Here are some screen grabs of Megan from our trip to Thompson Pass.
Megan’s segment this year will be hands down the best female ski segment we’ve ever shot. She killed it.
JH
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I have been home now importing the footage I shot from AK. I pulled some screen grabs from Jake Sakson’s footage. I hope you enjoy.
Jake did an amazing job skiing some big lines, really fast. Jake leads a interesting life, you can check out what he’s up to here.
JH
Noah is still up in AK getting his expedition skiing on. Andrew Mclean is doing satellite phone updates from their trip if you want to check it out. Here are some photos from Noah’s first three weeks in Haines courtesy of Jay Beyer.
When Noah returns from AK he can give you a full update about their trip.
I currently am sitting at home/PW world headquarters. The last week was the hardest. We had more down days due to bad weather then any other week.
We spent way too much time playing Hearts in the RV.
We all had to find things to do to stay sane.
Jake doing his physical therapy on his shoulder so he'll be ready to kayak when he gets home.
Paul getting his internet on.
Me working on my beard growth
Jason searching for apps that change weather.
We tried entertaining ourselves by going out in crappy conditions and skiing the benches.
We got so bored we raced up the benches and skied shirtless just to make it more challenging.
Enough of me bitching about bad weather because the sun eventually came out and it was good.
Jason dropping in.
Jason taking advantage of the good weather.
Jake skiing some pow
Jason getting after it.
Jason's last run of the trip.
We ended up having two blue days the last week. Paul took most of the ski photos in between his runs. It was an amazing adventure. I couldn’t ask for better people to do it with. Thanks guys for slaying it and hanging out with Papi.
Dropping off the RV and saying our good byes. Yes I do wear sunglasses at night.
Paul and Jake are still in AK gathering veggie oil for their drive home. Good luck guys.
JH
We left Thompson Pass to go grab Paige Brady and Jason West so they could do some filming with us for the second two weeks. Paige had been skiing in the Tordrillos the week prior and got frostbite on both her big toes.
Ouch! Paige's toe in the Tordrillos
After witnessing her toes in person we realized she would not be getting out with us. Thanks to Paige and her family we did some much needed laundry and they made us a great dinner. Then it was off to the airport to grab Jason.
Jason's first morning in the RV. If you look close enough you can check out Jake's nipple in the background. He wanted me to point that out.
The plan was to head to Turnigan Pass and see what we could find. None of us had been there before.
Jason leading the charge his first day on Turnigan Pass.
Our first day there the skies were super milky, but it was nice to get out skinning and check things out. That night brought new snow and a lot of wind. The next day was pretty sunny but we were scared of the new snow and wind combo.
Jason skinning in the wind.
Things got hot quick and we weren’t loving the conditions. Jason triggered two small soft slab avalanches on one run, so we decided we didn’t want to push it anymore. Turnigan Pass was a fun place but we decided that we wanted to go back to Thompson Pass since there seemed to be more snow there and we know the terrain better.
Turnigan Pass
We'll come back someday.
So we hit the road to Thompson Pass. We were planning on getting there Wednesday night, but the RV decided it didn’t want to and the exhaust line broke on us. So we spent the night in Glennallen. Apparently mechanics leave Glennallen in April, so we headed to Copper Center and got it fixed. We hadn’t missed anything on the pass because when we got there it was puking snow. We woke up the next day to about 6″ of new snow in the parking lot. Again knowing that they had received a bunch of new snow and it came with wind we played it safe on the benches.
Jason heading up.
Paul trying to make the benches more exciting.
Jason skiing the pow.
Jake throwing a front flip.
Apparently we made the right call not going bigger that day because when the heli ops got down they told us about how they were triggering 3′ slabs all day. Friday and Saturday have both been gray and windy and people have still been triggering slides so we have stuck to playing insane amounts of Hearts (the card game) in the RV. I hope week four brings us some stability and blue skies.
JH
I can’t believe another week has already passed. The week didn’t exactly start off great, we had cloudy skies the first three days. We took a needed day off on Easter,Monday and Tuesday we played around in the lower benches. Jake and Paul decided to hit a booter we made.
Jake with the world premiere of his two pole one hand 360.
Paul making the best out of a gray day.
Then on Wednesday morning this man came knocking on our RV door.
Dylan Freed our friend and guide for VHSG.
He had good news for us. Valdez Heli Ski Guides had a helicopter and a guide available to us. They made us a deal we couldn’t refuse, so we went off for six heli drops in a zone that none of us had skied before.
Paul's first run of the day.
The snow was deeper and the sluffs were bigger, it was an intense day.
Jake at the bottom oh his first run after he fell and had a sluff train run him over and a small pocket release above him. No injuries, just some lost gear.
Jake right back at it after the scare.
Paul dropping in on a line.
Paul and his sluff waterfall.
The helicopter would land after it dropped us off and we'd ski down to it and go for another one. It was an insane experience.
Our last drop of the day was on top of Diamond. It’s a 6,000′ run back to the RV. It was fun just leaving the camera in my backpack and just skiing with the crew. It was a once in a lifetime day.
Crew on top of Diamond.
Thursday was Megans last day she had to get back home for a few days before heading to Iceland. Thursday turned out to be another bluebird day so we got a heli one drop and had another great day.
Jake reaching the speed of sound again.
Paul heading up.
Paul on his way down.
Megan took all the photos, but trust me she got a lot of skiing in. Here she is killing it.
Paul working it.
This photo is for my wife she said she wanted to see a photo of me. Thanks for letting me go play in AK for a month.
The crew at the road after our last ski day with Megan.
We took Megan to the Valdez airport and off she went. Megan took all of the above photos. Thanks Megan. The story doesn’t end on Thursday though. Friday was another full blue day and we did another heli one drop. Paul and Jake did their thing like they have been the whole trip. I sit in the RV now on Saturday without a cloud in the sky and we are too tired to go skiing. We will head to Anchorage tomorrow to pick up Jason West and Paige Brady and see where the next two weeks takes us. Alaska is an amazing place. I’d like to thank Dylan Freed and Valdez Heli Ski Guides for helping a bunch of poor hippies have a great time.
JH
Jay Beyer and I drove up to Haines from Salt Lake City 5 days ago.
If all goes well six of us are meeting up in Haines today to press our luck with Alaskan weather again. Last season we were here for over 2 weeks and only saw one sunny day in the mountains and a few in town. So we are back planning for 3 weeks and crossing our fingers.
The crew-
William Cardamone-
Nick Devore-
Andy Jacobsen-
Myself-
Chris Erickson-
Jay Beyer-
We’ll be on the same program as last year, which is getting dropped off deep in the neighboring mountains and spending 2 weeks skiing pow, big lines and waiting out storms. This may be make it or break it for the film this year after the strange winter we’ve had in the Wasatch.
I’ll try and give updates through Jonah via the Sat Phone.
The Journey to Thompson Pass started on March 27th.
Got my ticket to AK
I met up with the crew in Anchorage. They had been competing in the Alyeska World Comp. For info on how they crushed the comp go here. They moved out of Jake Sakson’s veggie oil ambulance and into our 29′ RV.
The crew from left to right. Megan Michelson, Paul Kimbrough, and Jake "Poncho" Sakson.
We headed to Thompson Pass not knowing how great the next several days would be.Below are photos of a just a few of the many zones we skied.
Seven days on the pass and we got out skiing for six. You are usually lucky to get three or four sunny days in two weeks. We’ve been very lucky.
Paul and Jake playing chess on the only down day.
We toured five of the six ski days.
We got a one drop heli lift from Valdez Heli Ski Guides, since we’d already skied everything we could hike to.
Heading up in the chopper.
Megan’s not only slaying her lines she’s also taking photos. Here are some skiing shots. She shot them all but the one of her that Paul took.
Shred Alert! Jake Sakson
Megan dropping in the "Beans and Rice Couloir"
Paul killin it yet again.
Paul throwing a huge 360.
Paul shredding some pow.
Jake taking care of business.
If the next three weeks go as good as this one has I will be one happy and tired camper. It’s really an amazing experience to get to go out and play in these mountains with such amazing athletes. Got to go to bed now we have more to ski tomorrow.
JH
Local outdoor online gear retailer Backcountry.com has been a great supporter of the PW projects and many of our athletes for the last several seasons. They asked us to put together a short promo video highlighting some of their telemark athlete’s. This is a quick edit of some of our favorite shots form last season.
This will be home for the month of April
I am heading to Alaska on the 27th. I will pick up Megan Michelson, Jake Sakson, and Paul Kimbrough in Anchorage. They are already up there competing in the Alyeska Tele Freeski Comp. From Anchorage we are heading to Valdez in our RV/home. Our plan is to ski with Valdez Heli Ski Guides. They are nice enough to let us do heli one drops, so we can get right on top of a line first thing and then tour the rest of the day. We plan on doing that for two weeks.
The Chugach, our playground for two weeks
Megan will be leaving us after two weeks and Paige Brady and Jason West will be joining us.
Turnigan Pass, one of the many options.
We are keeping our last two weeks open, so we can go where we hear it is good. I will try to update on how things are going.
JH
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