evening.

The next 2 days I spent working on my goggle tan at Alyeska mountain resort. Unfortunately, the area hadn't received any new snow for almost a month previous to my arrival, so conditions ranged from bulletproof ice to extremely crusty. Still, two days of snowboarding with beautiful clear skies and perfect visibility of the surrounding epic Alaskan peaks is nothing to complain about for any reason. I got a decent discount from Alyeska as well due to my part time 'employment' as a snowboard instructor at Baker. The terrain at Alyeska was awesome: steep, wide alpine bowls, exposed rock faces, crazy undulating gullies. I would love to ride there during a better snow season (this one was alyeska's worst on record). Still, ripping fast on wide, long smooth groomers is pretty fun. There's a beautiful freedom from thought that wraps your conscious mind like a mist when you're doing 40 mph on hard packed snow. Crashing or making a mistake is not, cannot be in your mind. You rely on the triple marriage between you, your board, in its constancy and the uniform, smooth surface of the snow. Existence takes on a surreality. Occasionally, when I feel and hear the sleeves of my jacket whipping in the wind, I am reminded of the speed at which I travel and the possible consequences of a bad wreck. I release these thoughts, for if I acknowledge them they will take on lives of their own and work to turn themselves into reality. slide back into unconsciousness.