The heli gets a fresh dusting of new snow.

New Terrain. Fresh Perspectives. Record Snowfalls.  These have been some of the themes of the last few weeks in the Knik River Valley.

Everyone knows that Alaska is on fire this year. On April 7, a small storm rolled into South Central Alaska and dumped enough snow to  break a 60-year-old snow total record in Anchorage. Essentially, AK is having the best season since 1954. Wow.  The rest of the world knows this as well, as we have seen the social media universe explode with images of spines and deep powder.

We chose the Knik area to get away from the crowds and explore new terrain. It has been really exciting.  Essentially, the traffic in this area consists of our group and the Silverton Mountain Guides crew. Oh yeah, and some fixed wing ski-touring groups, one of which crashed into the glacier in front of our very eyes. Fortunately, everyone was OK.

Our group is made up of  the TGR production team, athletes Daron Rahlves, Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, Dash Long and Seth Morrison, as well as photographers Adam Clark and Mark Fisher. We have been finding tons of cool peaks and features. Everyone is fired up to be up here and scoring the goods.

Life quiets down around our lodge when the snow falls.

Dumping at the Knik River Lodge.

Dash Longe sends a big 180. Dash has been killing it this trip. It is nice to see his perspective on these mountains.

Bummer. We saw this plane go down. Fortunately, everyone was OK. It is not everyday you witness a plane crash.

Sage pins a sweet spine line.

Dash hitting a cool cliff feature we found while scoping some bigger lines.

Seth in the sluff mix. It looks like a tight exit window for him.

Daron Rahlves hits a nice scenic ridge line in the clouds.

Daron Rahlves in the mix on a big spine wall.

Sage “taking the park to the big mountains.”

Rahlves emerges from a sluff wall. In AK you need to run fast from your sluff or you might get burned.

The boys back at base after a successful day in the hills.