By Doug Workman, Valdez Heli Ski Guides

Some say anyone can ski in Alaska. They’re full of it. No, you don’t need to be a professional “athlete.” Nor do you need to hang it out daily on double-exposed near-death runs. But you do need to be a junkie. You know, the type that sits around drooling over ski photos in July. Or the geeked out freak sitting in front of his computer in May dreaming about snow, only a few weeks after a frustrating Valdez season in which there were more couch days than ski days.

When it’s snowing in Alaska you can’t fly. When it’s windy you can’t fly. When it’s cloudy you can’t see ten feet in front of your ski tips. So when it storms, you sit. Or pace.

Maybe the happiest ski guides in Alaska are the ones on Prozac. Come to think of it, guides and clients alike should make the little green pill standard issue along with shovel, probe, and beacon. At least during down days you’d actually use the pills.

Eventually, you put your skins on and hike into the ping pong ball. With no trees for reference you grope your way to the couloirs above the Tsaina Lodge. Two thousand vertical feet later you’re at the base of a coulior. Once inside, you can actually see — the rock walls giving you reference, security, and hope. A thousand feet later and you’re at the top.

With luck, a milky hole appears in the sky and you jump into the powder below, for ten seconds of joy before you’re confronted by the blinding whiteness of the glacier below.
Back at base more clients and guides stare at the sky hoping the clouds will burn off. Some are more realistic than others.

Those who’ve played the game longest know it’s worth the wait. But not all have the patience. Eventually one or two clients pull the rip cord and return to the lower 48. Veteran guides grin, knowing it often takes a sacrificial lamb to earn the favor of the Chugach.