Alaska is steep.

For anyone who's ever snowboarded or skied, helicopter access is the ultimate dream. No liftlines, no ski patrol, no boundaries -- just a fingerpoint to a far off mountain peak, a brisk whisk on the heli, and there you are: on top of the world, 5,000+ vertical above the valley floor, with your imagination as the only limiting factor; that and a few crevasses.

Beats waiting in liftlines.

In Alaska, heli skiing is in its most pure form. At Tailgate Alaska, Alaskan Backcountry Adventures is the main operator, running two birds, each capable of delivering you, your three closes heli buddies and a guide on the top of the biggest and baddest terrain you can think of.

RFS - means just that - really fucking steep.

This week, I've been fortunate enough to get three days of heli time under perfect bluebird conditions. Scary steeps, sketchy sluff, glacier holes and pow turns that make your hair stand.

One such run is called RFS - "Really F*king Steep." Something incredibly visceral about watching the sun set over the Chugach, bathing the range in that orange evening glow, peering down a 50 degree slope and knowing the only way off this thing is to point it. Gulp.

The lower elevations offer pow fields and the best
turns of your life.

A few terms come to mind: gripped, puckered, wobbly, vertigo. You get the idea. But in AK this is what it's all about. Years of snowboarding at resorts, cat trips, hiking, et. al. -- the Adirondacks, the Rockies, the Wasatch, the Tetons, the Alps, Kootenays, Cascades, and Sierras ... it all leads inevitably to the Chugach -- the Grand Prize.

Banger turn.

Fear, hesitation, adrenaline -- all working for or against you, but you know this is the moment you've dreamt about -- crafted in the magazines, the videos and the stories told. Now it's time, you're about to join an elite club. As Willie McMillon so aptly put it. "Until you've ridden Alaska you're not a real snowboarder."