Dave Grigsby in Alaska

Tailgate Alaska 2010 – Update

Just got back from the first week of Tailgate AK. Best snowboarding of my live and the most fun ever. I was only able to stay up there for 6 days, so after my first three days of dark grey skies and puking snow, I was pretty worried about getting skunked and not riding at all. On the forth day of being up there I flew a half day with ABA and took the three best pow runs of my life. I decided to go again on the next day and it was even better. There was definitely pretty high avy danger, but we still got onto some pretty steep zones.

Here are a few pics from the first week.

First 3 days = down days.

RV’s camping on Thompson pass.

Not time yet.
Much more after the jump...

We took a class on how to rescue your buddy if the fall into a crevasse on the glacier.

Flags of the nations.

At the beginning everyone was jonsing, but killed time with the snow machines and hiking.

Moss Halladay and Paul Gemignani brace for the winds..

Tow in QP.

The Olympians were there on snow skate course duty.

I had been in AK for 3 days and hadn’t seen one mountain, then at the end of the third day the sun started to break, so we took a break.

Road accessed.

Behind the porta-johns.

Across the street.

Day four we were good to go.

We had to keep it fairly low angles because avys were poppin everywhere. But landed on some crazy zones.

Check out that skier on the first roller.

Right when I took the first pic the thing popped and he went for a ride.

Dave “Happy” Rintala runs a cat op in Squaw during the first part of the winter and runs Alaska Backcountry Adventures during March and April. Those guys have the most experienced guides in the Chugach and take you where you want to go.

Sled access 100 yards away from Tailgate HQ.

Ian and the Alaskan Brewery tent.

AK Bomber snowboard in the ABA cabin.

Love it here.

My last day riding I went out for a full day with Happy and ABA. Bottomless endless steep.

This was a cool drop. The pilots can land on anything.

Bong bong.

Tons of salmon and reindeer sausage.

Some riding photos and video to come. I am going back for longer next year. It is not an easy trip to make happen. Long travel and lots of money. But its worth it all and everyone up there knows it.

www.tailgatealaska.com
www.alaskabackcountyadventures.com
www.bigmountaintaxi.com