Creating Reality Carving First Lines on a Fresh Alaskan Canvas
Looking across the sprawling valley at five riders scouting a steep chute below them, it almost didn’t seem real. They looked like they were standing on a wall, somehow defying gravity. From where I was standing—on an opposing ridgeline several hundred feet away—the chute looked downright impossible to ride. But in this vast Alaskan landscape, individual perceptions can be deceiving.
It was our third day exploring a stretch of the Talkeetna Mountains about 100 miles to the east of Anchorage, while filming for “By the Midnight Sun.” Our crew of riders—Kurt Sorge, Alex Volokhov, Nico Vink, Jaxson Riddle and Remy Morton—surveyed the steep mountainside in search of possible lines down yet another unridden face. The vast expanses of potentially rideable terrain here were remarkable. And therein lay the challenge: Where to start?
A helicopter would be the most efficient tool for discovering rideable zones, but even with this assistance there were still many unknowns. It wasn’t until the riders got their feet on the ground that they would learn just how challenging and rewarding this terrain could be.
More than anything else, the supportive team dynamic is what made this adventure safe and successful. All of the riders worked together to scout entrances and exits, always radioing reports to those yet to drop. The trust they had in one another gave each rider the confidence to approach each slope with his own unique vision. On our biggest and most fruitful day of the trip, every rider stomped a line with pride. At the end of this day, Jaxson Riddle led a party train of exhausted yet ecstatic riders down the final slope to the helicopter that awaited us.
On our first day we were blown away by the scale of these mountains. We’d seen rideable terrain from the road, and it seemed like it would be a short hike to reach the top of our first zone. But after four hours of slogging up a creek bed we were still only at the base of what we’d hoped to ride, and the rideability of the slope was still uncertain. Undaunted, we pressed on to the top, where Alex Volokhov (second from left) pointed to the line he thought had the best exit. He didn’t hesitate to drop in, bagging the first descent of the trip and setting the tone for success.
Look for the red dirt. The more colorful and fine the soil was, the better it rode—as confirmed here by Jaxson Riddle and Remy Morton. Though both of these young freeriders were new to this rocky, big-mountain terrain, their talent, style and confidence was easily shining through by the end of the trip.
Most of the lines ridden on this trip allowed for a certain level of risk mitigation, with exits routinely surveyed to ensure there was enough runout for riders to slow down and avoid piles of unmanageably large rocks. This line, ridden only by Alex Volokhov, did not afford such luxury. From the top, there was no visibility of the runout and no way to even confirm whether the gradient would allow Volokhov to check his speed near the bottom. And the 90-degree turn into this steep chute with a mandatory drop in the exit meant that Volokhov would be fully committed from the moment he started rolling. The speed he had when he exited the chute sent him thousands of feet down the mountain. His reward for nailing his biggest line of the trip was a grueling hike-a-bike back up to his cheering teammates at the top.
In many ways, three-time Rampage champion Kurt Sorge was the captain of this exploratory mission. The decorated freerider identified most of the rideable zones from the helicopter and highlighted the most technical aspects of lines before riders dropped into them. Sorge served as a mentor and was always pushing the limits of this trip. He was the only one to hit this massive chute, which at its steepest point was almost hardpack, meaning that managing his speed would be a challenge. His remarkable confidence and style made it look almost effortless, but even for Sorge, one run was enough.
Belgian style maestro Nico Vink took a unique approach to these mountains, scouring the tops for high-speed roll-ins and milking the terrain for maximum velocity. Here, he hiked solo to the top of a steep ridgeline and proceeded to straight-line it to the bottom in a speed tuck with his fingers completely off the brakes, just to see how fast he could actually go. Vink was always taking his own path down the mountains, death-gripping with a huge grin on his face.
These massive landscapes could often be misleading. What looked rideable from afar could, upon closer inspection, be nothing more than a jumble of big rocks and boulders. Even in the messiest debris, Alex Volokhov was a picture of composure, confidence and style. His determined approach in such challenging terrain showed the unique skillset required of this breed of big-mountain freeriders.
