LEFT TO RIGHT “137 voices, silent under the Alaskan sky.” —Robin Van Gyn Photo: Aaron Blatt Between towers of ice, Robin Van Gyn finds a hack-worthy pocket of fresh snow. Photo: Aaron Blatt fter a four-inch reset overnight, we were back on the skin track and into the bootpack for round two on Nau-tilus proper. Despite the new snow, conditions hadn’t changed much: steep, variable, unpredictable and fast-moving sluff that was hard to manage. Conditions dictated we not go too fast, so our sluff was beside, around, ahead of us, always a threat to take you for a ride you don’t want to go on. Not perfect, but exciting nonetheless. Riding on exhilaration and in the flow, we wanted one more. There were some spicier lines to looker’s right that appeared to go. With confidence built from two successful lines, we started to make a plan. During our discussion, we all felt the warmth on our backs—a temperature shift. Just past the skin track and into the first transition with cram-pons on, the mountain raised its voice. Shane and I had to traverse through a small pocket of exposure to get on the face—maybe 10 steps. Shane went first and made it through clean. As I followed, three steps in, snow began to pour like champagne over a roll 30 feet above me. It might have only been a five-foot-wide river of snow, but the weight was crushing. I dug in, put my head down, and held on as it passed over me. Reaching Shane 30 seconds lat-er, a larger sluff followed through in the same spot. It could have been enough to sweep us to the bottom. “We’re done,” I said over the radio. Elena and Michelle were wallowing up a spine, making little progress. They agreed. Ev-eryone agreed. With all voices from our tent, all voices from our mountain past, all voices from media, and all voices of the moun-tain yelling “get off,” we did just that. One-hundred-and-thirty-seven humbling hugs and one-hun-dred-and-thirty-seven “glad you’re OKs” met us back at the tent. From the safety of camp, we watched the mountains come down around us. A
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 21.2: Page 46
