The Way Wondered

A short story of a guides perspective, traveling to ski, From Haines, AK at SEABA HEli to Hokkaido, Japan with Limitless Guiding by Chris Martin

Back on the road, back at home moving like a passenger train. Nomads by nature , we live our days thriving in mountain culture. A lifestyle we all choose, to remain uncertain, to remain raw in the inevitable doubt that the mainstream will continue to dull our inspiration. Mountain culture is cultivating peace where the heart is, where the heart knows it will go and ultimately where we choose home to be. The duality between the heart and home brings a push and pull between rest at home and adventure in the mountains. What is too much and what is too tamed?

As an IFMGA, internationally Certified Mountain Guide, I make a living in the terrain that surrounds us through the people that make Our community. This means I visit the same terrain two times in the morning and two times in the afternooN but it’d their people that alchemize my guiding into nurturing.

This season I yearned for a change in my circuit. The circuit continues to evolve each season, where do you chose your work or vacation each year? Do you tend to return to similar places, or chose new locations for adventure? Either a taste or a dive, both have benefits in their objective depths to experience, I chose the seasonal return with the occasional new visit each season. I’ve been visiting Alaska every spring for ten seasons now & I chose japan for the first time. These endeavors this season were guiding assignments working for SEABA Heli in Southeastern Alaska, Haines to be exact, and Limitless Guiding in Japan on the north Island of Hokkaido. Each experience is unique in its own.

Mountain culture of Japan to Alaska, each with maritime snowpack characteristics and cultures that breath skiing. Now let’s remember maritime and intermountain snowpacks, although traditionally have fewer weak layers, they can still bread deep avalanches. While guiding in japan and Alaska its my duty to search out the presence of these instabilities and chose terrain accordingly For the groups I lead.

Each season there are accidents in Japan and Alaska and generally these are in areas more interior from the ocean but still can occur in the reality of any location. A trustworthy guide will be honest in their assessment of the presence of these weak layers and the current reactivity of layers that may be present but may not be a current issue under sufficient assessment to each aspect of the terrain you are skiing.

Japan is a quintessential cultural experience for any traveling skier. This combination of resort skiing, backcountry and cuisine is a restful experience in its own. The travel can be full on if figuring out on your own, but hiring a guide service can ease all of that up! I Guide for Limitless guiding who creates boutique experiences for small groups from the airport pickup to drop off and everything in between, my favorite is the onsen (Hot spring) experience, yes everyday after skiing! I thought i’d miss my Bath time at home with so much time away, but it was easily replaced with the calming restoring waters of northern japan. We choose the north Island of Hokkaido for our tours because of the fluidness of consistent snowfall and less inconsistent winter conditions which can occur in the Japanese alps, on the main island of Japan. On the line of snow assessment we chose this location to avoid abnormal winter occurrences that create weak layers that every winter bring at least one fatality to the region of the Japanese alps. Just because you hear its a more stable place to ski doesn’t mean it is!

Japan has ski resorts compared to none in the United States. Pictured here we are loading up the Tram at Asahi-daKe. This “resort” is any backcountry skiers dream. A single tram leading to uncharted backcountry terrain with no ski patrol. The no ski patrol isn’t a perk per say but the feel of freedom dives deep with a single lift access to endless powder. If your lucky and visit on a day like you see here you may even be able to ski the highest peak in Hokkaido, volcanoe Asahi-dake at 7,516’ with a vertical relief of over 4,000’ vertical. The shreddiest lines lie ahead at this place, steep, varied and many opportunities for secret powder lines.

We incorporate cultural days into our experience at Limitless Guiding. The skiing began with these locals using the islands resources to get around in the snow. To this day, you won’t see locals charging hard in powder, although this trend is changing and I did give some local shredders a lift from a backcountry spot one day they were hitch-hiking from. Their belief is their ancestors spirits live in the trees, which keeps them out of the trees and on the main runs more often than not, but with younger generations noticing world travelers in mass quantity enjoying powder snow in the trees, this is changing the younger generations viewpoints rapidly.

The Culture of Japan was the most intriguing aspect of traveling overseas. The pace, the people and the flow of their lives. They have a true ”hive mind” occurring. From a young age in grade school, kids are taught a common practice of caring for one another as an underlying theme to their studies, operating in a manor that support the greater vision, before themselves. This must bring a freedom to their lives, living in community before anything else. Individualism is not an aspect of how they see their daily lives, you can feel this in the way they drive, eat, ski, and bath in the onsens.

This is best explained through the number one lesson I have borrowed from Japan, ”Hara Hachi Bu”. Only live your life to 80% full, never take that last run, or eat too much, enjoy embracing the present moment for what it is.

After a visit home for february, a Colorado work hut trip avalanche course and some work days at the cat ski around home followed by a send off dance at the Belly up Aspen for String cheese, I fly out of aspen saying goodbye to my wife and friends and head straight north up to Haines, AK and a full season ahead with SEABA Heli. The reality of Alaska is a deep reverence for the risk that exists in this terrain and snowpack. Days before I left a tragic incident took the lives of three skiers in an operations bread and butter terrain. This occurred in Girdwood, a more interior region of AK harboring a Surface hoar layer that triggered while three skiers bunched up in the wrong “safe” zone while awaiting to approach the PZ, Pick up zone of the helicopter. It’s not the big gnarly terrain that will get you in AK, its often the 40* terrain with the wrong travel techniques. As I approached the season with SEABA heli, i noticed we had a keen eye on the way we were operating, constant feedback, adjustments and altering our “normal” ways of doing things. One at a time all the way through. Almost debilitating how long we waited for one person to move through the terrain to a deemed pickup zone free of additional hazard of avalanche, cornice, glacier search fall and terrain trap concerns.

The YLE 118s in action in The ChiKats in SE Alaska. Haines, AK is the birthplace to skiing terrain like no other on this planet. The skiers that visit this wild arena come for the uniqueness of skiing spines, swathes, peaks and descents up to 6,000’ in vertical relief.

SEABA Heli breeds ski culture And hosts the best skiers in the world. This place is a nest for skiers alike to come together to ski, eat, play and live for the day at hand. The freedom felt at Fort Seward Lodge brings you back to your younger days of freedom While reminding you to take it easy in lodge life and tighten it up in the mountains.

It is tradition at SEABE heli, whenever a storm is on its approach we throw a party that evening. We call is a “Spinner”. The next day is planned to be 100% a down day because of weather. A Spinner refers to the incoming system getting stuck over the range and spinning its way into the SE panhandle dropping its moisture and bringing a refresh to the chilkat mountain outside Haines. Sucks to be down but then that means its powder for days once it goes blue again.

SEABA Heli port just outside of Haines, AK located a short minute drive from our lodge downtown Haines. Haines: “A drinking town with a greenie problem”. A small fishing town on the coast of Alaskas’ SE panhandle. This place is quiet, waking up during heli season and summer tourism season, the locals are nice and seem to be welcoming. Others are simply drunks who don’t care about anything. The heli skiers here care about the environment but also burn Jet A fuel. It’s a healthy balance of environment stewards and crusty locals but all around SEABA heli helps the stewards with errands in the use of helicopters because we have some of those greenies who live in Haines year round and care about this place.