Worked on it for 20 years and finally made it happen this year. Heli-trip in AK (hat tip to unnamed maggot for setting me up with the right operation, and thanks to those in my group for most of these images). April 15-22, Points North Heli.
First view of AK:
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Home for the next week:
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Nice sunset provided a sense of the calm before the upcoming storm.
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Ski day 1:
We got on it from run 1--got lucky with the (and talked my way into the) good group and incredible guide (guide and part of the group had been together the previous year). When I saw where we were first landing, and that the heli's skids were hanging into space on that first landing I could hardly believe it (but by the end of the day it would be routine).
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We had sun every day, and while it hadn't snowed for about a week when we arrived (and it didn't snow while I was there) every day we got everything from excellent, wintry boot deep powder to perfect spring corn (and everything in between, including wind-blown hard pack, light breakable crust, etc.). Not completely 'charge it' conditions, but really ideal for skiing some big, steeper lines.
Scale a little tough to tell, but this does something to show it (sorry for crappy filming--no viewfinder (screen instead) makes filming in light tough):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwa1...ature=youtu.be
Day 2:
Got to ski this middle ramp:
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Skied past some pretty stuff:
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And got to ski down to this amazing glacial terminus:
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Day 3 started with yet another oddball landing with the heli still in a hover so we could ski this
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Something over 3000 vert, 52 degrees at the top and 48 through the middle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bbvCd4Xwp8&feature=youtu.be
Getting in took a little doing:
https://youtu.be/Rj_LNx-nUJM
Everybody skiing pretty gingerly through this part--no one wanted to take a tumble here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARIrYO7gDzA&feature=youtu.be
But able to open it up lower down:
https://youtu.be/InsxqhFrogM
Out of the chunder and onto the apron:
https://youtu.be/93GsUvXRp-E
Day 4 opened with the hairiest landing yet--full hover, neither skid even touching the snow, just the nose toed in so we could ski this:
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But first, some housekeeping--digging out the LZ in case other groups might come through and knocking down some cornice (it turned out we only dug it out for ourselves for the following day when we would ski the other side):
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We skied down later to this scenic spot and had lunch there:
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All of which led to skiing this beast; the line of the trip.
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A closer view of the top of it:
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It took our group a solid hour to ski this. There was definitely even more than the usual amount of nervous energy surrounding this one, but I didn't really appreciate it until we got to the last, easy pitch before the pick-up zone and our guide, who had been consistently cool and unperturbed until then, exclaimed, "I can't believe I fucking took you guys down that!" as the last skier came in. Top was a set of very steep spines, then skiing a steep, open pitch of about 1000 vert over some exposure, before making our way through some scary seracs at the bottom. There had been a lot of chatter on the radio about not making any turns through the bottom part with the seracs, but I didn't fully get it until I was below them:
https://youtu.be/mhCT76aIGYc
The ride back in that afternoon was a lot quieter than usual as the adrenaline ebbed and everyone slowly came to terms with the descent we had just skied. I would find out later that it's not considered a 'client' route and that one of the other helicopters had been told to stay put nearby while we skied the line, just in case.
Day 5 would include some corn harvesting:
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But also some more wintry skiing:
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