Alaska for Greenhorns (cont.)

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Alaska for Greenhorns (cont.)


	212 inches of ganglionic rush: dropping in on Glacier Creek

OH, THE SMELL OF JET B FUEL in the morning. As Jay, our heli-pilot, pumped his plexi-bubble with specialized petrol, we paced around outside the hangar in our clunky boots and Gore-Tex garb. Before long Jay began shuttling us, four by four, into Winner Creek, one of the wild and woolly drainages leading upward into the Western Chugach Mountains. In addition to my four-person Montana crew there were parties from Munich, Denver, and Singapore.

I was a bit surprised when we landed on a large, rather flat snowy saddle, well below the peaks that surrounded us. But this, I was to learn, is how it's done. Far from attempting the harrowing limelit steeps of a Teton Gravity Research film, we were starting out easy.

Virgil, a CPG senior guide who had given the safety briefing back at the hotel, was down the slope, digging a pit to assess the stability of the snowpack. Speaking through the spiral-wired radio



	The pause that replenishes

mike hanging from his pack, he reported to the other guides, "There's a wind layer at about 20 centimeters; it's sort of an upside-down cake today. Let's feel it out and work our way up slowly."

As the morning progressed so too did we, landing higher and higher up into the alpine, slowly ramping up the pitch on our inclinometers. As the guides got more comfortable with the snowpack, conditions, and the competence of the individual parties, the stakes were raised accordingly.

If all hell breaks loose—the chopper is grounded and the cat can't operate—there's a third option.

We were like Lilliputians in a landscape on steroids. Atop one steep pyramid perch, my synapses began firing in a ganglionic rush, making my hair stand erect on the back of my neck. As the realization of where I was and what I was preparing to do sunk in, my psyching led to exultation. Jackets zipped and snug, packs cinched, we eyed our respective lines and dropped in one by one as velveteen powder pushed back with a smoothness and predictability I'd never felt before. All at once I was sliding fast enough to make golden snow fly over my shoulders, and yet, in a way, in slow motion, my pulse like a metronome.

Despite flat light up high and the alders we had to negotiate slaloming down to our landing-zone pickups, almost everyone appeared up to the challenge. There was one fellow, however, Mervin from Singapore, who was in over his head. His desire to "shred Alaska" outstripped his ability to do any such thing. Winded and whipped at the bottom of each descent, he nervously laughed to shroud the reality, reminding us that you needn't be an expert to enjoy a heli-ski trip to Alaska, but you absolutely don't want to be the Mervin in your group either.

Sitting atop our packs like stools on the snow, waiting for our next pickup, we wolfed down an assortment of fruits and candies. The folks at CPG choreographed logistics so that some pickups were nearly instantaneous while others provided enough time to catch your breath, eat lunch, and marvel at the surroundings. Jay radioed down that the winds up high were increasing and the visibility was deteriorating; it was his suggestion to pack it in. When a pilot as skilled as Jay—a man not given to overstatement—raises a concern, no one questions his judgment.

Back at the Prince, despite having been grounded for the afternoon, we decided to catch a tram and make a few runs at Alyeska Resort. My experiences of loading onto trams in the Lower 48 usually involved hordes of people squeezing into a snug metal tin, skis and snowboards shoved intimately close to my nose. We were amused to load on—just myself, my three friends, the tram conductor, and a ski patroller on telly boards—and head up the steep cables leading into the foggy heavens, luxuriating in abundant elbow room. Having the option to stack a few thousand more feet onto our day was a decided CPG-Alyeska bonus.

Despite all preliminary angst, Alaska was more accessible—and skiable—than I'd ever imagined. There was the morning we came into a landing zone up toward the Placer-Skookum drainage. The landing skids on our A-Star sank so deep in the poststorm pow that the chopper came to rest on its fuselage, and we wallowed crotch-deep, giggling like fiends as we hastily unloaded our skis and boards. Or the amber morning when we landed on the summit of Big Chief and made turns down a wavelike ridge. Farther down the Glacier Creek draw, we swooped through a surreal forest of gargoyles—erratic blue glacier ice on a moderately pitched slope. And our last day, when we landed and dropped the perfect fall line on Lips, banking in and out of each others' smoky plumes.

Yes, AK will challenge all your Lower 48 notions about scale. Yes, it's humbling and apt at times to make your tail swing up between your legs. And yet if you've paid a respectable sum of snow-sliding dues, if you've truly earned the title of "advanced intermediate," if you can make turns in variable, sometimes less than perfect snow, and if you're comfortable on most sub-40 degree slopes, you just may be ready to venture to the Pebble Beach of powder.

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