Featured Picture: Justin Bufue
Alaska, and extra particularly, the Chugach Mountain Vary is amongst the holy grail of huge mountain snowboarding. Every fall, we watch our favourite execs sort out its epic spines, gnarly steeps and blower pow on the large display screen throughout ski film premiere season. Some mere mortals are even lucky sufficient to make the pilgrimage to Alaska for a visit of a lifetime within the Final Frontier.
One of many latest heli-ski operators in AK, Crown Mountain Guides (CMG), is staking their declare alongside among the greatest within the forty ninth state. Now coming into the second “official” season, their unparalleled location, entry to a fleet of A-Star B3 helicopters and a workers of guides, pilots, cooks and extra permits this newcomer to ship genuine Alaskan adventures to company, professional skiers and movie crews
PHOTO: Jake Sloan
The Backstory
Earlier than the formation of the guiding outfit, Alpha Aviation, a helicopter constitution firm owned by the identical dad or mum firm as CMG, had been contracted by a number of of Alaska’s heli-ski operations for almost a decade. Alaska Glacier Lodge, situated about an hour’s drive from Anchorage, can be a part of the umbrella enterprise and has been a longtime summer season vacation spot for vacationers visiting the Land of the Midnight Solar. With this seemingly-perfect infrastructure in place, Director of Operations Mike Neely got down to begin a brand new operation. He employed veteran heli-ski information Travis Elquist, who had been guiding in AK since 2008, as his chief information and Crown Mountain Guides was born.
The brand new operation soft-launched in 2022 with an invite to professional athletes, movie crews and locals to get a style of the expertise in what they dubbed “12 months Zero.” A TGR movie crew introduced athletes Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, Ian McIntosh, Parkin Costain and Maggie Voisin to spend almost two months capturing the AK phase for “Legend Has It.”
“The terrain we skied was tremendous sick,” Costain mentioned. “They’ve some insanely stunning glaciers. We skied by means of these twisted ice tunnels coming out of the bottom there. I skied one in every of my favourite strains from that entire season with Crown Mountain Guides.”
The movie gave CMG an unbelievable platform to market their new outfit whereas additionally permitting Elquist and his crew of guides to familiarize themselves with the terrain.
“I actually pushed to do a whole lot of guiding that yr as a result of I hadn’t flown a ton on this facet of the Chugach Mountain Vary,” Elquist mentioned. “I wanted to familiarize myself with the zones and snow. ‘12 months Zero’ actually ensured we have been delivering a high quality product once we opened up for company final season.”
The Location and Terrain
The scenic lodge provides personal visitor cabins and is tucked away within the coronary heart of the distant Knik River Valley—a 30-minute drive from the closest city of Palmer. This location is CMG’s secret sauce, permitting them to fly to the highest of pristine strains within the Chugach Mountain Vary in as little as three minutes.
“The one factor that now we have that different operators don’t is our location,” Elquist mentioned. “Being on this little climate shadow the place we will fly most days of the week, that’s what actually units us aside—we don’t have many down days. I used to be begging for down days final yr!”
Elquist goes on to elucidate that the Knik Glacier acts as a funnel that may provide vastly completely different climate patterns to the north and the south. When southern flows trigger climate holds within the Chugach Vary, pilots can simply fly skiers 20 minutes north to ski the Talkeetna Vary. When a storm from the west knocks out the northern mountains, the guides head to clearer zones within the southern Chugach Vary. From knife-edge spines to open panels and dreamy couloirs, the terrain within the three-million-plus acre playground provides up one thing for each skier. Final season, Jake Hopfinger, Caite Zeliff and Maggie Voisin shot their new movie “Strike” virtually fully within the Colony Island zone.
“Colony Island is a ski-movie-making manufacturing unit,” Hopfinger mentioned. “We flew a couple of minutes from the lodge and in every single place you seemed, it was like ‘oh, that is sick.’ We had mild on an easterly face within the morning, after which we’d go ski the opposite facet of the ridge within the afternoon. We may choose something from massive cliffs to massive panels and the snow was actually good up there.”
Costain had a favourite spot of his personal. “I feel Atomic Spines is without doubt one of the higher movie strains on the market,” Costain mentioned. “There have been all of those twisted little flutes that lined up completely on the ridge on the proper facet for unimaginable snow.”
Some runs may have 1,500 toes of steep terrain that open up into one other 1,500 toes of wide-open cruising all the way down to a glacier. When the climate and snowpack are excellent, you may have runs beginning at an elevation of 6,000 toes that mean you can ski all the way in which all the way down to 100 toes above sea degree. Different instances, the climate and snowpack dictate that the guides choose 1,000-foot runs and as a substitute of the typical of six to eight runs in a day, you’re doing 10 to 12.
“Due to the way in which our snowpack is available in proper off of the coast, it simply appears to stay after which heal in a short time,” Elquist mentioned. “When now we have storms the place it doesn’t heal as rapidly, now we have different choices exterior of the Chugach Vary because of our prime location.”
Two to a few days monthly, each the Chugach and Talkeetna Ranges are unskiable, in order that they head to the Tordrillo, Alaska or Kenai Ranges—every providing completely different terrain and climate patterns about an hour-long flight from the lodge.
PHOTO: Jake Sloan
The Bespoke Expertise
Prior to arrival, company fill out an intensive questionnaire so the guides have a very good understanding of their snowboarding capability and preferences. Futhermore, pre-trip cellphone calls and conferences with guides and pilots on day one, enable them to construct private relationships to make sure the expertise is fully-dialed.
“Our major focus is creating the proper expertise for our company their whole journey,” CMG Communications & Digital Advertising Supervisor Sage Dudick mentioned. “We wish individuals to indicate as much as Alaska and know that all the pieces is taken care of they usually don’t have to fret a couple of factor.”
Whereas down days are far fewer with Crown Mountain Guides versus different heli-ski operations because of their prime location, they are going to craft actions primarily based in your preferences and requests. Fats tire biking, exploring ice caves, mountaineering, snowshoeing, ice fishing, browsing and glacier lake ice hockey are all on the desk.
“We actually delight ourselves on our down day actions because of the entry that now we have to the Knik Glacier,” Elquist mentioned. “It’s a mecca of recreation, and with Crown’s infrastructure, we’d be idiots to not put it to use to its fullest.”
CMG provides each personal and semi-private heli-skiing they usually take nice care in pairing related capability ranges for the latter. Often there are two teams of three or 4 company snowboarding collectively they usually have three guides between the 2 teams—another than most heli-ski operations. This permits one group to comply with one information into extra superior terrain whereas the opposite group follows a information right into a extra average run in the identical valley with a tail information behind them.
“Our motto final yr was ‘no one leaves sad,’” Elquist mentioned. “I can actually say that we met these expectations—each visitor left with an enormous smile on their face.”
PHOTO: Tyler Bryan
PHOTO: Tyler Bryan
STATS
AVG. day by day runs: 6 to eight, minimal
AVG. day by day vertical: 10,000–20,000 ft
AVG. Annual Snowfall: 400+ inches
SKIING ZONES
CMG primarily operates within the Chugach Vary. As little as three minutes away, this zone provides a deep coastal snowpack that’s tucked simply far sufficient into the mountains that it is available in mild and fluffy. If circumstances within the Chugach aren’t optimum, CMG can fly to the Talkeetna vary in 20-Half-hour, or to the Monster Peaks of the Tordrillos. An hour-flight from Alaska Glacier Lodge, the Alaska Vary is dwelling to Denali, the very best mountain on the continent. Additionally an hour-flight away is the Kenai Vary that gives a extra coastal snowpack and views of the Gulf of Alaska.
GETTING THERE
Crown Mountain Guides is one hour from Ted Stevens Anchorage Int’l Airport (ANC), which has nonstop flights from main cities together with Seattle, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles. Crown Mountain Guides can prepare an airport pickup, or you may lease a automotive to permit for additional Alaskan exploration.
ACCOMMODATIONS, DINING & PACKAGES
The Alaska Glacier Lodge options 22 personal cabins—with a wide range of king, queen and double queen preparations. The principle lodge has a full bar and eating room for family-style meals. Cooks put together a wide range of native dishes together with Alaskan salmon, king crab, reindeer sausage and extra. Make the most of the recent tub and sauna in the course of the après hours and problem your buddies to a match on the ping pong desk or absorb views of the Northern Lights after dinner.
Each day snowboarding beginning at: $1,850
Packages beginning at: $8,500
E book right this moment at crownmountainguides.com
