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Life on the glacier is relaxed yet busy. On the 28th of April, at 7:45 in the evening, we shuttled into the Freshfields Glacier in a Bell 407 helicopter, just as a storm was hitting. The Eddie Bauer Freshfields Expedition was heli-assisted, so we had everything we needed and probably a few things we did not. The team—Wyatt Caldwell, Trevor Gavura, and Scott Newsome, as well as the production crew of Francois Desrosiers and Bruno Long— was quite comfortable in the snowy mountains. And that fact is a good thing because this storm feels serious.
The expedition had pretty consistent wind and snow from the 29th of April through the 1st of May. Windows were opening on the evening of the 1st, so Trevor, Scott and Bruno took a glacier walk to get an idea of the touring on the local glacier. That night at dinner, stoke for the next day was at an all-time high. We had been sitting in the storm for three days now, so we were really hopeful that the day would pop blue.
Airing out a wind lip. Eddie Bauer photo.
The next morning it was still broken weather, but good enough to get out for a walk on the glacier. We had our oats and coffee, then started touring the glacier. The fog rolled in and out. We walked around looking at some of the closer, but exceptionally ascetic lines to ride. It was really tempting to get on some of the lines. But because the weather was in and out, we figured we had best wait a day for legit light, which would also give the fresh snow a day to settle. It was difficult to sleep that night with the fresh lines waiting for us to ride on our minds.
The following morning we finally had our big blue day, which was amazing. We’d had a chance to lay our eyes on lots of terrain the day before. Now that our day had finally arrived, we were so excited about shredding some lines. It was crisp and perfect. We started on some southeast and east lines, which had pretty good snow on them. We put together a tour that gave us four great runs on different aspects.
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Finding the goods at Freshfield. Bruno Long Image.
One of the midday runs was next to some beautiful ice features and had some amazing snow on it. It was a northwest aspect. We finished the day on some west-northwest runs that were very close to camp. It really felt like the stars aligned on the 3rd of of May for us. We had beautiful skies, calm winds and one all-time crew. It was definitely an eye-opening place to visit. Looking forward to more adventures with these guys and more time living the camp life.
Words by Chris Coulter, Images by Bruno Long
