Backcountry
Black Diamond’s latest short film, Slope Ascenders, follows professional skiers Dorian Densmore and Mya Akins through another winter of chasing gravity, weather windows, and soul in the mountains of Alaska. Filmed by Greg Stafford (stills and drone) and Jordan Pockrus (FPV), the project drops viewers into the raw pulse of Alaskan freeride skiing—the deep turns, the cold bivies, and the nervous silence before dropping into a 50-degree spine. The edit blends sweeping aerials with close-range drone footage to capture the flow and chaos that define skiing in the Chugach.
For Densmore, who splits his time between the Tetons and the Andes, Slope Ascenders represents a homecoming of sorts. The 34-year-old Black Diamond-sponsored athlete has spent nearly a decade migrating between hemispheres in pursuit of winter—from long seasons in Argentina’s Andes filming Zonda to the rugged alpine of Alaska where his mentor, the late Mike Hamilton, first introduced him to big-mountain terrain. Each project is a chance to learn something new about both skiing and himself.
In Slope Ascenders, skiing becomes less about performance and more about connection—with terrain, with partners, and with the legacy of those who came before. For Densmore, it’s another step in a life built around the rhythm of snow and the pull of wild mountains.
