Glacier Bay from the air...

Without a doubt, the highlight of our first trip to Alaska was spending time with Drake Olson in his Super Cub bush plane, 53 Charlie. Between recon flights, glacier drops, and a shuttle to Alaska's premier steelheading river, we spent over 3 hours in the air with Drake frothing over the wildest mountains our eyes had ever seen, as Jimmi Hendrix ripped through the headsets. Drake was absolutely essential for our mission in Alaska and we couldn't have asked for better air support. Non-stop shit talking and jokes  interspersed between serious knowledge of the mountains really made for an all time experience, and he never missed an opportunity to try and scare the life out of us! Here are some photos we shot from the air....

The Man

Drake may be a jokester, but he takes his job very seriously.

Our good buddy, and motivator for the glacier camp, Zach Clanton shooting reconnaissance photos. Choosing a campsite from the air turned out to be a lot harder than we thought.

The heaviest pillow stacks I've ever seen

entering the Fairweather Range, Mount Fairweather in the distance

The shoulder of the Fairweather Range in Glacier Bay National Park. Imagine the Himalaya with 1000 inches of snow, thats the Fairweathers.

McConkey's... a zone made famous by Jeremy Jones and his film Deeper. Our friends Drew Tabke and Chopo Diaz skied the massive panel in the light this spring. F*ck ya boys!

Coming in for a landing. Somewhere down on that broad glacier we would setup our temporary home for 18 days. At this point we are more than 50 miles by wing to the nearest town.

Our first look at the zone we would eventually call "Moonshine Cirque". At this point I was shitting my pants because everything was bigger than we thought. Welcome to Alaska! 

untouchable 

"Hey Drake, Can we come here next year?" "sorry boys thats Canada, but I have an idea......"