On the “No Road to Cordova Alaska”

Nearing the final days of April myself and accomplis Marcus warring spent an afternoon waiting out the rain scheming how we could get out of Valdez. The epitomized holy land of every skier and we wanted out. Like a disease we were done feasting on the peaks and glaciers surrounding Thompson pass, now the time was upon to move onto the next host. In the last 3 seasons I’ve been migrating up to Alaska, Cordova always had an allure to me but the hardships of getting there made it a hard reality on a dirt bag skitour-ist’s budget.

Now we had a plan, our escape was imenent. We would need to enlist the help of our friend Wane-O for a drop off at the mile 13 post leaving Valdez. Our intended route up Browns creek would take us right by somewhat of a local icon of a mountain by the name of Meteorite. It has a NE facing spine ramp that runs for 6000ft down to the valley bottom. After waiting at the base for a day, visibility came around enough for us to climb to ski the boot top POW that lay upon the mountain’s side. Thus allowing us to continue forth on our quest for Cordova.

Thirty kilometres later our highline route of ice and snow ended at the toe of the Cordova glacier. From there we had a involving bushwhack through a sea of alder in steep canyon country. On par with any of B.C’s best bush-whacks, it took 5 hours to make it less than 1 km down river. As the saying goes all good things come to an end and before long we were allowed access to the river, to start our float down the Rude River. After 17 Km of mellow floating and some portaging through shallow braided sections we were at Prince William Sound. This was the unknown segment of the trip for us two trippers. The marine environment is somewhat of a foreign one to us two refuges of the high grounds.

Camped in the trees we were privy to witness the highest tide of the month come splashing into our dreams at 2 A.M. After some perfectly executed panic we managed to salvage our camp with no damage to any of our gear and seek refuge on nearby high ground. That starry night I had plenty of time to reflect on the value of a tide chart as the exact same event happened last year at this time concluding a ski trip on Cape Fairweather. Humbled by the experiences had on the no road to Cordova, we cruised the 20km into the tiny fishing port beside some grazing whales under sunny calm skies.

After 7 days of no human contact we were lucky to meet the Ski Area manager Dave right off the bat. Marcus who had previously lived in Valdez for a year had never even heard of this little pearl off the shores of Prince William Sound. Mt Eyak is the one thousand vertical foot home to North Americas oldest running chairlift. Originally out of Sun Valley Idaho it was incredible to see the history of our sport right before our eyes, still giving goods to those who ride the original single seater. We were offered to stay up at the day lodge if we could just look after the place and help out with any chores. We gratefully accepted the offer and immediately saw to looking after there mountain with our new rental clicker snowboards. That is how our bold yet humble natured ski journey into Terra Incognita would come to a finale.

Ride Clicker Forever.

Photo credit: Google Earth