wE lUv ALASKA! - Turnagain Pass, Chugach Powder Guides, Alyeska Mega-TR, April 2006

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Dates:: Saturday, April 8th – Saturday, April 15th 2006

Locations: Turnagain Pass, AK
Alyeska Resort, Girdwood AK
Chugach Powder Guides, Girdwood AK

Players/Skiers: Tyrone Shoelaces, Squirrel99, Kellie, Owens Never Sleeps….+ many, many others

Well, finally made it to Alaska. Unfortunately, this is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because it’s always been a dream to get up there and ski, and a bad thing because well, you can’t go just once….and what they say is true…it’s like crack. Or heroin. Or whatever would be synonymous with gathering up all your credit cards into a pile, melting them down, and then injecting the hot liquid credit into your arm….but it’s oooh so worth a few little burned in track marks on your forearm. I mean, really, skiers only wear long sleeve T’s and hoodies, so who’ll notice anyway?

Ideally, you’d be able to spend a winter (or more) here…but of course being a couple of ski crazed cubicle monkeys we could only spare slightly more than a week. So of course we’d try to pack in as much Alaskan ski adventure as we could: Line up a little BC touring off of Turnagain Pass, check out the local resort Alyeska, and of course no trip to AK would be complete without some heli-skiing, in this case served up by the fine folks at Chugach Powder Guides and our own Owens Never Sleeps.

So the trip materialized as follows:

Friday, April 7th: Arrival
Saturday, April 8th: Turnagain Pass
Sunday, April 9th: Alyeska Resort
Monday, April 10th – Friday, April 15th: Fly with Chugach Powder Guides
Saturday, April 16th: Turnagain Pass
Sunday, April 17th: Arrive home and crash (or in Squirrel’s case, land at 6 AM and head immediately head back up to Alpental to shred some more pow!!)

Anyway…enough of these “words”…on with the pics!!

Saturday, April 8th: Turnagain Pass

It was a pretty graybird day so not many pics were taken. But luckily for us, Kellie had moved up to AK a few months ago and offered to be our guide on the Pass. Un-luckily for her…she had to wait for our slow-asses as we skinned up behind her. But in any event, we were able to snag a few pics of our 5,000 – 6,000 vert day in flat light and creamy windbuffed pow.

The day dawned promising


But quickly grew gray as we drove along Turnagain arm from Girdwood


Hittin the trail with one of our destination peaks above:


There were lots of photos looking down on me from above…because my slow ass was always last on the skin track!


Kellie pointing out many of her project lines to us. We ended up topping out on the peak in front of her and then skiing down to the right in the basin below. We then skinned up the right-most peak in the photo and skied back into the valley. The snow was so good we had to do it again


Shoe descended into the milk. Luckily flat light isn’t so bad when there’s nothing but smooth silk laid out below you:




Kellie making some smoooove turns


Once back to Girdwood we made a pit stop at the house that Kellie bought THAT VERY MORNING. Yup, some people stop and grab a cup of coffee on the way to the mountain, but Kellie grabs a house


So we celebrated with a hot steaming pile of nachos at Chair 5 in Girdwood


Sunday, April 9th – Alyeska Resort

Again, another gray bird type day….rain/snow/wind mix at the base with a snow/wind/sleet/morewind at the top. Oh and totally flat light too again too…so we were left feeling our way through the murk and couldn’t get many pics, but it was a super fun day.

Tram commin in:


After a few groomer laps to get the lay of the land, we headed up to the peak via Chair 6 and began the GRUELING 30 second bootpack/skate through the upper gate to Christmas Tree chute….Despite the light and weird weather the snow in here was pretty damn amazing, soft and buttery, and it’s a great steep run. We lapped it 5 or 6 times:

Shoelaces at the top nearing the rollover:


Kellie further down the chute. It’s pretty damn long…we just couldn’t stop lapping it


Kellie sniffing out some more good snow in some of the other North Face lines at Alyeska


This photo was taken from the window of our hotel room a few days later when it finally got bluebird. That’s the face that we kept lapping…at the top you can see the tram station and all the lines spilling away from it. Christmas Tree chute is the biggest looking notch/chute to lookers left from the tram station


Kellie, Shoelaces, & Squirrel hamming it up on the tram


And a spent Shoelaces dries out, dozes and dreams of bluebird sunrises and A-Star helis


But quickly perks up over a bowl of espresso soup at Jack Sprat’s in Girdwood..hmmmm…espressssso sooouuuuup…

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Monday, April 10th – Friday, April 14th

Monday, like the past two days, again dawned graybird with mixed precipitation at the base of Alyeska. This would potentially be our first heli-ski day, but we weren’t too optimistic about flying today due to the weather.

After spending the morning getting oriented with CPG and doing some practice beacon searches, we got the word that we would not be flying today. Kind of a bummer, but everyone was already getting excited about tomorrow because every indication showed this pesky weather system moving out this evening so chances were very good we’d get in our first flight on Tuesday.

One of the great things about CPG is that you have 2 options available to you to still make some turns if it’s a down day. 1) you can ski Alyeska or 2) you can go snowcat skiing with CPG’s own cat. Since we were at the resort yesterday, it was a no brainer to decide to check out CPG’s cat skiing terrain.

We didn’t get very many pics from this day either due to the clouds & fog continually rolling in. And we also discovered how difficult it was going to be to get any really good action shots while cat or heliskiing due to essentially skiing each run one skier at a time following BC safety protocols. But this picture below at least gives you a sense of the super fun rolling terrain that we got to lap. The skier in this pic is US World Cup Mogul Team member and multiple big mountain comp podium finisher, Shelly Robertson….see that fun looking bowl in the background? We lapped that most of the day



And here’s another shot of CPG’s cat skiing terrain. We pretty much tracked out the bowl to lookers left of those cliff bands.


That night we toasted with our new friends at Chair 5 to the weather gods for bluebird skies tomorrow



Tuesday, April 11 2006

Apparently our late night toasting paid off as our alarm wailed at 7:30 AM Tuesday morning and we woke up to this scene outside of our hotel room window


It’s bluebird!!!!! We’re flying!!!!

Words can’t express the stoke. 1,000 bowls of espresso soup would not contain the amount of energy we were feeling this morning….or throughout the entire day for that matter.

The landing strip at Chugach Powder Guides home base


The first pickup of the trip and our bird for the next few days


Ummm…take us there please


At the top of our first 4,000 ft run on Hendrix. Turnagain Arm is below


Hmmmm…what is Squirrel looking down???


THIS!! YES!!! (A similar tasty couloir awaited us waaay at the bottom and off the other end of the snowfield below)


Shoelaces making some Warren Miller-esque powder turns to the group waiting below


More turns


May we have another?


OK


There were a few sketchy knife edge traverses to spice things up and get to the goods


These rolling runs weren’t high on the ‘gnar scale’, but damn are they fun when maching through them with knee deep fluff


AHHHH…I can get used to this view


After spending the better part of the day on looooong rolling type terrain, we were getting anxious to get into some steeper stuff.

Clouds started rolling in again after lunch, but at the top of our first afternoon run, Squirrel and I looked across the way and spied these beauties just begging for tracks.


So we turned to our guide:

‘Hey what runs are those? Can we head over there?’

‘That big steep bowl on the left is Wall Street and the narrower couloir just next to it is Ottosan. They’re really fun and steep, but we haven’t been in those yet this year.’

‘Oh…’

So our next run we did get into a little steeper terrain. This next one was called Shark Pit, due to a rock cluster that’s buried in the middle of it. It starts near those ice bulges seen through the upper window of the heli:


Shoelaces hunting for Shark…


The next two runs we got a nice surprise. Remember Wall Street and Ottosan that we were gawking at in the photos above? Well, here’s the top of Ottosan…OH YEAH!!! Just your typical Alaskan convex rollover eh? Can you see the skier specs below at the bottom?


I’m the little dot in the upper middle left. Again, sorry for the quality of the pics….but you’re shooting from very far away, and I wasn’t about to stop in the middle and whip out my camera


Our next run we went back up and hit Wall Street which was even more fun than Ottosan, but the light was super flat so you really couldn’t open ‘er up. But it was definitely one of the most fun lines of the trip.

View off the top of Wall Street of Ragged Top. That cornice up top was massive. We came back this way a few days later and the cornice had dropped. The rubble pile on the slopes below could be measured in football fields.


After Wall Street & Ottosan, we hit one more run and then called it….we were absolutely spent. It was a 28,000 vert day.

Heading back to beer, er I mean, base…


Shoelaces with said beer….and Owens’s awesome dog, Solly.


First day of flying was about 28,000 ft of vertical. Can you say hottub? Or maybe in this case…cigar. L to R: Shoelaces, Owens Never Sleeps, & Squirrel

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Wednesday, April 12th

Tuesday night into Wednesday some more weather moved in causing our normal heli departure at 9:30 AM to get delayed to 10:30….and then Noon…and then to 2 PM….and then finally cancelled. So we went cat skiing instead. No pictures from this day however as every pic I took the light was flat and there weren’t too many excited shots. It was super fun exploring new terrain again however, but it was just damn hard to see. Everyone was very excited for the next two days however as the forecasts were calling from clearing tonight remaining into the weekend.


Thursday, April 13th

Alarm went off at 7 AM and our eyes opened to reveal yet another stellar looking bluebird day. SICK! We’ll be flying again for sure! Quick call to the CPG Status Line confirmed that we would indeed be flying for sure. It’s so damn easy to rally in the morning when you hear the words, “Be at the Tramway at 9:15 for a 9:30 departure to the heli op”

So here’s the top of the first run on Thursday and our guide Matt Wylie doing some snowpack analysis at the top


Looking down the run…she was a beauty…a nice steep rollover with a long highspeed runout. Typical Alaska. Those tracks down there are from a group before us, but there was plenty room for 4 or 5 more with room to spare. Here’s our guide Wylie ski cutting a new section of the run and opening the rest of it up.


And here I am one turn in and about to open it up over the rollover….our guide and a few skiers in our group are the ants waaayy down below. Snow was shin to knee deep to start, but once you got moving on the steeper pitch it really blew up…LET ‘EM RIP!


At the bottom of this first pitch our guide was getting a little wary of the snowpack so he dug a deeper pit for some more evaluations. This analysis and reports from other guides throughout the day confirmed a weak layer about a foot and half down….bummer…this would end of keeping us off the super steeps, but there was still PLENTY of powder to be had.


Looking back up at first run of the day and our tracks near our pickup zone. We started up on the headwall on lookers right. These rollers were suuuper fun to go maching over.




So the sketch snowpack evaluations sent us on a stability goose chase. Our first run was in a zone called West Twenty Mile. So our guides thought it best to check out Glacier/Winner Creek which is the zone we were flying in the day before. That’s the great thing about CPG…with the most heli-accessed terrain available in AK, you’re chances are pretty damn good at finding good snow somewhere

Here are some scenics shot out of the heli on our way out of West Twenty Mile to Glacier/Winner Creek

Oooohhhhh


Aaaaahhhhhhh


Hmmmmmmmmm


Here’s a short VIDEO clip of the looking around


Still looking, still looking….Turnagain arm below us


OOHHH!! TAKE US THERE! TAKE US THERE!


In the picture of the peak above, draw an imaginary “L” from the peak to the flat ridge. Our pilot landed us on the bottom part of the “L” and we skied off the backside. The ridge was narrow!!! The tail of the chopper was hanging in space as we unloaded.

Out of the chopper approaching the edge


Turns were light and fast


Squirrel ripping down. Rodents are pretty elusive critters to capture, but sometimes ya get lucky


Here’s nearly the bottom of this second run dubbed “WC2”. We dropped in on that notch way up there where the snow ridge meets the rock face.





Next run….not many shots from the top because we were moving quickly, but I did happen to capture Squirrel pointing over at Wall Street and Ottosan that we had ripped on Monday. I think I saw some drool dripping off his chin around this time….


The bottom of this run was just begging for a schmear turn…so start getting some speed….then leeeeaannnnn…


…aannnnd…get down low…aannnnd….FACE SHOT!!


Later in the day the light started to fade on us again and not too many photos came out…but every run we had was blower pow. 4 or 5 2,000 – 3,000 vert runs of nothing but untracked pow. Very cool.

Let’s go home….turning around over Turnagain arm…again


Later that night we ended back at Chair 5….which was quickly becoming our beer-thirty favorite hang-out.


There’s a few other cool places in G-Wood too: Double Musky, Jack Sprat’s, & Maxine’s…but Chair 5 has a great local vibe, tons of beer on tap, pool tables, jukebox, a rowdy crowd, big TV’s, a lodge-type atmosphere….AAANNND they seem to like REALLY COOL COMPANIES


Chair 5 was also nice enough to turn on the Northern Lights for us this evening too...how nice of them….the entire bar spilled out with drinks in hand into the parking lot to gaze and dance and dork around like a bunch of people who just spilled out into a bar parking lot with beers in their hands gawking at the Northern Lights. It was just like that. Hopefully that description “put you there”. First time we had ever seen them so we were pretty damn stoked.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Friday, April 14th

Another bluebird day…another fly day. Different pickup zone today as we would be flying in a zone called West Twenty Mile. Rumors and whispered promises of maybe skiing down runs with the ocean in few were heard…we’ll see…

The Bird! Bird! Bird!
The Bird is the Word!
Don’t
You
Know
A-bout the Bird?
B-B-B-Bird Bird Bird
Bird is the Word!


Back again


First run…more pow…steepness? About thirtyfun degrees. I turned back into the sluff on my right…total rookie mistake.



On our way to the next run…pretty.


Squirrel at the top….strange how Alaskans have a fetish for dressing squirrels up to look like heli-skiers


Me straightlining through the previous tracks to get to the fresh on the other side (BREAK ON THROUGH TO THE OTH….sorry). Oh and sorry Splat no Bro top sheets in this photo either.


That right there folks is a glacier..not a bad spot for lunch eh?


And this right here folks is a Squirrel




And this right here is another landing on a narrow ridge with the chopper tail hanging in space. I was scared, but Squirrel held my hand.


And this right here is what we just skied. All the way to the bottom. See the slide over on the left? That’s big cornice that came down. We started right next to that. It wasn’t there when we landed, but I was the last skier in the group to go…just as I hear over the radio, “Shoelaces!! What the fuck are you waiting for?! Drop in!” (ok I’m paraphrasing). I look over to my side and see big cornice chucks falling down next to me. So I radio back, “Ummm I’m waiting for the house sized cornice blocks to stop falling down the mountain next to me sir”. “Well ok then, carry on when they’re done.” “OK..Shoelaces out.”


On our way to the last run of the day…and the last heli-run of our trip. Snapped this photo of the back of our heli pilot’s (Glenn) helmet. Ya think this guy would have a “chopper pilot school” sticker on this back of his helmet and not a “climbing school” sticker. Oh well…I guess he did a good job flying an A-star for a climbing guide. but just don’t kick the back of his seat repeatedly as you slide into the seat behind him…we got kind chewed out for that one…heh.


Here’s our drop off on top of our last run. Can you pick out the guy in the group who’s home mountain is Deer Valley?


There were lots of spines laid out in front of us. I really wanted to ski them. See the one over Squirrel’s shoulder that’s kind of knife edge that leads to a wider sloper of a spine? I was pleading with our guide to let me ski it. He still wouldn’t let me ski it even after my proclamations and grandiose mountaintop yodels of being one of the raddest most bad-ass skiers that has ever claimed shit and bullshitted with real ski pros on the internet. I wonder why? What a squarehead. ( kidding, kidding of course) He did say I had a good eye for line selection though….so I got that goin for me. (which is nice)


No spines for me….had to settle for this



Looking back at our last heli-run from our PZ. We dropped in from the steep shadowy headwall straight back. A worthy last run.





We got back to CPG HQ to say our good-byes, thanks-you’s, and I love you’s…but I didn’t get any parting shots of anyone because I was too scared peeing my pants as we watched Owens wrestle 3 grizzlies to their deaths, skin them, cook them, and eat them right before our very eyes. He’s very Alaskan like that. I then bought a CPG T-shirt for Arty and cleaned myself up with it. Thanks Arty!!!

But here’s a view out the window of the chopper on our way home


And here’s a short VIDEO clip from Squirrel’s camera of the flight home. Turn your speakers up to hear the chopper sounds. Or do what I do and keep your speakers off and make “BUzZZZzzzZZZZING” sounds with your lips…BBZZZZ! BBBZZZZZ!! It’s FUN!!!

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Saturday, April 15th

Holy shit…was this our last day in Alaska? The phone calls coming in from the front desk at the Alyeska Prince telling us to “get the fuck out” (not paraphrasing) would tell us so.

So we hooked up with Kellie again for some more torture, er ahem, I am touring, on Turnagain Pass.

A skinned Squirrel. This mountain we were climbing is called Corn Biscuit. Mention any kind of food to a Squirrel and watch them go. It’s fun.


Right about here I was about to puke. Then I leaned over and my sunglasses fell off and skittered down the mountain. What’s a little snow blindness amongst friends anyway?


Kellie at the top telling us about all her projects. She’s actually a very nice girl for being a slum-lord. Projects or not…she appeared to be taking us to the goods





Looking down at the untracked blower that filled our first run. Dammit!! Now who put that in there!! Kellie! Kellie!! Forget about all that cornice kicking, pit digging, and ski-cutting snow safety stuff! Get in there and clean all that untracked stuff outta there!!!



(no actual pics of Kellie ripping the shit of this because Squirrel and I were too busy spotting her….ya know for safety and all of that).

Now time to slap the skins back on for the climb up SuperBowl


Still climbing


At the top, we ran into The Viking and his dog. Squirrel’s and dogs get along apparently


As we climbed, we were flanked on our right by a ridge dropped straight off from the planet Gnarnia. I immediately spied this diagonal chute with a sketchball entry with a 50-footer for exposure as good measure. I wanted her. She wanted me. I knew it when she whispered, “I want you” in my ear. It was kinda windy though, so it may have just been the wind too. Nah she clearly wanted me. Look at that come hither look in her eye!!


Gnarnia from the side and higher up the skin track…still whispering…still windy…


We get to the top and have a discussion….I wanted to make sure that Kellie and Squirrel were cool with me wanting to ski the Gnaria chute….we discussed the line, safety, the runout, what would happen if it slid, yadda yadda…and we were cool with it. So Kellie and Squirrel would drop on in earlier on some super fun lines…and I’d head further around the back of the ridge to see if I could poke around and find the entrance to that sucker.

One kicker though…we didn’t have radios. Therefore, we devised a series of complex hand signals detailed enough to land aircraft with…or in this case, let me know ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ if I was in the drop-in spot that we discussed or not.

So Kellie and Squirrel ripped the shit out of this


Here’s Kellie’s line from the bottom. Love how her tracks are so huge next to those little noodles


Just after Kellie finished her run, The Viking came ripping down the opposite side milking a bazillion turns. The dot a turn or so behind him is his dog getting some. Even in the sun, the snow was pretty much blower


And here’s Squirrel spooning Kellie’s tracks


Apparently squirrel’s enjoy spooning


So after their lines I was off around the back to try to find the entrance to Gnaria. We didn’t have radios, but luckily I had taken these reference photos on the way up.

Up close chute at top…my one fear was obviously blowing the first turn or two and tumbling off the cliff…my second fear was having the top rip out on me tumbling me off that cliff (damn that fuckin cliff)…I was pretty confident in the snowpack though after what we had just skied and the analysis we did…and I knew I’d nail the turns…I just had to be sure I was dropping in at the right spot.


Bottom cliff of gnarnia line and bottom of the chute to lookers left that I wanted to ski


After some bootpacking up a little summit plateau on the ridge it was time to take off skins and slap on the skis. Luckily, I could sideslip along the backside of the ridge poking my head up and over after every rock feature to see where I was in relation to my line.

After poking my head over the ridge a few times and looking over and seeing nothing but snow patch, convex rollover, rocks, death…I began to get discouraged. But then I popped my head over something that looked promising…was this where I was supposed to be?? AHA! I’ll get out my camera and look at my reference photos!! WAIT! OH SHIT!! I gave the camera to Kellie to shoot from the bottom! DOH! I was hosed…no reference photos to look at, and only the complex aircraft landing hand signals that I could barely make out at the bottom to guide me.

Here’s a shot from Kellie’s, er I mean MY camera (heh) of where I poked my head out….this was an alternate entrance into my diagonal chute, but from where I stood I just saw a snow patch, a rollover, rocks, space, death…(damn Alaska and it’s rollovers!!). So I didn’t know if it “went” and connected with my chute or not. Kellie and Squirrel’s hand signals from below were giving me a go (because from their spot they could see that this line “went”). But I just wasn’t sure…it just didn’t look like what I had scoped out earlier. Hmmm…let’s go further down the ridge. Here’s what I was standing on top of at this point….yup…probably coulda went (dammit). I’m the little dot at the top. In retrospect, this would have been the line to take.


So I ski about 20 yards further down the ridge and get to the next point where I can look over. Hmmmm…..I think this is the spot. Or is it? It looks nothing like I thought it would of course. All I could see was a snowpatch 10 yards long, then some rocks, then a rollover (surprise) and nothing but air beyond that. Shit. Was that gnarly cliff just beyond that rollover?? If so, then where the heck is the entrance to my chute? It should be on the right…but WTF is that over there? A huge windlip? Shit…Can I get up and over that? And what’s really over that windlip? It looks like nothing but air / death on the other side…shit. The hand signals below are giving me the go…this is the right spot right? Shit…they wouldn’t lead me wrong. But alarm bells were going off at the windlip that seemed to guard what I thought was the entrance to the chute….what if I get down to that windlip and can’t get over it? What if I look over it and that’s not the entrance? Shit…I didn’t want to be monkeying around on a slope I wasn’t 100% sure on if it “went” or not, with exposure, and with the potential to slide too…so I knew the decision had to be a “no”. Shit. If I only had a radio to just confirm I was looking at what I thought I was looking at…but w/o that confirmation, I wasn’t about to on-sight some gnarly little line just because I “thought” I was in the right spot. Below is a photo of me at the point of decision. You can barely make out the windlip guarding the diagonal chute even looking right at it…the depth perception in this photo is horrible

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

So based on all of that I bailed. Which in the end, really wasn’t all THAT hard to do, when I knew I had this awaiting just 15 turns or so further down the ridge. Not a bad Plan B eh?


Milking it


Still milking it


just about milked (you get the idea)


So not a bad Plan B…but I’m still kind of pissed I had to walk away…I guess this just means I’ll have to get back up there someday and get after it propa

With all of that nonsense out of the way…it was time to skin back up SuperBowl and rip some more pow!! When we got back to the top we ran into these guys at the top…we were surprised at how closely they resembled us so we took their picture


Back the ridge not far from where Kellie and Squirrel dropped in last run…we were faced with this view at the top


Guess I’ll just have to make some more of them powder turns to track this bowl up propa








Kellie’s turn (my tracks came straight above the rocks and to the left…Squirrel’s tracks are on the right). OH YEAH!


Get sum Kellie!


AHHHHH! Our work here is done


Time to head home (parting shot)



By this time it was getting late so we had to high-tail off the pass, into Girdwood to get some coffee, and then down to Anchorage with juuuuust enough time to shower, pack everything, and head straight to the airport to catch redeye flights back home.

What a freaking trip it was!!! Thanks so much again Kellie for the guiding and hospitality. And Owens Never Sleeps for getting us up to CPG, for the cigars, the bear killing, and for being a great host. And thanks to Squirrel for being such a kick ass ski/travel partner…you picked Lenas last time, I picked out this one…next kick ass one is on you buddy.

PHEW! THEEENK YEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

give me a few seconds to clean up those broken links.....

thank god the vid clips work

[Incompetent Boob]

Sweet trip. Looks like a lot of fun, nice way to cap off the season.

[Huckwheat]

Nice TS....sweet TR.....looks like tons and tons of fun.....I like the melted credit card analogy (I have been there).

No Lotus 138s?

Also no hucks? Surprising from you, but my trip to AK was similar.....that place is intimidating, hard to pick a safe jump from the top.

[ak_powder_monkey]

HELL YEA way to kill it I'm glad you guys got fairly good snowpack when I went to goods like that in slid wish I coulda hooked up with you guys at turni on saturday. The coverage at aly for april looks mind boggling this may should be way way way fun.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

FIN


123433478

[Humble]

i cant sya much that will describe how fucking sweet that trip looks

also... i think a whole bro promo album could be made with just pictures from TR's

[Karl Stall]

yeah, so AK is a pretty sweet place, huh? So glad you got it, Shoe - great season, man!

[sanjuanworm]

caw caw caw

[Daywalker]

drooling......

[mtnbikerskierchick]

WOW!!!!! Looks like you guys had a blast!!!!!!!!

Lame that your guide wouldn't let you ski that spine! It DID look sweet! Doesn't he know you're full of badass steeze?

That Gnarnia chute looked pretty sick! Too bad you didn't have the reference photos... next time. But, Plan B looked like a pretty good Plan B

Kellie I want to ski with you!!!!!

[PowderPig]

Unreal.

That got my heart racing for sure - thanks for sharing!

[hev]

so sweet. Great TRs today. AK is happening soon I am thinking.

[skier666]

WOOT!

[splat]

Great people, great terrain, great tr.

Don't stop listening to that little voice that keeps you cautious, Ty.
You got a lifetime to make up for the runs you miss now.

[Kellie]

Great TR! Yeah for Alaska turns and laughs . . . not sure what I like more: skiing or laughing my ass off with great people after skiing. Thanks for obliging me in both Come back and get the line next year (or maybe we'll go find some more) . . .

Heh, just noticed how high the sun is in that "parting shot" . . . it was 7pm in case you're wondering

(and mtnbikerskierchick, get your arse up here and let's go skiing!)

[taynton]

Sick TR man, orgasmic. Makes me want to move up there.

[jonski]

Looks like you really got some good pow. Wouldn't worry about the spine just yet, as a first time client, no operation would've likely let you hit it. As you said though, with enough 30fun degree pow runs, it could be worse...

Shame that Gnarnia chute didn't seem to go. But like Splat says, at least you have a lifetime still to go back and get it...

[slim]

Gnar to the bar, bro.

[KillingCokes]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH HELLLLLL YEAHHHHHHHHHHH