The Snowboarder's Journal • frequency 15.3 • The Brothel

It was an unusual morning with just four of us in the cook tent. Lindsay was outside, hurrying back and forth from her tent to the storage area. Then she appeared: “Hey Zak, any reply from Drake?”

Zak Mills checked his sat-messenger. “He’ll be flying out in the afternoon.”

We looked at each other. Was Lindsay leaving? We were only a week in and we had planned to stay for two weeks. Did we really smell that bad? Life on a glacier with a group you’d met at a bar a few nights prior to flying out can be challenging. Chris Logan, Kevin Girouard, Zak and I had known each other in one way or another for a few years. This was our dream—entering the unknown world of glacier camping in Alaska. Lindsay Dolan had joined us on a whim.

We puttered around camp until Drake Olson, a legendary bush pilot known for dropping off adventurous Alaskan crews in the alpine, arrived. While saying goodbye to Lindsay, we began to chat with Drake. “How come no one has ridden the Brothel?” he asked. “Well, we have scouted the entrance and exit...”

We haven’t belayed into it yet! Of course, we should belay into it—at least have a look at the snow on the spine wall.

Drake and Lindsay flew off toward Haines and we geared up. There’s a deep history behind this beautiful spine wall known as the Brothel. It sits in British Columbia’s Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park. As far as I know, the only person who had ridden it was Jeremy Jones back in the cowboy days of Haines heli-skiing. It has since been closed to mechanized access. We’d be the first to approach on foot.

The Brothel looked easy to get into, yet hard to get out of. The glacier below the wall was littered with crevasses and seracs. A ski crew was also camped next to us, eyeing the line. Not only would conditions need to line up perfectly, but we’d also have to beat them to the punch.

We left camp at about 3pm to scout the line from the top. We didn’t intend to ride it that day. After reaching a col beyond the glacier, we could see an ascent route. First, we bootpacked a steep pitch around a cliff band to our first drop-in point. One by one, the four of us rode chalky pow around crevasses and then regrouped. Then we roped up and skinned through more crevasses to the bottom of a couloir on the backside of the line. As we entered the couloir, Logan, who was taking up the rear, fell through a bergschrund. Although frightening, we pulled him out unscathed and continued up the couloir. The snow was crusty—not ideal for a descent.

As we climbed the couloir, Drake flew above with Victor de Le Rue and friends, who were scouting the Brothel. Apparently, it was a popular objective in the spring of 2017. Reaching the ridge, the snow looked great on the spines. We hiked farther up the ridge. The sun was beginning to set. We’d been traveling for four hours to get to this point. It felt right to do it then and there.

We quickly switched our gear over and strapped in. Zak dropped first and came out the bottom a few minutes later shouting with pleasure. I went third and felt that great rush of euphoria—the culmination of a week’s worth of cold, uncertainty and anxiety. By the time all four of us made it down safely, it was growing dark. The couloir we thought we could climb for direct access to camp turned out to have another ridge behind it. We’d have to ride farther down. We’d made an error in judgement and were now taking a huge risk.

“The sun was beginning to set. We’d been travelling for four hours to get to this point. It felt right to do it then and there.”

This is the less-glamorous part of riding a trophy line by foot—getting home. Especially when you’ve waited until late in the day.

We dropped an ice bulge one by one, each of us wiping out on the firm, bumpy ice. Then we had to navigate a large serac. We put on our headlamps and dove in, threading through crevasses in the dark, finally gaining our intended ridge. By the time we reached our old tracks back to camp, aurora borealis danced faintly on the horizon. Through strong route-finding and a bit of luck, we’d made it through the glacier unscathed.

A few days later, we packed up camp and flew back to civilization. A north wind had destroyed all northerly aspects. Back at the hangar, Drake turned to us before we left. “You guys are coming back, right?”

The Snowboarder's Journal - frequency 15.3

The Brothel

“The sun was beginning to set. We’d been travelling for four hours to get to this point. It felt right to do it then and there.”

Issue List

frequency 16.1

frequency 15.4

frequency 15.3

frequency 15.2

frequency 14.1