mitch blog

Here it was, my chance to go back to alaska and  heliride the chugach mountains in a big snowyear.
Different to my previous years i didn’t come with a camera crew for filming but teamed up with my wife bibi and our very good friend chris to ride  as much good snow and good runs as possible no matter if in the shade or not

Specially after having an alltime season back home that would be hard to top i had some thoughts when travelling to Alaska because its a far and expensive trip and its not guaranteed that you will  get the weather and the snow right.  But than the picture of sharing  epic AK conditions with Bibi and Chris -  that would be the cherry on the top of the delicious season 2012 cake!

We arrived in Cordova at our friend Steve`s  house parallel with a 3 day lasting  reset that brought rain to the town and snow higher up in  the zone.  Just when our time window for heliing with Points North started the skys turned  blue and that combined with  stable powder conditions !

 

 

THE POWDER WELCOME

Powder welcome for Bibis first time in Alaska

fun steep powder runs, i love it!

Bibi on a beautiful and exposed line during the first week. nice shot chris!

 

THE STEP UP

After some fun deep and steep runs we were ready to step it up and to go for some big long spines,  we were ready for a first descent on silverstrand. below a picture of the gamblers ridge with the silverstrand spines all way to the left and the gambler spine to the right.

Ben Mitchell took the first line on the lookers left spine, myself the one to the lookers right, the rest of the crew found untracked in between and to the lookers left

 

The first week went by and we did ride 5 days in a row with a lot of great snow and big runs, everybody was stoked and happy and talked about his or her best riding ever when at the end of that week a tragic accident happened and a skier lost his life falling into a deep crevasse when a snowbridge collapsed.  It was an accident that could have happened to anybody no matter which skill level and it was a reminder for everybody that we are moving around in big mountains and even with a perfect snowpack there is always a remaining risk.

 

 

SHOOTING SOME LINES FOR WARREN MILLER

After a week of riding heaven and back down to earth again and after another little reset that also brought warmer temperatures the weather turned blue again. The higher temperatures were responsible for a more tricky snowpack and the first day out Bibi got caught in a slide and was unlucky to tear her ACL but also lucky at the same time nothing more happend to her.

At the same time I was invited to join the Warren Miller crew to film some lines for their new movie project. Knowing Tom Day for a while I was stoked to finally have the chance to go out and film with him and his beautiful 16mm camera. Travis Ganong a freeriding Downhiller from the US Skiteam and Kevin Quinn, the operator owner, friend and ultimate Ski Bum plus Photographer Court Leve were making a great crew to go out and search for the goods.

scoping the massife´s spines over tom days shoulder. i didnt give this dream spines a try because of the nasty exit way down.

Travis ripping the sunny ridge line for warren miller

 

One of the coolest runs of that trip was definetly the one down gamblers spine which Kevin did the first descent on a few years back. Although it was getting warm the snow down the spine was perfect. Just lower down it all of a sudden got deep and wet and than even further down at he bottom icy again. The ride on the spine is the fun part of the run, the exit is kind of tricky…

 

Gamblers spine: the spine is the really fun part of the run, the exit through the deep icy shoot with the big face in the back is kind of scatchy

 

 

THE BACK OFF

It´s hard to say no! - specially when you find yourself on top of one of your personal dream mountains like myself on top of the Fin (Jeff Holdens fin) on the Sphinx massif. When we landed up there a little slide released and when i went over to my entry i started not to feel to good  about the snowpack. I still had some time because the light was not good yet and I started to dig in a little to get more comfartable with the snow. The entrance is a steep roller leading in a wide open steep first third of the face. With all the history of a long season in the back of my brain i was not comfotrable to get in the face to dig a pit but started to dig in at the rollover trying to hold myself with one arm and digging with the other. I didnt do what any avi expert would call a proper pit but what i found didnt make me happy. Some 15 cm that slid when i traversed werent really settled yet and deeper down i found a bad sugary layer. I am not an avi expert but my gutfeelings turned to alarm and i made the call and told Kevin that i wasnt feeling good about that run…after climbing back up the heli picked me up on top…the next nights  i was even dreaming about that and not sure if i missed the chance of riding the Fin and the Sphinx but it is something i will never find out. Sometimes you probably dont want to find out….

the fin on the sphinx massif, did i miss my chance of riding these dremalines again?

 

 

THE LAST RUN

We already called it the day and were on the way home to base after a big day when Kevin all of a sudden pointed out a crazy looking face. `Lets have a look´ and a few seconds later `Do you want to ride that?´  I still wasnt sure if that face was rideable  when the camera crew was already dropped of at a crazy  spot with big exposure to all sides and i was sitting in the heli on the way up. When circling with the heli around the bottom section i did see a good looking line through that bottom section and over the bergschrund but it would be hard to find that exit on the way down. The ridge was hard to land on so we had to land lower and i had to climb up and around and almost couldnt find an entrance because the one i was scoping before i couldnt get to for the reason of a big overhanging mushroom i couldnt pass. I was poking around, back and forward but in the end i could make it make it and named the run rattle snake for its rattl snake like character ready to attack.

i am on the way up, still not a hundred percent if it is the best idea ever...shot by court leve

 

 

Great times in Cordova with Bibi and Chris

 check bibis blog here

check chrisis blog here

for the best salmon go here

and for points north heli go here

There are a handful of lines and faces i was looking at during the last couple of years but never did give them a go. On and off those lines were talking to me, depending on conditions and mood.

The character of these`projects´ vary a lot, they are mostly something like a mixture of what i see from my more often taken pathes but then they are just this step or two further to reach them or to even check them out.  These imaginary list contains anything from big AK like looking faces, remote areas i wanted to check out, to urban spine rides in the neighbourhood  to `super´ ramps.

This imaginary list of `projects´ i never gave a try, was growing over time,  partly for not having the right conditions but  also just knowing that they are always there, not going anywhere makes it easy to loose sight of them.

And here we are winter 2012:  First  snow, then more snow and finally a lot of snow and quite stable conditions. Anything seemed possible and also  jeremy decides to come over with his further project and crew totally motivated to explore our backcountry with us.

Over the years I was riding and filming with differnt crews and people and usually i was kind of  the pushing one who wanted to stay out longer. Beeing out on a mission with jones and his crew i was delighted by the motivation and energy level they are on, anything is possible until there is a real reason it is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to the whole crew for these weeks:

cam:Chris Edmands; JK; Chris Figenshau; Nick Kalisz;Patrick Huter; pic: Dan Milner; rider: Jeremy Jones, Bibi Tölderer Pekarek

After two month of constantly face shots in an extraordinary winter the Further Crew is visiting Bibi and myself in Austria to go for some missions. The plan for the austrian project was developped when we hooked up with Jeremy at the O´Neill Evolution to enjoy the insane powder at Davos with the local shredder Päsce in early January. The timing for the crew to come over and play could not have been much better, an extraordinary winter with lots of snow and freezing cold temperatures always in the minus 20 celsius range made the missions so far hard but also guaranteed for really good snow. Although the temperatures were on the edge to deal with, we took advantage of a quiet save snowpack and went on a camp mission  in one of the most remote mountain areas in central europe. Temperatures in the tents never went up higher than minus 10, but to be out there splittboarding and riding some pow in this beautiful area was totally worth the numb toes everybody had to deal with.
Next days a new storm is bringing more fresh and we are charging our batteries for more during the next week.

here a few impressions of the last weeks…

using sleds to pull our gear to camp

mornings were tough, the only chance to get a little warm was to hike up and get in the sun   Everything was always frozen, iced cheese, iced chocalate, iced bread. The only hot was the melted snow

1,5 hours above camp getting closer to the sun

the warmest it got in the tent was minus 10

early morning mission

after sunrise already in the face

bibi on top of her line

climbing in the shade to access the good stuff

jeremy riding some good snow

more on further in austria also on http://www.tetongravity.com/

You know when it didnt snow for a long time and you see the rocks and the grass on the dry mountains it gets hard to belive or even hard to imagine that there could ever be enough snow again to ride. And than it starts to snow and with the first snowflakes and the first centimeters on the ground the imagination and the feeling are coming back, and what did seem so far away is all of a sudden here. One good storm can change everything! And the happy kids are playing again…

Powder snow is the essence of snowboarding. We are dropping into late november and there are no clouds on the horizon of the alps yet. By chance i got a hold of this two inspiring clips that capture the essence of powder with something like 40 years in between. enjoy, i am still positive that winter will hit to us in december…