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Text by: Greg Von Doersten
There are few mountain ranges in the world that deliver some of the most impressive terrain, lightest snow, and mind-blowing skiing like Alaska. For the last 30 years, I’ve been exploring and documenting skiing and snowboarding in Alaska by foot, boat, airplane, and helicopter to capture the amazing light, incredible fluted spines, and fairly stable maritime snowpack.
The following photos span a period of time from the late ’80s in Valdez and the first airplane and heli-skiing venues, exploring the Chilkat Mountains near Haines in the late ’90s, to the present-day, using foot-powered expeditions and boats to forge deeper into the heart and soul of Alaska’s skiing opportunities.
The Last Frontier
Photo: Greg Von Doersten
For many skiers and snowboarders, the first glimpse you see when you reach Thompson Pass is this impressive expanse of huge ramps and fluted peaks of the Chugach mountains. To the novice, it reveals all of the possibilities that skiing’s Last Frontier has to offer. To those that have witnessed the iconic lines in magazines and movies, it offers the opportunity to finally test themselves against that fabled terrain.
1996 World Extreme Skiing Championships
Photo: Greg Von Doersten
The World Extreme Skiing Championships was conceived by Mike Cozad and was the first skiing competition of its kind, and would go on to define a new genre in the sport, “big mountain” skiing. Cozad was the visionary owner of the original Tsaina Lodge. Along with Alaskan bush pilot Chuck McMahan, Cozad would start operating heli and plane skiing excursions on Thompson Pass from the lodge in the late ’80s. With a group of friends, they singlehandedly created the thriving industry it is today with over five heli operations in the area.