FLY BY Sweat Equity in Sou east Alaska Mark Rainery managing sluff and speed on a first descent they named Lara Croft—it’s right next to Tomb Raider. Photo: Will Wissman Words Colin Wiseman RYLAND BELL is on the throttle, but we’re moving slow. Under a canopy of spruce and hemlock, the trail is frozen solid. It’s hard to keep a snow machine from overheating in these conditions. We’ve been at it since before sunrise, working our way across a frozen Chilkat River, then up a familiar ridgeline, switchbacking through the woods, trying to stay cool, despite the cold. It’s an early April morning and there’s snow up high—we just gotta get there. Ideally, before the helicopters arrive. It’s not easy being a snowboarder in Haines, AK. Maybe that’s why so few actually live here. But this is how they get it done—early ups, daily driving and a lot of sweat equity. A lot of waiting out the weather too. There are no chairlifts around here, and heli days are hard to come by financially. With us today are local carpenter Adam Billings and Tahoe-based Chris Galvin, who’s been living above Ryland’s garage for a month or more during the past several years, learning the ropes. These are the Outliers—a few of them, at least. There’s a contingent down the Lynn Canal in Juneau, too, who have lift-accessed riding at the notoriously fickle and community-operat-ed Eaglecrest Ski Area. For them, the real gems of the high country require considerable effort and rare conditions to reach as well. Perhaps that’s why the Southeast AK snowboard commu-nity remains small in numbers but big in camaraderie—to live and ride here is no easy task. Visiting pros flock every spring to stack video parts, burn heli hours, then get out of town. To do it yourself is a different program, and one that requires patience and perseverance. But when it all aligns, the rewards are huge. That was on display last year in The Outliers , a DIY full-length film produced and edited by Juneau’s Mark Rainery. He cobbled it to-gether mostly through iPhone, GoPro and drone clips, assisted by a full hard drive from Bell, with backing from local shops Board-erline Legacy and the Aurora Projekt alongside other local busi-nesses and a bit of snowboard industry support. The piece was a hit—it passed 200,000 views on YouTube with an editing style that Ryland describes as “not all chopped up, something like an old Standard Films movie, showing the full line, just freeriding.” That was the product of two years of footage and the duo didn’t really plan on dropping a follow-up so soon. But they kept filming, as they do, and “doing drone stuff,” as Ryland says, in his case. 034 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 21.4: Page 34
