Massive Alaska: Frustrations

The last update left us with Tanner Hall and his injured ankle. A few days of rain gave him, and the snowpack in the mountains outside of Haines, some time to heal up. The weather finally broke a few days later and after some long sessions of shuffle puck, TV, and hacky-sack we were all ready to get back up above the treeline.

Tanner hopped back in the ship and we took off into sparse clouds. Looking for a break where the sun was hitting a skiable face—aptly termed “window shopping” in AK—we found a nice spine between two bowls for Tanner to test the snow and his ankle. The heavy rains down in town dumped about a foot of fresh up high and Tanner dropped into some nice turns. The clouds were a bit too thick for filming, but Tanner managed to bag a pretty nice run. We moved on to some features that were a bit lower, but the temperature was such that 1000 feet lower the snow was heavy junk. Tanner moved through the second run in obvious pain. Basically he was fine in super light, fresh pow, but the heavier snow was really putting strain on his ankle.

Tanner was forced to make the painful decision of calling it quits in AK. His ankle proved to be an issue, and Alaska is no place to be skiing with physical reservations. The glass half-full part of the story is he got a couple killer shots for the movie, slaying some insane lines, and he still has time to heal up enough to perhaps do a terrain park or backcountry feature shoot for “The Massive” in June.

Injury and uncooperative conditions are always looming outside factors in ski-movie making. The decision was made to continue to trip with Dana Flahr, but just as things were looking good, with a little new snow, the wind moved in. A bit of wind on the heavy coastal snow of AK is sometimes good to suck moisture out and velvet out the powder, but when the wind rips and scours the snow off the peaks it can quickly change a good situation bad.

A few days after Tanner left the weather finally popped blue for what looked like a good run of days. This is exactly what skiers come to Haines for.  Unfortunately, it seems like there’s always one thing wrong when everything else comes together, and this time it was the wind. Cold air from the North blasted the fresh powder and transformed the snowpack. From high in the helicopter you could see the damage to the snow, which is never a good sign.

Our guide Tom Burt got to work meticulously assessing the stability, and the diagnosis was sketchy. We actually picked up off the top of a run due to unstable conditions, and while that’s never something you like to do while heliskiing, everyone was fine with Tom’s educated decision. That day other groups out in the field set off at least two slides resulting in one complete burial (safely dug out) and one blown knee. Under sunny skies our new reality was severely diminished options and a snowpack that needed time to settle and bond. We retired back to town a bit deflated, but knowing that a couple days in Alaska can change thing dramatically. Hope is not yet lost.

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