Valdez Skiing 2011

Last May, Todd Smith and I rallied the Western Chugach for a relentless five days. Keen for more, Todd brought along his friend Steve Copson and Steve's friend and Kurt Parker for a Valdez ski week. We chose late April when the snow is more stable and the heli/snowmachine frenzy has subdued. We had an awesome trip with a perfectly-meshed group, amazing north face powder, some corn and favorable weather. Thanks guys!

Summiting Cracked Ice on our first tour. Kurt is a splitboarding powerhouse with faster transitions than us skiers. He redefined splitboarding for me.

Summit! Now 4,500 feet of fun to the highway!

Untracked on Cracked Ice. 

In Valdez we stayed with Anna Wilson at her Ptarmigan Bed & Breakfast. If you like to eat and stay in a comfortable house then there is no comparison in Valdez. The alternative is expensive hotels and grody restaurants. Call Anna at 907-835-2202 (best option) or email her at annsptarm@cvinternet.com. 

Hauling packs to camp at the top of the Worthington Glacier for two nights and three days of skiing.

Glacier camp in THE ZONE!!!!!

A high energy weak layer kept us off the sav-gnar but we sufficed on farming endless slopes of pow.

Kurt showing us what 25 years of snowboarding can do. 

Steve skiing below an icefall into the Hoodoo Glacier from our glacier camp.  Last year, Dan, Nik and I tried this same run, but an earthquake that morning had triggered the icefall and obliterated the run.

No earthquake this time. 

Todd starting another 2,000-foot powder lap into the Hoodoo Glacier. 

Pit stop at the derelict Tsina Lodge--where many Valdez heli legends began--on the way back to Anchorage.

L'Aventurier Alpin

I spent much of April 2010 on an Alaska roady with a Quebecois TV show called L'Aventurier Alpin. On previous L'Aventurier Alpin trips Simon St-Arnaud - a heavy in the Quebec ski media - has covered trips to the Chamonix to Zermatt Haute Route, Argentina, and ski touring in Norway and Sweden. On this trip we skied at Turnagain Pass, Thompson Pass near Valdez, Hatcher Pass and Little Switzerland in the Alaska Range. Joining Simon was a well-travelled cameraman named Michel Valiquett; Olivier Brongniart and Jerome Grec who are friends from Switzerland; and Mathieu Leblanc who runs La Sandwicherie Café in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec. This crew loves to ski and is comfortable in front of, or behind, the camera. I was hired for backcountry guiding and logistics. The end result was five one-hour shows run in Quebec. 

We spent our first couple days at Turnagain Pass in the Kenai Mountains. Despite stormy weather we found great skiing before heading to Valdez. 

We parked and slept anywhere. Here on the Richardson highway below Mount Wrangell on our way to ski Valdez.

Olivier gave his skis the all-American sofa, beer and pizza treatment.

 The geology around Valdez is tipped on end making couloirs stacked like a bookstore.

Heliski Valdez.

Mathieu dropping into the Cleave Creek Glacier with Michel filming in the shadows from halfway down.  

Jerome Grec making the grim realization that heli skiing isn't always cutting edge and we should be....

 

...earning our turns in Valdez! A happier Jerome on a Crud Busters sunset tour. 

Next stop: Hatcher Pass. Simon interviewing the legendary Hap at the Hatcher Pass Lodge.

Little Switzerland was our grand finale. Paul Roderick, owner of Talkeetna Air Taxi, cools down his DeHavilland Turbo Otter on the Pika Glacier in the Alaska Range. Waist-deep snow is stacked on the wheel skis. 

Chef Mathieu adding honey to another gormet meal.

3,000 feet of untracked steepness below. Too bad it ended in deep crevasses.

Little Switzerland!

Little Switzerland is the ultimate Alaska Range playground: skiing, ice cragging, rock cragging, long rock routes, mountaineering and all just a short distance from base camp. 

Valdez w/ Dan & Nik

The only thing better than Thompson Pass in April would be Thompson Pass in April with a carbon dioxide ban. Dan Oberlatz (owner of Alaska Alpine Adventures), Nik Koblov a long-time friend of Dan's from Brooklyn and I roadied to Valdez for a few days of touring. Our timing was perfect--splitter weather, stable conditions, Tailgate Alaska had just finished and the Mountain Man Hill Climb hadn't started.

Dan Oberlatz and Nik Koblov have been on many crazy Alaska adventures together. In 2008 Nik, Dan and I skied in the Neacola Mountains.

Skinning Crud Busters to log 5,500 vertical on our first day.  

Day 2. Here's a video from Dan of Nik and I skiing from the top of the Worthington down into the Hoodoo Glacier. Earlier that morning the icefall ripped loose and from a 4.8 earthquake and obliterated our run with ice.

My photography slacks when guiding, but Dan was pounding his SLR trigger. See Dan's photos and my photos of Dan taken on his camera here.

Dan flossing up with his Camp XLH 95 ski touring harness. Dan is lucky he didn't fall in a crevasse since he forgot his tweezers.

Nik and his new, super-fatty DPS Lotus 120 carbon fiber skis.

After sampling the finer-dining establishements in Valdez - Fu Kung, Ernesto-less Ernestos, The Bistro - we voted the Best Western our favorite.

Proper-style Valdez rig. Mullet required.

Nik dropping into upper Key-to-Lisa, our last run of the trip as we headed out of town.