Here we are driving to our campground. Moab is beautiful but dusty. Desert ski trip……nice.

It was one of those times when it seemed like nothing went right. Miscommunication, super hot sun ruining snow, broken pole (sort of), icing of skis, icing of skins, icing of bindings, full day of touring with 202 skis and no touring mode. Skied one line and I had enough of it, as long I came out unhurt I could care less about all the other minor problems. Picture is from what I skied, did I mention the line was all shadows by the time I got there because of equipment malfunction?

So Alaska, its big its gnarly and its scary. We have been experiencing some very difficult snow conditions but having a blast none the less.

Few highlights….a bore wave ( I think that is what its called) a 30ft deep slide (went over a railroad track before the road and exploded the guardrail) and some of the most amazing mountains

More on the way soon….

My virgin trip to Alaska is off and running although not without a few mishaps. Baggage was over, waaay over. After some shuffling I decided I had to use my avy backpack as my carry-on as it was too heavy. Bad move. Forgot all about the sharp objects in the pack and as a result I had to throw away two avy shovels, brand new snow saw and my trusty leatherman. Bummer, but to be honest I’m just stoked I cleared security and am on the plane. Giddy up….

Its no secret that winter here in Utah has been marginal so in light of that we have been looking for ways to amuse ourselves.  We ski in the park, we bbq, we hang out with friends, anything to have some fun.  One day we took out Shaun’s sled for a little change of scenery. I was green with envy seeing one of the nicest sleds on the market in the back of my truck; its how my truck SHOULD look.

We went out with Zeph, Shaun, myself and our four legged friend Merl (Shaun’s dog).  We used the sled to tow myself and Zeph and Merl happily trotted along for the length of the trip.  We went up to one of my favorite spots in the Wasatch, 10.420.  We had amazing bluebird views all around us and we could pick out everything from Heber to Salt Lake to lines we had skied earlier in the year.   Here is the crew “summiting” .

Here is a quickie from the gopro of the day.  Remember it was so warm we were hiking in t-shirts, so all things considering the snow was pretty damn good!

One of my favorite aspects of this ‘job’ is meeting and working with new people every season.  Ross is one of those guys that the instant you meet him you know you’ll like him, easy going, funny, hard working and overall good guy.  Oh and did I mention he takes sick photos?

I met Ross early this season and have been working with him ever since.  Ross has been helping out the film crew as well,  he frequently accompanies us on location, wherever that may be, the park, a night shoot, up in the mountains on big lines or even just hanging out.  I had asked Ross to send me some b-grade photos that I could use for my blog so that I could interlace them in my day to day stories, but what he sent over I thought deserved its own post.  While these are not all the photos from the week its a pretty cool little story they tell all by themselves.  Hope you enjoy!

I dont jump P: Ross Downard

Drrrrop. P: Ross Downard

Hard at work P: Ross Downard

Working P: Ross Downard

Tough life but somebody has gotta do it. P: Ross Downard

The past week has been an absolute whirl wind filled with non-stop skiing.  Monday- Dawn patrol with Steve Lloyd, Tuesday- Park day with Ty Dayberry at The Canyons, Wednesday- Filming day near Brighton, Thursday- first urban rail in the AM and then a wall ride in the PM, Friday- Ski Salt Lake Shootout.  So much fun and so many different experiences all in a small time frame, highlight of my season thus far.

Ty mid 5 off the drop

Ummm, whoops

The above picture was from our filming day at Brighton, surface hoar has  been an unwelcome problem for us in the Wasatch this year.  With a bit of wind loading and a steep rollover, its easy to see why this happened.  Luckily this was just a one turn wonder and I had already cut out to safety and only new it slide after turning around, that and it was about 20ft wide.

Ty shaping, Josh hacking

Wrapping up the wall ride

Got too busy skiing and having fun with the wall ride so I didn’t take any pictures until it was too dark.  But imagine getting towed into a concrete wall at 30mph, pretty wacky until you start getting used to it.

So the other day I had one of the earliest and hands down the coldest mornings in the Wasatch of my life.  Left the house around 4:15am, Alta by 5:15am and skinning by around 5:45.  The forecast for the day was supposed to be around 10 but with the windchill down to nearly -10 on the ridges and that was during the day.  Never before have I skinned with all my layers on, gloves, hat, goggles and a fleece but today it was certainly needed.

Sun peaking out

Went out with Steve Lloyd, Colter Hinchliffe, and Kevin.  We had a cold skin up Cardiff and then some fun billy-goating getting to the top of our lines.  Below is a picture of the near vertical boot pack to get up to the next ridge, it was short and could have been waaaaay worse.

Boot pack....up

A few lines from the days effort.  Kevin is standing on top of the cliff in the green coat, I ‘skied’ that once as well and the lines to the left are of where Colter and I skied some pepper.  Colter was absolutely sending it the entire day and took things with speed, stomped the hell out of the landings and made it all look easy, super impressive.

A few lines of the day

And to end this post…the best picture I have ever taken with a phone.

So here is some footage from the head cam from the two lines skied today at Wolverine Cirque. This is pretty much what I see when I am skiing things like this and you can get a good feel for what its really like. There is no music and the footage is not altered in any way, you really do accelerate that fast and the wind is most certainly that loud. It’s good n’ fast!