“Light The Wick” trailer by TGR.

Ripley Creek, BC TGR Oakley Team Trip.

Stewart, BC-Ripley Creek

Last year was my first trip to these Northern,BC neck of the woods.  TGR and a crew of Oakley athletes went to Bell 2 serviced by Last Frontier Heli a Canadian based heli ski operation.  We heard about Ripley Creek through them on that trip and decided to leave behind the 5 star set up at Bell 2 this year and explore yet another new zone to us.  Stewart sits just on the edge of the southern most part of the Alaskan pan handle nestled up to Hyder, AK on the Coast Mountains.  The road in to town comes to a dead end in Hyder a few miles past Stewart, which is primarily a mining town by trade.  WIth the economic state and lack of mining, Stewart is pretty much a ghost town in the winter.  Some hard core sled necks are pretty much the only people going into these mountains.

The crew consists of Kye Petersen, Callum Pettit, and Sammy Carlson.  We are filming for the TGR’s next film, name still undetermined.  Being with such a youthful group of skiers was nice to see, energy and fearlessness. Which came into play for Callum, he jumped off a piece of glacier ice and skipped off another piece and crashed on some not so soft snow and ended up dislocating his shoulder.  Sore after getting it put back in, but was out for the rest of the trip after a few days in.  The mountains here are pretty intense, poking up out of glacier ice fields and at times the peaks look small because of the massive expanse of snow covered glaciers in between them. This season 15 feet of snow shy of the normal cover, exposed many crevices making many lines unsafe to ski due to the gaping holes in run outs.  Everyday was a new adventure for us searching the terrain by air and sometimes flying to places that offered little and then back to ones we had thought to much to handle at the time.

A curve ball for coming here at this time of year is the light.  February into March is pretty early for these kinds of mountains since they are big and the sun still sits low in the sky.  We had early mornings and late afternoons as our best filming times for the better quality powder.  So NE and NW aspects were on our list.  Many times you over look lines on some of these aspects because you see them in the shade and don’t even notice them.  When you see them lit up you can’t believe your eyes.  Being in a new place its tough to catalog a list of lines for these times of day since you don’t know much of the terrain.  Our guides played a big roll with the knowledge of terrain and aspects.  Some days were sunny others were cloudy, typical Coastal Mountain ski adventure.  Luckily the terrain here offers many pillowy tree runs below the Alpine for cloudy or snowy days.  This worked out for use because the best snow was here and wasn’t seeing the light of day on this trip, even when it was sunny.

Pretty sick trip, good bunch to be with.  Another step towards the main goal of the season AK.  As we had TV on this trip we were able to catch up on the Olympics.  There was alot of curling on, so we inquired and found that we could curl and we did.  US vs Canada, we had even numbers in our groups from representing countries.  US won the best country in the world.  One last thing, if your ever driving to AK you will drive by the turn to Stewart and Hyder.  Make this turn cause your probably not in a hurry and go get Hyderized in Hyder.  I had heard about this from other Pro’s and its not to be missed a moonshine shot of sorts.  Check out TGR’s “Live From The Field” to see some of the stories I’m talking about but in short video versions.

TGR “Re Session” Trailer

Bell 2 Northern, BC Canada

More filming time.  We made the journey North to Bell 2 Lodge.  Nestled between the Coast and Skeena Ranges, offering amazing terrain of all sorts.  An Oakley group, Tanner, Dana and Kye are my skiing partners on this TGR film seg.  Super cool to come to terrain you have never been to before.  Our guide from this operation has helped make it easy to find what we are looking for.

Thus far we have just scratched the surface here.  The weather has cooperated and been clear, but that has brought cold as well, -4 f without wind chill.  Lots of base here, down in the lodge compound it’s a maze of tunnels to get to the chalets.  With a few days left you wonder what will be missed out there.  Hope to get back next season.  Check out the pics in the album.