Burton AK
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Late spring in the Whistler backcountry is either feast or famine. The AK crew obviously hoped they'd be stuffing their faces with fresh powder, but that just wasn't on the menu. What they got instead was several back-to-back days of heat and summer sun, a bit of rain, and a day or two with nothing but milk. From way up in the high alpine to shady trailside tree hits, they were battling a severely degraded snowpack. It was far from ideal, but there were no bummer vibes. Rather than panicking out to Alaska or trying to drink it powder blue, the crew just tightened their belts and stayed on the grind—or on the grizz to borrow Jones' idiom.
The only things deep were the whoops on the melted-out sled trails up into Brandywine and Sproatt. Up there, Jeremy's well-trained eye went to task spotting hittable hits that nobody else could even see. To cover more ground the strategy of splitting the crew up came into play on a few days.
One day while half the group sledded up into the clouds, Terje and Maurer bought lift tickets and scouted “some weird spots” on Blackcomb to make shit happen. That's when Haakon introduced everyone to the rare and misty Stelmasky plant. No, you don't smoke it.
The days spent flying in the heli out of Pemberton were exercises in window-shopping and perseverance, yielding minimal awesomeness. The snow was just completely jacked. Nonetheless, all five riders and the three media bros stayed on the grizz and with truly remarkable skills of adapting. Each rider was able to produce some worthy trickery in this short one-week window. Even when conditions are perf, this would be an impressive feat.
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