Report from April 3, 2022

I’ve been heli-ski guiding in Alaska with Pulseline Adventure for the 1st time for the past 5-weeks.

(Come ski with us!  We have openings right now for April 17-23)

It’s been unreal.

I’ve skied some of the best lines of my life in the past month…

Run #5

We guided Travis Rice’s Natural Selection Tour in the Tordrillo Mountains, AK in March.

We guided Travis Rice and the Red Bull crew in Valdez, AK after the competition.

It’s been nuts…

Run #3:

We’ve been working 12-14 hour days every day for over a month which had made me extremely delinquent in reporting here (I’ve been a bit better on our Instagram channel).

What I’m going to do is start writing reports again today.

This report today is from Sunday this week.

Run #2:

 

Moving forward, I’ll work into the past because I think the stories, photos, and videos from Natural Selection Tour, The Tordrillos, Travis Rice crew in Valdez, and some full-on client skiing in Valdez are worth sharing.

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New clients came in on Saturday here in Valdez, AK with Pulseline Adventure.

2 of them are friends of mine:  Ed & Eric.

Matt & Rich joined our group and after safety briefings and avalanche beacon briefings, we headed out.

1st run was cruisy and mellow to assess client levels and make sure all equipment is working properly.

2nd run we got right into it.

A steep wall with small spines and rollovers that dropped down onto a bubbling glacier with some cracks and open holes down valley.

It was full-on and my team loved it.

Steep turns, sluff management, features, controlled turns, and eye-popping views.

3rd run was a huge ramp down into an endless runout in the sunshine with extremely good snow.

4th run was a big spine to winding runout.

5th run was a real winner:  2,000′ face with nosey spines, wide-open gullies, and 10 out of 10 snow.

US Ski Team ski racer Travis Ganong had hiked up and dropped a sick line off the top down the spine.

We followed his boot pack and dropped in.

I went last and the video here is that line. 

Big turns, sunshine, shade, staying on the nosey spine thing, and a glorious runout.

Our last run was a winding glacier cruiser with good snow on the right and a bit of crust on the left (from the sun).

We found a large spider crawling around.

He must have flown there and he definitely looked lost…

We headed home with big smiles.

No one on my team had ever skied in Alaska before and they were pumped!

Photos: