Heliskiing Alaska avalanche video

After our little Helisurf adventure yesterday, I was able to join CPG for a day of photographing Heliskiing. What was looking to be a great day ended quickly after we found some incredibly unstable snow conditions. Our guide, Jeff Hoke, was digging a pit to analyze the snowpack while myself and a group of clients standing by in a safe spot. The conditions were known to be potentially dangerous, but we were still a bit surprised when this avalanche let go right below us. The slope was so easy that it started of slowly. I took one photo, turned around and rand a few steps up the ridge and then started shooting video.

There was about 1-2ft of fresh snow covering ‘buried surface hoar’ which, as you’ll learn in the video below, is bad stuff for anything but watching avalanches.

A few other shots from the day below.

I’m waiting for the helicopter to come back for fuel so I can head out again today and try and actually get some skiing shots this time! Weather looks like it might be deteriorating though so we’ll see. . .