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Skiing the Frozen Continent of Antarctica: Part 7 (Unloading the Pack in the South Shetland Islands) | 04/28/2010, by BrennanLagasse

Sweet Peak to Bag on Freeski Day
In Part 1 of "Skiing the Frozen Continent of Antarctica", Dark Star gets the opportunity of a lifetime to go backcountry skiing in Antarctica.  Part 2 (The Martial Glacier) picks up with a ski report from his first turns of the trip in Ushuaia, Argentina.  Part 3 (The Drake Passage) details his adventure heading South, and Part 4 (Land Ho!) describes his first day of skiing on the Southern-most continent, and Part 5 (The Lemaire Channel) one of the skiers on the trip fell into a crevasse!  In Part 6 (Somewhere Off the Antarctic Peninsula), Brennan's group took it all in- visiting a penguin rookery and skiing more first descents. 

I woke up this next morning not really knowing what my assignment was, but it turned out I would be skiing with a regular group for the day. I'll never forget switching up my pack that morning as even with the added glacial gear and a full 3 liters of water my "mini" pack felt like a feather. I was totally ready to roll, however I quickly found out what the rest of the boat loading scene was like for non-filming groups; waiting. Everyone in a kind of junk show fashion set up in one spot of the boat a just waited for their turn to board. No worries really, but as we finally got our group together, loaded, and were on the ice it seemed like a lot of time had passed.
Adrienne Dropping In

Practicing patience as I talked about descent possibilities with the two clients and our groups lead guide Dan, we decided to boot up the peak in front of us and have a go at a couple of short, but super fun looking lines. We shared the summit with a few other groups and took in the sights. Our incredibly large ship looked like a speck of nothing out in the water. Off to the south the ice rose from the ocean in intense patterns where small chunks would peel away ever so often. As my group was collecting themselves one of my good friends of the trip who is also a guide came up to the summit. Funny thing was he wasn't guiding his group that morning and he was with another guide to just get a few laps in.
Seals
I ended up skiing with Ming and Tucker for the morning and would link up with my other crew for the afternoon session. Ming and I were stoked to make turns together and the three of us took a few nice shots of our surrounding before dropping in. I chose a line on the far rider's right portion of the peak simply because no one had skied it and I'm not one to pass up a fresh canvass of perfect corn snow. After having skied a range of conditions from chalky powderish snow to primo corn this was probably the most consistent surface I skied during our whole trip.
The Epic Face Jeremy and Xavier Shred
Excited to feel so truly free, skiing with Ming a friend and partner who I've skied and climbed some favorite lines with in the past year (Red Slate and Liberty Chute articles), we dropped in and flew on down to the base of the boot pack. A quick turn around and we were back up top in no time. Moving quickly felt good. Dropping another aspect of the peak we ended up skiing down to a large chunk of ice where no fewer than ten huge seals basked in the glows of the early afternoon sun. Our zodiac driver brought us back to the ship where I had a full on lunch on the deck for the first time all trip. It was kind of nice reminiscent of those spring ski days you time up some great corn and then have too big of a lunch in the sun with a few brews to match.
Unreal Views Continue

Round two took about an hour to sail to as we found ourselves in what looked like a completely different zone. However, the options were still endless. After a guide meeting and group leaders figured out where everyone was headed, I regrouped to head out with Dan, Rick, and Josh. We started fairly slowly at first, skinning the same direction as Xavier de le Rue and Jeremy Jones, knowing at least for the moment that we needed to be out of the way of their film crew. We contoured up an easy drainage as we watched Xavier and Jeremy start climbing up this sick face that we hoped to ski something on in the next few hours. As we came around and rose toward a bench I saw this couloir and was immediately draw in by it being the most walled line on the ridge. Although it was shorter than where Xavier and Jeremy were headed it was also completely hidden unless you were standing where we or they were.
The J.O.N.
After pointing it out to the group, seeing what Dan thought as lead guide, and checking in with Rick and Josh who were feeling good, we came up with a plan.  We would ski down this really short shot, traverse across the drainage we had just come up, switch to crampons at the base and climb until someone or something didn't feel right. Thankfully, everything felt right and as we started heading up the walls we found ourselves climbing up a sweet little couloir that had most definitely never seen a human before. The snow wasn't too epic, but topping out was pretty amazing.
Heading to our Third Descent of the Afternoon
We all started to have some fun and get loose at this point as Dan let me have the first tracks since I had scoped it out. As I clicked in he said, "Just wait. I'm probably being a little to overly cautious here, but just remember as we ski, this is a first descent in Antarctica, so keep it in control". With a smile I dropped in and laid tracks in what I chose to dub the J.O.N couloir after the rest of my family (Jillian, Olas and Nieve) who I was sending out stoke too. Dan, Rick and Josh killed it and excited as can be we figured why not have a go at the couloir we had all seen from the boat when we pulled up to this zone that was initially off limits for a film crew to get first dibs. 
Loving this Couloir to the Ocean

Climbing to a high point on the ridge in the foreground the view was arguably as amazing as anything we had seen during our whole trip. Water, ice, mountains, lines strewn all about, it was another gorgeous sight to behold. Traversing the non-technical ridge was also brilliant and a fun way to chill out for a few minutes before dropping our third and final run of the day. This couloir was so unique because it was perfectly walled with a fall-line right down to the ocean. Needless to keep pushing the point, we had an epic afternoon and it was for surely a session I'll never forget.
The Line from the Water

Skiing the Frozen Continent of Anta...
Black Diamond Merges With Gregory M...


That's Our Opinion. What's Yours?

powderjunky wrote on 04/28/10 at 09:47:27 am pst:

Nice photos! Grab the wetsuit and start a new sport, deep water skiing, maybe not as fun as deep water soloing but with lines like in the last two photos... c'mon!


tonybird wrote on 04/28/10 at 5:44:48 pm pst:

just some technical questions--

from the photos, looks like lots of great weather for antarctica. what was the snow like down there? any different from elsewhere? eternal powder? windpack? any corn? anything unique about the snow quality? how does that translate to avalanche danger? did you dig any test pits?

also, i understand there are several "dry" valleys in antarctica, which get little moisture--almost desert-like. did you encounter any of those?


Dark Star wrote on 04/28/10 at 7:05:25 pm pst:

I would deep water ski with you anytime PJ:)

And TB, the weather was unreal for us. Nobody expected that, even the captain of the ship who repeatedly told us he'd never seen such a good spell in his over 100 (yes 100) trips to the Antarctic.

The snow is variable for sure, mostly because not just a few spots are dry, but the whole continent is the driest landmass on Earth. However, besides a few pitches the rock stars skied (Mclean, Morrison, Garre), we made turns on chalky snow, cornish snow, and some windboard...but really, it was all enjoyable and nothing like I expected. Generally, the snow texture was super fun, and great steep skiing material.


powderjunky wrote on 04/30/10 at 08:16:53 am pst:

Please tell me the captain had a long gray beard about neck length, wooden leg and and eye patch. I can just imagine him talking, "arr, I haven't seen the likes of this kind of weather in over a 100 voyages, yarrrr"



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