Massive Alaska: AK Giveth, Taketh Away

When you come to Alaska, you come prepared. You come with beacon, shovel, probe, and harness. You come with down coat, two way radio, spare googles, and digi cam. But if you really know what’s up, you come prepared to wait. Slow roast, marinate, call it what you want, but a couple days spent lying around is absolutely draining. “This must be what it feels like to be in an opium den,” CP ponders. We fill the time with a harddrive full of seasons of TV shows. In case you were wondering, the second season of “Dexter” is really, really good.

Crack, it’s blue. Our guide Tom Burt calls from Mile 33. Don’t think, react. Tom Burt wants to go heli-skiing in Alaska…right now. Go, go, go! We roll up to Mile 33 from Haines, scramble to assemble the gear, and wait. Heli-skiing is the antithesis of instant gratification. Sure you get plucked from the side of the highway and plopped on the gnarliest peak you’ve ever stood on in just minutes, but you wait in the mud pit at Mile 33 for an hour to get to that point. With something like 10 groups flying in two helis, it’s a logistical puzzle too difficult to fathom. Still, we’re not complaining. We’ll take waiting in AK over traffic in LA any day of the week.

Tanner Hall, Dana Flahr, and crew get dropped on a ridge with six prominent peaks on top, and countless spines, flanks, flutes, faces, and gullies below. From across the valley, through a 200mm lens, Tanner looks like an ant dropping in. He’s slays a few turns down a flank rolling over onto a steep face that in most other parts of the world wouldn’t hold snow. Tanner is maching now, each arching turn taking him hundreds of feet further down. The face chokes up and he points it into the shadows. For a split second he’s gone, but quickly blasts onto the apron below picking up speed and running away from the boiling river of sluff ripping down just beside him.

We move on to two other zones. Tanner and Dana both get epic shots in the can. Standing on a small cornice, under the watchful eye of Tom Burt, Tanner boosts onto a face, rips a few turns, and funnels onto a spine emerging from the shadows in the afternoon sun. He’s ripping down the spine now, which leads into a pillow that diving-boards into the apron below. For a second everything is silent, less the whirring of the 16mm and the clicking of cameras. Tanner brings around an effortless 360 and stomps. The valley erupts with hoots and roars from various vantage points. “It was the most epic run of my life,” Tanner says later. It's difficult to convey what it's like to see skiing in Alaska, at the level Tanner and Dana are bringing, with your own eyes. It's even more difficult to convey the awe we all are stricken with while watching Tom Burt nonchalantly rip a run after the boys have dropped. Hopefully the photos can do some talking.

We wish this update could end on that high note, but minutes later, just ripping some fun turns down a mellow slope to the heli pick-up, Tanner skids out on some hidden ice. Evidence of the fact that it hasn’t snowed in a while, only certain aspects are still holding good snow. Tanner rag dolls and twists the ankle that has been plaguing him with pain this season. Fast forward a few hours and following a visit to the clinic in Haines, Tanner’s short-term plan is to wait a few days and see how his ankle feels. The doc says if he feels OK, it’s good to go for skiing. Here’s hoping a few days back on the slow roast is enough time for Tanner to get back up and running. He still has tons he want to do in AK.

Keep clicking into RedBullSkiing.com for further updates and check out the full photo gallery here!