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Six Days in Alaska's Takhinsha Mountains

Originally posted on Powder | By Yan Kaczynski | Last updated Feb 5, 2025 1:35 PM ET

This article appears in the 2025 Photo Annual print issue of POWDER Magazine. The magazine is still available on newsstands near you, and can be shipped directly to your front door.

Dream World

Out of our group of five skiers, Dave and I were the ones on the first flight in Drake’s small, modified Cessna. That meant we had the responsibility to choose and confirm a suitable area for a proper basecamp with proper ski objectives for our group’s needs.

In Alaska, you can come up with a strict plan, but if you are too rigid, you might be disappointed or turned down from your main idea—in the end, both mountains and your pilot will have the final word on where you will land and in the best of the worlds, where you will be able to ski something. In this insane world of jagged peaks, you really can’t take things for granted, just being up there is something to be grateful of.

Dave made several basecamps out of Haines already and I had the most experience with the choice of aesthetic and skiable lines in the Coast Mountains of both British Columbia and Alaska, hence why we were the two on board for the reconnaissance, and hopefully if things went well, the first out of three plane drops on a remote glacier.

Shortly after we lifted off Haines’ picturesque airport, we covered the whole length of the Takhinsha Mountains, a beautiful, compact range of peaks and a 45 miles East to West stretch from Haines, Alaska to beyond the border of British-Columbia, Canada.

Flying there for the first time, I quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of rideable faces, the heavily compact choice of aesthetic lines, and the general scale of things. Some mountain faces look enormous while they only were 200 or 300m long runs, while some other lines could cover close to 2000m descents. I was topographically confused, but also thrilled by the new terrain that quickly unfolded before my eyes.

The beta I gathered beforehand showed potential, but flying over this short but complex mountain range added an incredible amount of potential to what I originally considered.

The basecamp options we had in mind were unfortunately covered in clouds while the ones we overlooked or didn’t consider were looking real good. At some point, Drake pressed us to make a decision. That was enough to bring me out of my daydreaming state.

Dave wasn’t sure about much anymore and I was still speechless by the beauty of the place. I looked quickly at a few striking north faces just below the Cessna. Most of those were just next to the Alaska/Canada border while a wide glacier dividing the potential peaks made for a perfect, flat campsite and landing zone. That was it.

“Yeah, Drake, I think this will be it.” I said. “Yes ok, this is a great zone, guys, you’ll have a great time up here!” That’s all I wanted to hear from him. Damn, that was intense. This would be home for the next little while—a glaciated and fluted world.

The POWDER 2025 Photo Annual is available. Click here to have it shipped directly to your front door.

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

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