One Line - The Hairy Tongue

This post first appeared on thesnaz.com

by Doug Workman, Valdez Heli Ski Guides
Photos by David A. Gonzales
Photo of Doug Coombs courtesy the Doug Coombs Collection

When the ship lands it is a wee bit hectic. The rotors are shearing the air above my head, chiseling away at my eardrums. The last client out hasn’t dropped to the ground as ordered; I grab his shoulder and herd him into the huddle by the whirly bird’s skid. I unload the basket and look around — clients situated, basket closed, door shut, thumbs up. Under the wash of its rotors I watch as Eight Zero Romeo takes flight and is gone.

The silence is abrupt. To relax, I rely on routine. I stick a piece of willow in the snow and flag it with survey tape. I feel like a canine pissing in the park. I stomp out the snow around the landing zone—get it all buffed out so that Andy can come in next time and land “flat pitch.”

“Saddle up,” I say to my guests, who mill about, agog at the scenery. “Time to ski.” I step into my Coombas and gaze down towards the Hoodoo Glacier 3,000 feet below. We can only see the top few hundred feet of the crevassed slope before it rolls over out of view. Somewhere down there lies the Hairy Tongue.

The 100-foot-wide, 1,000-foot-long Tongue, first skied by Doug Coombs over a decade ago, lolls over seracs — cliffs of ancient ice — and black schist, linking the the mountain’s ice cap and the glacier below. While not that steep — the slope probably tops out somewhere around 42 degrees—its setting is sublime. The seracs glow green where the ice has calved off. Mounds of pale jade litter the glacier below.

It is two years and two days since Doug died. I am awed by his gift to us all—it is a blessing to be in his playground.

From our vantage above, little of the run can be seen other than the dark crevasses that line the edge of the run. I point out the bergshrund that attempts to bar us entry. “It looks pretty filled in,” I say. “Just carry some speed and lift up your skis a bit. Be sure to avoid the sagging snow-bridges.” There’s not much more to add other than, “Stay close to my track.”

My skis carry me over the ‘shrund with little effort. I bounce and carve through a sea of powder, wary of the black holes dotting my path. I’m following my nose, as I can’t see the tongue. I’m hoping it will draw me in, be my portal through the void. I crest a roll and it all comes into view—the blue ice walls and the magic carpet leading to the sweeping Hoodoo Glacier. The Tongue narrows, steepens, then gracefully delivers me to the valley below. I stand staring at the ancient ice cubes around my feet and pick up a gleaming chunk for this evenings’ cocktails. I key my microphone.

“Skied well,” I say, turning to skate towards the waiting ship. “Belkin, have at it.”