The Snowboarder's Journal - The Snowboarder's Journal 20.4
LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITY: Mount Bertha, Glacier Bay National Park, 2021
Words and Art: Jeremy Jones 2023-01-24 08:04:43
Embracing the journey is embracing reality and doing with it the most you can. This is essential when dealing with the weather and the snowpack. The spring of 2021, Mother Nature dealt some of the most unique extreme weather circumstances I’ve ever encountered. The plan was to get dropped off by boat deep in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. An ocean blizzard pinned us in the bay, extending our twenty-five-hour boat ride into a six-day crawl. Sneaking into the mountains between storms required an eighteen-hour wobbly death march that put us into camp just before a seven-day wet snow/rainstorm that at times had us digging out every three hours to keep our tents from collapsing.
When the storm finally broke, the sun came out and temps spiked 40 degrees above average. The closest town, Haines, reached 75 degrees. We were poised on a high glacier with north-facing terrain, the perfect setup for mid-April spine riding. This was the first sun we’d seen in two weeks, but instead of hiking and riding, we sat in camp staring at the surrounding slopes. The first day three hundred avalanches ran within view. The second day, two hundred. Our spine paradise, which ranged in elevation from 6,000 to 7,500 feet, was ruined in forty-eight hours.
Rather than wasting time on our desperate situation, my mind shifted to “What opportunity does the situation present?” This takes practice, starting with very small, positive-focused moments back home. “What’s good right now?” That opportunity came in the form of a peak one ridge back, the 10,300-foot Mount Bertha. Specifically, the 3,200-foot northeast face that is usually covered in ice and unrideable, except maybe in summer. “What if this warm weather softened the ice? What if the rain that hit camp was snow up that high?”
I shifted my view as soon as it was apparent the entire area we’d been focusing on for months was off the table. There’s usually a great outcome if you train your mind to look for one. A few days later, when the mountains had settled, my partners, Griffin Post, Elena Hight, Ed Shanley, and Leslie Hittmeier, and I found the answer: a screaming yes! Perfect conditions up high. Quite possibly the best line of my life, thanks to a heat wave.
Excerpted from The Art of Shralpinism: Lessons from the Mountains by Jeremy Jones (November 2022). Published by Mountaineers Books. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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