Friday afternoon of March 22, I departed from Santa Barbara for Seattle. I had a 14 hour layover so I got a hotel room very close and enjoyed a little 3.5 mile exploration, a shower and good sleep. This was a fun start and Seattle is beautiful. Seattle is green with beautiful and very tall trees and with homes on larger lots that don’t need fences between neighbors. What a cool place to spend some time.

Saturday, March 23... Seattle to Alaska... arriving in Alaska!

Saturday morning I boarded the same flight as Lynsey. I got to meet her (Lynsey Dyer) in the TSA line. The flight was great. Upon arrival we grabbed all our bags (lots of bags) and headed to check in for our seaplane to Haines. We dropped bags off and took a taxi to breakfast in downtown Juneau. Juneau is adorable and although we were only there 35 minutes... I loved it! I am already feeling deeply connected to this trip and have no doubt that “I couldn’t not be here” and that this experience has called me for a long time. At breakfast Lynsey asked me my story... it has been soooooo long since I have been able to express my love for skiing to someone who understands and that it was what I wanted to do for a career and how the challenges and lack of support had me back off it. It was therapeutic and beautiful to share this story with her/with an understanding and talented female athlete who has done what I wanted/dreamed of and even gone past that. Lynsey is beautiful inside and out. She is a badass athlete, passionate and compassionate woman, with a heart in the mountains and the heart of an artist and I will write more on her later, but she is stellar in every way.

Saturday seaplane adventures and landing in Haines.

We boarded our seaplane and took off at 11:30 to Haines. The flight was turbulent and the landing was... “exciting” but I trusted our pilot the whole time. I thought maybe we would pull out of the landing and try again, but the pilot made it and he was comfortable with the whole thing. Other than a crazy last few minutes, the glaciers were amazing and the flight was spectacular. Seeing the views from the air is breathtaking.

Stellar Adventure Travel picked us up and we went to get the other 2 women. I first met Pat and Laura at their hotel and then we all got coffee. Again, I know this trip has been calling me for a long time and adding to this deep sense of connectedness, these women are amazing. Within minutes I felt I knew them from way back. This is awesome and hard to explain... we drove to the yurt to check in and wait for Natalie to arrive.

Saturday check in at the Yurt and Lodge for safety briefings.

The Yurt! Wow the yurt is cool. And the jacuzzi!... wow the jacuzzi ❤️. And the view... wow the views ❤️!

After Natalie arrived, our girls group was complete. There are now 5 of us. Minutes into the trip we were all already bonded. This is important and amazing and further confirms meaning, importance and power of this trip. My heart is already full, my mind opening and a calm feeling of being centered is happening. I am where I should be and everything else has slipped away.

We got driven to the lodge (20 minutes away) by 6 for appetizers, dinner and safety meetings. This is amazing. The lodge and location is beautiful and the food is incredible. I will talk about our chef later.

Conditions

Conditions have not been good. On a serious note, there have been lots of avalanches all over from rains and warm weather and one local death from a slide the week prior. No helicopter has been out in two weeks. These facts are somber and scary.

Sunday, March 24 - Heli ski day 1 - we went out but no skiing.

Sunday was an eary start to get to the lodge for breakfast and intro setups. We tested gear and learned or remembered/refreshed what we didn’t and by 11:00 got in the ship to go out and ski. We did some flying out to check conditions after a final beacon and gear lesson and checks but unfortunately the snow was not good after testing 2 locations so we went back to the lodge (but not after lots of photos).

Monday, March 25 - Heli ski day 2 - “Go time” & the skiing was soooo good.

Today the skiing was “velvet and tundra”! There are so many descriptive words that skiers use for snow conditions and we used a lot of good ones to describe today, but none of them do it justice. Today, the company, the conditions, the runs, the views, the everything was a dream. This is my dream! I’m in my dream! I even skied past a glacier that I have seen in my dreams before. These mountains are breathtaking and the skiing was awesome today.

I haven’t elaborated yet on the fact that we had a professional chef at the lodge. Her meals were amazing! Lunch was always a homemade soup with a sandwich and desert. Things definitely taste better up here, but the food the whole trip was also over the top amazing!

Tuesday, March 24 - Heli day 3/actual skiing day 2

The skiing today was good. It was not as good as Monday, but today we got to have Natalie join us. We still got good runs in on new terrain and had more fun again. The snow was better Monday, but the unicorns always enjoy everything to the fullest, we definitely enjoyed everything to the fullest but came back by lunch time, which we ate at the lodge with the other group of four who were staying at the lodge and formed their own group. We spent plenty of time with this group at lunches and for dinner and while relaxing at the lodge. The other group was a very cool mix of 2 male anesthesiologists who were friends from medical school, and a couple from Sweden who now live in Hong Kong. The group skied parallel to us using the same helicopter. We skied I a pattern so that when they got dropped off for their run, we were ready to be picked up by the same helicopter and vice versa.

Tuesday afternoon hiking adventure through the rainforest to the beach.

After we finished lunch at the lodge, we all piled into the van and got driven back to the yurt. We spent a little bit of time at the yurt before getting dressed to go on a hike to Battery Point. The day before, the other lodge group had gone out there and seen seals and a sea otter. We didn’t see any wildlife or ocean life, but we did have a beautiful excursion through the woods and made our own adventure on the beach. The trail was through a rain forest, and with light filtering through the trees we walked and talked and took photos as we made our way to the beach. Our guide Joe had left us there for a little bit to go run an errand and later met up with us by the time we made it to the point. I’m so glad we went on this adventure. Lynsey stayed home to take a nap after having had very little sleep coming back from Austria. We missed her, but channeled our inner unicorns and took photos on the beach with horns made of branches we found.

One thing about hanging out with these women is that no matter what we do it’s always wonderful and magical and spirit filled and so fun. This is on top of the fact that this whole area and land and state is beautiful and rich with a different ocean than I have ever known, snow capped mountains that meet the sea, and a beauty I have never experienced either. I am so glad I’m here.

Wednesday, March 27 - my last heli ski day.

Today we woke up early and got to the lodge again for an early start but had to wait a little for some clouds to clear. It was not long before the clouds lifted and we had great conditions for a wonderful day. We drove to mile 33 to get set up and meet our helicopter. There is a large bag of fuel there for the helicopter too. 

We skied caffeine ridge and steeper sections than we had been on today and all was great. The snow is still not as great as Monday but still, I am skiing the terrain to my ability and grateful to be given more steps to ski. I am grateful our group was all in and of course we were all together in loving these pitches.

Unfortunately my last run on Wednesday was on the biggest crown jewel of the trip. I was the 5th rider down and the second to slip so that the rest of both groups didn’t get to ski it, but it was an amazing 43 degree pitch called Tomahawk. Only one guest made it through and it was the amazing 57 year old Pat on her snowboard with the skills and heart of 20 year old. Pat went a little off guidance but nailed it! Both Laura and I had a slip, but I managed to sustain an injury or two so that I was done for the trip. I found some bad snow, but even now, I long to go complete the bottom half of that run some day. My slip was merely unfortunate... but fortunate in the end.

Juneau Alaska for an unplanned but great experience as my last day.

After going through some tests which had to be in Juneau on Wednesday after skiing and instead of Haines because the clinic in town didn’t have the right amount of services for me. I was released on Wednesday night to the care of one of the Alaska Mountain Guides sent to help me and who was named Rob. Rob was my advocate and assistant and guide until I got on my 5 AM flight Friday morning. Rob was patient and slowly walked with me on crutches through town for a couple hours and also took photos. Although I would have preferred to have been skiing one last day, I did not waste the opportunity of being in Juneau.

Back it up... I almost forgot.... Here are photos from my flight from Haines to Juneau.