Victor De Le Rue
Victor De Le Rue

A week has passed, a new window is coming and everyone is excited. It snowed about a meter during this time and we’re hoping this is our moment. On the first bluebird day we scope and dig pits understand the layers. Manuel opens another ridge full of funny short lines that we name “Buenos Diaz.” Wolle pops out of a spine with a smooth backside three and lands easily. Step by step the riders gain confidence and are starting to really rip those virgin mountains. The snow is more stable and Blair motivates the crew for some big mountain riding. Mathieu Crepel and Jason Robinson jump in the heli to get a closer look at a mountain we saw from afar the other day. From the air we discover a giant beast, steep and scary as hell, with three giant shoulders dropping down in thousand foot spines. Vlady and I get dropped on top of a facing mountain and watch the chopper as it climbs up the face, now tiny as a fly. The face is so huge that for once our guide Ivan has to leave the three explorers alone to stay with us, radio in hand in case something happens.

Blair Habenicht, "Mordor."
Blair Habenicht, “Mordor.”

The boys are now dropped and ready, and the intense pressure of the first descent is coming in. This is epic! Blair drops first on the left spine and starts flying in powder, laying long turns while finding his way down the labyrinth of spines and cliffs. The snow is stable and his confidence is up, so up that he arrives too fast on a slope bank and experiences an unintentional jump into a gully. He stands up quickly and keeps descending. He is fast and his line is beautiful all the way down to the flat glacier. “WOOOHOO!!!” Mathieu drops second and in the same style makes his way down. It must be such an insane feeling, shredding a whole mountain like this. His line is just as pure, finished with a huge method from a pillow over a cliff. Jason is definitely impressed by the size and the difficulty of the labyrinth, and as he rides down yet another spine has to make a couple quick stops to make sure he’s not going towards a dead end. All three safe at the bottom, we celebrate, and choose a name for it, it will be a well-deserved “Mordor.”

After all the hard times in the beginning of the trip, it is now totally paying off. Riders are hot, conditions are good, we know the zone close from our camp really well and our moves are efficient. As days pass we find a new zone full of cool features and we are blown away by the terrain, feeling like kids at Disneyland for the first time. It will be the perfect name for this face, “Disneyland.”

Photo: TanonDown at camp the excitement is growing. We drive to Haines to fill up with gas, food and propane for the necessary heaters of our RVs. Civilization! We take showers, as we were starting to stink pretty bad. On the last day of blue in sight, we go back to Disneyland. While Victor lands engaged spins on a big double cliff that will owe him the cover of the movie, we attack “Joker Face,” a short open bowl with a big cliff in the middle. Blair lands a transfer both in ollie and backside 180, while Manuel keeps showing everybody how gnarly he is. He jumps an obvious pillow cliff on top of the run and goes for a frontside 360 off a 40-foot drop. He holds on to his legs and lands! Holy Chilean donkey! Crepel backside 180’s a spine and tries to frontside five off the big pillow with Manuel. What a last day! As we gather on the glacier at the bottom, we share our stories. This is such a good crew. Everybody has their place and the emulation is perfect.

In the tiny plane leaving Haines, alone with the pilot, I look back on my adventure – I already miss shitting in the woods, living the simple life with open-minded people, punctuated by intense madness where in a ten minute heli ride you find yourself on top of an unnamed Alaskan peak. If any single one of these mountains were somewhere in Western Europe or Colorado it would stand out as a major attraction, steep and sharp with it’s snow-packed spines rising to the sky. But out there, they were totally anonymous. Most don’t even have a name. It is a sight of pure beauty. Their aesthetic lines call for admiration, contemplation and after awhile, a challenge to ride them, an invitation.

Jason Robinson, "Disneyland."
Jason Robinson, “Disneyland.”

It was pretty intense to live in this kind of wilderness – anytime you can walk right into a bear, wolf, or even worse, a wolverine. This perspective, if you add it to the giant scale of the mountains, make you feel small and vulnerable, and therefore much more alive. Every minute counts, every day makes you feel happy to be alive, to experience life to a new extent. Everything seems right. We all felt this. We are humans, explorers, survivors, enjoyers of life since the beginning.