In the big AK picture, the Revelations are about 140 miles west/northwest of Anchorage and form an almost perfect equidistant triangle between them, Talkeetna and Anchorage.  You can fly there from either Talkeetna or Anchorage, although Anchorage has more planes to choose from, better weather and better down-time distractions.

The closest town to the Revelation Mountains is McGrath, which is about 60 miles away.  Although I haven’t been to them, I have heard the Hidden Mountains near the Tordrillos are also called the Revelations, and although they have great skiing, are not the same as the Revelations we went to.

A big part of visiting the Revelations is getting in touch with Rob Jones of R&R Hunting and Outdoor Adventure.  Rob has a hunting lodge right on the Big River at the base of the Revelations and can provide any and all logistical support for your trip.  Rob arranged our flight into the glacier with a friend of his, Joe Shoeman, but once we were there we communicated with Rob as far as getting back and doing a gear pick up.

The Revelations, aka the Revs, are at the western tail end of the Alaska Mountain Range.  As an overall picture, the AK Range reminds me of a Stegosaurus with Denali/Sultana forming the main high backbone and the Rev’s are the much lower, but very spiky tail.  The Revs top out at about 9,000 and the glacier is at about 3,500, so it is an area with lots of vertical relief, but not necessarily very high.  In my case, we were camping 3,600′ lower than where I live in Park City, so the air was thick and fat.

Based on photos before we left, my initial impression of the Revies was “Hmmm, they look really steep and rugged, maybe too steep and rugged to ski..?”  Afterward my opinion didn’t changed much, except that there are actually plenty of lines to ski, but you have to sniff them out and go on a good snow year.  The 2010 season was supposedly at 60% of normal and we all toasted our brand new skis in the first couple of days.  By the end of the trip we were only taking our skis off for rocky sections over 30′ long – otherwise we just plowed through them and pillaged our edges and bases.  The Revies reminded me of skiing in Patagonia around the Cerro Torre/Fitzroy area as they both have amazing scenery, but the skiing lines seldom go all the way through to the top of a peak and they have lots of ice.

The main Revelation glacier is very cool as it is so small (only about 4 miles long), but packed with features.  It isn’t quite a dry glacier, but it is rapidly getting there.  We brought all of the standard crevasse gear and never used it, or even saw a crevasse big enough to fall into for that matter.

The Revy glacier kind of forms a letter “E” with four short legs coming off of a main body.  The glacier runs south to north and the legs come in from the southwest at 45 degree angles.  There was a distinct lack of north facing skiing terrain, which was too bad as that’s where the best snow was.  East and west slopes had all the crust you could ever want and the south facing lines were pretty runnelled and firm.

Avalanche-wise, the Revies seemed fairly safe as many of the couloirs tapered into nothing as they went up and didn’t have big collection zones at their head.  Many of the lines were also on the steep side of the 38 degree avalanche bulls-eye.  We saw a few big powder blasts, but never felt any weak layers or triggered anything ourselves.  It seems that a lot of the avalanches are started by ice fall and occur soon after the storms.

The camping opportunities were plentiful with flat, sheltered areas all over.  One of the trickier parts was finding snow that was deep enough to dig a cook tent (2-3 feet) as we’d often hit ice about 18″ down.  Going too far down the glacier would be problematic for camping as the glacier gets really rocky and icy.

We ended up skiing about 12 distinct lines in the area and most of them were great fun.  They may or may not have been skied before and the locations are listed below.  Many of the names in the Revelations (including the Revelation name itself) came from an early climbing party led by David Roberts who attached biblical references to everything.  We stayed with that theme and added some creative spelling.

The remoteness of the area favors small planes, which in turn favors small parties.  We were a party of four (Noah Howell, Jim Harris, Courtney Phillips and myself, Andrew McLean) which worked out well.  According to Rob Jones, this area is one of the most remote spots in Alaska as far as population is concerned.  We didn’t see  anyone else while we were out there, nor any signs of previous parties.  It’s a lonely corner of the AK range!

We looked at the possibility of traversing out of the head of the main Revelation glacier to the south, and although it could be done with a rappel or two, it is pretty sporty and not something you’d want to do with heavy loads and sleds.

All in all, it was a fantastic place to visit and a first-class adventure.  Highly recommended, but then again, I say that about most ski mountaineering areas… ;)

A big thanks goes out to Mountain Hardwear, Backcountry.com, Dynafit, K2, Black Diamond and the Hans Saari Memorial Grant for all the great gear and helping make this trip happen.

Click here for a Revelation Mountains photo gallery from our trip.

The competition, on this Wednesday 28th July, will guarantee plenty of action as snowboarders and skiers battle it out for free entry into the World Heli Challenge.

Here’s the official details from Treble Cone :

“Set to start on July 30th, the World Heli Challenge brings together a handful of top athletes from around the globe to compete in helicopter accessed competition. The goal is to find out which athlete is the best “all rounder” by combining their freeride and free style skills to showcase their overall talent.

The first placed male skier and boarder will win a free entry in to the World Heli Challenge, with the top ten male entrants and top three female entrants of the Big Air Qualifier receiving wild card entries in to the Exstreamtv Style Snow Show at Lake Hawea. All entrants gain a free ticket to the “Afterburner” party at Lake Hawea Hotel, both on 7th August.

Treble Cone has built the backcountry air in a little utilised area at the top of the Saddle Quad. With spectacular views over Glendhu Bay and Lake Wanaka the site compliments the natural freeride terrain Treble Cone is renowned for and provides a stunning venue for big air competitors. A large crowd of spectators and photographers are expected.

Registration takes place at Treble Cone base from 8.30am and the event is scheduled to
start at 11.00am. Prize giving will take place on mountain at 3pm.”

According to the TGR folks the new film is shot using HD and 3D technology in locations around the world such as Alaska, Croatia, Italy, an British Columbia. They actually said a lot more but it’s not really worth repeating again, just press on play and watch the snippet of action from the upcoming film – release dates to follow.

One of them I ski in (2:28ish), the other I’m not. But regardless of my personal appearances, you should see both, because skiing is more kick ass than Kung Fu and you can never have too much Kung Fu.

MSP – The Way I See It

TGR – Light the Wick

I’m super psyched to now be representing a company that might save your life. I am now a representative of ABS: Avalanche Air Bag Systems. I chose to partner up with ABS because I believe in the technology’s ability to save lives in the mountains and I want to help promote it’s faculty to a relatively uninformed North American market.

While nothing can replace avalanche awareness, good mountain sense and already established avalanche equipment, the ABS air bag packs are a proven line of defense in avalanche situations. There is a lot of data that proves this fact and over the course of this year alone, I’ve personally heard more and more stories of people’s lives being saved in avalanches because of these bags.

If you don’t believe me, check out this video with Xavier de la Rue and his experience with the ABS. He has assured me many times that he would not be alive today if it weren’t for his ABS.

So look for yourself here ABS. If you’ve been considering an avalanche inflatable pack in the past, there is no sooner time to get one that now.

Expected to be released in September, 2010 the film tells the story of Tanner Hall, seven time winner of the ESPN X-Games gold medal through the the highs of being a professional and the tragedy of severe injury. Like a Lion promises to take a look behind the glitz and glamour of professional ski life and examine the courage to come back.

This one is a video of a single run, Peak Solidarity, in the Wrangell-St.Elias Mountains. Before skiing this peak I happened to see it in a photo book and of the entire book, this is the one that really stood out as it is such a beautiful, classic pyramid peak. It has a 5,000′ plus ridgeline that snakes all the way up it, but aside from that, it is steep and intimidating all around.

A special thanks goes out to Paul & Donna Claus of the Ultima Thule Lodge, as well as Ruedi Homberger and Retro Ruesch for making this happen.

The video was shot with a VHoldr Contour HD 1080 camera which I had just picked up and was playing around with the settings on. Unfortunately, the snow is a little washed out, but you get the idea – deep, soft and fluffy.