It was supposed to snow yesterday, but it remained sunny and calm granting us an additional day to enjoy the near perfect snow.  Andy and I were considering going up Kickstep, but the site of some friends at the Eddies lot convinced us to join them for a sure thing.

My season of camera mis-operation continues, and I forgot to tighten it properly so it slams down there and the end missing out on the glorious apron.  No matter, with stability and powder I have nothing to complain about, especially considering last season.  This month has been fantastic.  The cold has been completely overshadowed by the perfect skiing.  I wish every day could be like yesterday.

It seemed like every skier I know was at the Tin Can lot this morning.  Proper and the Library got destroyed, Charlie (pictured above), Graham and Neil (track pictures here) snowboarded some incredible lines further back.  Luke had mittens on his feet at one point trying to avoid frostbite (it was -5 ish), and a large group of friends with a dog hacked through a giant cornice to ski some nice lines (picture bellow)  just road side of the lines Graham and Neil took.  I even got to see a speed wing descent of Tin Can proper.  So despite not skiing anything worth mentioning (I’ve lost all skills) an all around incredible day on skis that will stick in the memory for a while.

I went to bed thinking I was meeting at Carrs this morning at 8 on the way up Peterson Creek, but woke up to numerous texts saying plans had changed, we were meeting at 7 and going for Wolverine. The early rush caused me to run out the door in a t-shirt, and after seeing the thermometer hit -29 driving past placer I was a little worried I would end up frozen stiff in some creek.  It turned out I was fine in the cold (I kept my down on to till the summit), but it caused both Jeff and I to have numerous skin failures and we both ended up using skin straps to keep things together pretty much from the parking lot.  Neil led a quick skin up the sharks fin and up the west face/ridge to the summit.  From there Jeff lead the way across the gnarlier sections of the ridge, and after traversing the entire thing, we skied the same line I’d skied on my previous trip.  We skied 4 or 5 minutes before the clouds moved began blocking the sun.  Great times, I’m still feeling exhausted from my 3 weeks in Michigan, so the skiing itself wasn’t anything pretty (Neil went first and crushed it).  I also failed operating cameras today so I have nothing but pictures.  Looks like it’s going to snow for the next couple days, hopefully this next cycle is as good as the last.

I took the picture above my first winter up here, while skiing Peterson Creek with Graham.  Those spines, dropping from the flat ridge-line were immediately memorable, even from a couple miles away.  When looking north from either the highway or ridges in Turnagain Pass it always caught my eye in the distance, standing just above the other ridgelines on the east side of 20 mile.   It had long been at the top of my list of things to ski in the region, and seemed to be a topic of regular discussion amongst Graham and Wilson.

Eventually, we learned the area had been given the ridiculous name Spine Cell by CPG and the pro heli-skiing crowd (I love how they mention stumbling upon the area when its clearly visible from the road) and the occasional footage of skiing in the spines further increased my desire to explore the area.  The problem was it was quite a long ways away, and south facing, making it only accessible in early winter when days are short and good light was at a premium.  The 20 mile valley is only open to snowmobiles sparingly, and my only previous trip up the 20 mile valley involved lots of open water and a blown motor.  I hadn’t even made an attempt to ski the lines in 5 years, and they were increasingly feeling inaccessible as time went by.

Yesterday, Graham, Wilson, Andy and I were getting an early start hoping to ski something in the Girdwood Valley, but amidst some discussion in the dark outside Tesoro the idea of skiing Spine Cell came up and despite the lack of snowmobiles it seemed like a decent idea. Everyone else agreed, and soon we were skiing along the snowmobile trail back into the valley.

The valley was long and without surprises or nasty creek crossings, but the slow progress made it harder and harder to believe we’d make it before dark. Nevertheless after years of waiting it felt necessary to push on and at least give it a try. After being forced to turn around in a ravine, we emerged from the trees in a valley with a little glacier and the beautiful lines we’d been after finally visible above us to our left. Andy took off at that point cutting trail at a speed that made it impossible for anyone else to relieve him. Wilson and I were lagging in the back trying to make jokes out of our water being frozen while enjoying the nice track he’d set.

It wasn’t till we switched to booting up the final part of the chute to gain the ridge that I became convinced we were actually going to ski the thing.  Graham led the final pitches and punched through the cornice to gain the upper ridge.  I was completely exhausted, and extremely cold, and really just wanted to get down to the bottom without any incidents.  We dropped in, just as the sun was finally setting behind the mountains in the distance.  The snow was fantastic, lightly sloughing and very soft and easy.  I was too tired to really enjoy it however and dogged my way to the bottom.  Graham had the shady incident of the day though, realizing his bindings weren’t adjusted on his first turn via some insta-tele and having to stop and hold his heels down with ski straps on top of a spine.  From there the ski back to the 20 mile valley was dark but easily managed and we were on to the log flat slog home.  It was cold, and dark, a couple hours of focusing on some lights in the distance, but we made it back to the cars a little after 9.  The only casualties were Wilson’s toes, which got frostbitten but won’t need to be amputated or anything.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I’ve been in Michigan exploring West Grand Rapids bars for the last 3 weeks.  But Wilson recently moved up to Alaska since Utah doesn’t have any snow, and the conditions are seem best described as incredible so there should be plenty to come soon.  We finally got out today , despite the cold temps, and it was incredible.  A binding failure kept us from going exactly where we’d planned, but the day was incredible none the less.

I’m still to cold to really go on much longer, but the video bellow should make clear that Davis Creek is skiing really really well, hopefully we’ll be able to report on the rest of the range soon.

Also, near the bottom I skied into some alder cliff mess, clicked out of my skis (immediately after reminding myself that was a horrible idea), found an easy exit and then got into all sorts of problems trying to retrieve one of my skis, including a couple short tumbles over some rocks and rotten snow.   There were a few moments where I thought I’d be joining Charlie in the lost ski   I’m laughing about it now, but at the time it was rather annoying.   Despite the stupidity down low, everything up high was so good as to make it easily overlooked.  This season has already delivered above and beyond all of last year.

Elsewhere, Beau is back to posting almost daily mouth watering shots from the Beartooths, and Skier Boyz have a rundown of some of the road chaos from yesterday, which I may or may not get to posting about later this week.

Charlie took these three pictures Saturday while I was watching football in my bedroom, and despite feeling quite pleased with the decision at the time, it’s hard to look at these and not feel a slight tinge of regret. So I’m posting these for three reasons, first to highlight how amazing the current conditions are, second to prove that you always regret not going skiing, and third to convince the rare Anchorage reader to buy a print from Charlie at his first friday at the Upstairs Studio.  I might post some of my stuff from the weekend later, but it’s nothing compared to these shots.  Later

Filed under: backcountry, Skiing, Turnagain, Uncategorized Tagged: Goldpan, Superbowl ]]> http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/11/28/pictures-a-friend-took-while-i-was-watching-football/feed/ 2 dongshow tin can eddies and wolverine ridges with 20 mile in the background superbowl slash goldpan http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/11/26/more-november-powder-skiing/ http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/11/26/more-november-powder-skiing/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 04:46:15 +0000 dongshow http://dongshow-productions.com/?p=2031 ]]>

It’s been cold with continuous snowfall since Wednesday evening.  Today, we got a brief glimpse of the sun when the sucker hole pictured above opened up.  Andy and I were even considering racing down to the car and driving to Summit Lake for some turns in the sunshine.  Luckily, as soon as we realized what a bad idea that was, the hole in the clouds closed in on itself and it began snowing again.  The last two days have been some slow powder laps.  Incredible conditions for thanksgiving weekend, I can’t wait for the weather to break so we can get on something with some pitch.

Last week the wind blew and it got extremely cold and I was convinced all the snow had gone to shit.  I didn’t even go out on saturday, opting to pass on a day of -17 F. temps, wind, and crust skiing.  But sunday, neither Max nor I could resist and we wound up going up Cornbiscuit.  Strangely it was cloudy and overcast everywhere but Turnagain Pass, and we actually had decent visibility, although very little direct sunshine.  And the snow, was actually fantastic, the week long cold snap had dried it out and made it surprisingly fast, I was shocked how quick I got going before having a chance to throw a turn, and the wind seemed to have minimal effect on the northern lines in Davis Creek.  So great times, and I’m thrilled to report that its currently dumping in Anchorage, and has been snowing hard down south since early yesterday.  So whoohoo, more snow and more skiing to come.  Video form the weekend bellow.

Max on Eddies from Friday, a decent sample of the conditions in the trees.

Thanks to veterans day, and a series of storms blowing through, I’ve spent the last 3 days doing nothing other then ski powder and watch football.  My progarm has been as follows.  Leave home each morning before the sun is up, spend all day swimming in the snow, a nervous drive home (today the car in front of us lost a wheel, etc.) in the dark followed by lounging at home, eating some pizza, and disinterestedly watching football.  Friday I went up Eddies with Max and Mikey, and returned there again on Saturday with Andy.  Friday was pretty deep, and it continued to snow through that night and all day Saturday, so both days were deep and wet with lots of faceshots.

Today, Andy and I were headed back to Turnagain and the sun was coming out, we really couldn’t believe our luck, but once we got out of the car at Sunburst we instantly noticed the wind, which battered us all day.  It was also worth a laugh that after cruising past and overflowing Tin Can lot, Keille and friends were the only people parked at sunburst, and the next 3 cars all contained friends of ours whose first words were to remark on the crowd at tin can.  It made for a kind of a class reunion fare as everyone caught up after the long off season.

So we headed up Magnum and braved the winds, which were of the super nasty sustained type, with gusts to 40 or so as well. As predicted they torched the snow in places.  Luckily, Davis Creek is small and somewhat sheltered, so after a turn or two we found some extremely nice powder.  I’ve only got a handful of pictures from today, with the heavy snow friday and saturday and the intense wind and cold today weren’t very conducive to picture taking.  I also set off a non consequence windslab lower down by slashing on the crest of wind loaded gully.  Picture bellow.  Oh, and I have to mention Jamie Pierre, RIP.  He’s made an appearance in each of our full length films, and talked shit to all of us back in the Utah days.  Very sad news.

Fall is an awful season, I’m so glad its over.   As with every year, each fall season that I don’t leave the country my accomplishments consist of driving my self crazy over tedium, and boredom.  The skiing has been pretty good the last couple of weeks though, and I’ve been feeling better, but today was absolutely fantastic, I feel like I got put back on my medicine.  I went up to Goldpan with Andy this morning, and enjoyed a nice ridge walk along Magnum with the Viking before dropping in to Superbowl.  Some other folks had beat us up there, but no one had skied the line I was planning on taking, so it was all good.  A little wind affected up top, but absolute pow down bellow.  I didn’t ski so well, as I’m not really in shape yet and embarassingly my legs were gassed halfway down.  From there, Andy and I headed up Cornbiscuit and skied the corner-pocket chute before bushwhacking our way back to the road.  Our run down Superbowl has had me in a permagrin since I got to the bottom.  After last years horrible season it felt so so nice to finally ski something steep and interesting. Video bellow.

Andy and I tried to go elsewhere, but as we drove further the rain only increased, so we retreated and parked at Tin Can along with another 20 cars.  I do love seeing the regional bro’s early season enthusiasm, which gets people out walking through creeks and post holing in the rain for some low visibility turns in some very super sticky snow.  I guess it goes to explain why so many people are burnt out by march, but who cares.  Great times, the circus like atmosphere and drinking beers in blowing snow on Tin Can really made it feel like winter was back.  So pleased

No actual pictures or video of last weekends wedding, but a couple videos of some of the weeks festivities have  made it online so I might as well put them up as relief from the recent sailing theme around these parts.  Above is a video Scott put together of our trip down 6 Mile Creek  with Chugach Outdoor Center.  Bellow are Wilsons’ attempts to break up our post wedding hangovers with some homemade model rockets (plastic water bottles and duct tape) which struggled to make it 100 feet in the air.  Good times.

Despite the challenges we got some incredibly lucky weather, and were able to play the tide to our advantage on a few occasions allowing us to eek out a victory.  We took 2nd in the last race to clinch the win by less then half a boat length.  Coming in to the windward finish on starboard we were completely overpowered, and Norm (our rookie helmsman) had the tiller in his chest trying to keep the boat from rounding up.  Our closest rival barged in on port and fouled us just as we were crossing the line, making for a great finish to the regatta.  All in all a fantastic weekend in Seward.  The WHSYC is an amazing place, and through a fantastic party Saturday night, our crew ended up drinking for a little over 8 hours post race, and were all struggling with hangovers pre-race on Sunday.   The only setback was my GoPro having no end of problems on Sunday, so I have next to no footage of any racing in the sunshine.  That said, enjoy the cold gray racing in the rain from Sunday.  Also, if your looking for any more sailing videos I highly suggest Gary’s Kite-cam footage of sailing around outside of Seward.

First up is my local liquor store clerk Vinny, who protects his Mustang with a parking cone.  Although his car has been hit on numerous occasion by his own drunken clientele, he still refuses to park behind the store.  He considers the parking cone a double win, not only is it protecting his front bumper, but it also brings increased attention to his beloved car.

The El Camino enjoys enormous popularity amongst my neighbors.  This house,  previously featured around here for their incredible no trespassing sign, always proudly parks their El Camino in their driveway, and commonly stores 4 wheelers, Dirt Bikes, strange plastic vats, or extension ladders in the back bed.  Since taking this picture this house’s inhabitants have acquired an additional El Camino (forest green) that came with a white topper.

Again, here is a pair of dueling El Caminos a 5 minute walk from my house.  The broken early 90s wood trim television in the back is worthy of a couple of extra points.

The El Camino is so loved in this little neighborhood some people have even branched out and purchased a copycat Dodge Rampage 22, a model I never knew existed.

This is the local Ice cream truck that I would love to claim was driven by a pedophile if it wasn’t actually driven by a large women with huge 80s rocker hair.  While listening to this thing as it wanders through the streets near my house playing it’s stupid tune I’ve become convinced that someone driving around blasting metal and selling cigarettes and booze out of a pickup truck would make a lot more money then this women trying to take a couple quarters from the kids.

Our Nunavut corespondent just sent in a little helicopter footage of a massive caribou herd.  Looks to be plenty of animals up there in Canada.

Traffic on friday evening was outrageous, and Kim and I only arrived because we avoided the highway closure by taking the Skilak Lake cutoff.  Our friends that left a few hours later weren’t so lucky, and ended up camping on the highway.  Friday evening was gorgeous, but by the time they all arrived early Saturday morning it began to rain, and didn’t quit until sometime Monday.  Early that morning a game of Rye Bocce commenced, and moments after it finished Kim managed to roll Mikey’s four wheeler, impaling his calf, and requiring 19 stitches at the Soldotna Emergency Room.

The fishing was really slow, so very little fishing was done at all, and the rain forced us to spend most of our time beneath a tarp we strung between the trucks.  Nonetheless a good time was had, Max and I even got a little Windsurfing done in the mouth of the river, despite less then co-operative winds.  I managed to have all sorts of issues, and was forced to swim the board back to shore, whereupon I began throwing up.  Great times for sure, and it certainly beats having to get rescued by the Coast Guard or floating out to sea.  Anyway, video bellow, no footage of fish actually being caught, but plenty of the usual beach antics plus some Windsurfing.

Filed under: Fish, mitigated disasters, Uncategorized, video, wind sports Tagged: dipnetting, kasilof ]]> http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/07/27/lazy-weekend-camping-in-the-rain/feed/ 1 dongshow sleeping in the rain dipnetting http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/07/21/kasilof-red-salmon/ http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/07/21/kasilof-red-salmon/#comments Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:01:55 +0000 dongshow http://dongshow-productions.com/?p=1962 ]]> With word from Riley that the were  fish hitting hard Kim and I bailed out of town Monday night and headed down to Kasilof to see if we could take advantage of the commercial fishing closure on Tuesday.  I haven’t  had the opportunity to dip net on the Kenai Peninsula on a non weekend or holiday, and the more relaxed atmosphere with the smaller weekday crowd was a definite positive.   The fishing started slow, by 2 pm we had 6 fish and had spent more time grilling, playing petanque or drinking whiskey then we had fishing.   The late afternoon tide was very favorable to us though, during a 45 minute window we were catching a fish every two to three minutes and spent more time untangling and killing the fish then we did in the water.   Once we had reached our limit the fish were packed and we raced back to Anchorage.  I’m pumped to have some fresh fish (the fillets we ate last night were amazing), but I’m equally excited to be relieved of the duty to fish this weekend, allowing me to chill on the beach focusing on windsurfing and petanque.  Till next time…