Creating Reality: First Lines on a Fresh Alaskan Canvas by Anthony Smith

Looking across the sprawling valley at five riders scouting a steep chute below them, it almost didn’t seem real. They looked like they were standing on a wall, somehow defying gravity. From where I was standing – on an opposing ridgeline – the chute looked downright impossible to ride. But in this vast Alaskan landscape, individual perceptions can be deceiving.
 
It was our third day exploring a stretch of the Talkeetna Mountains, about 100 miles east of Anchorage. Our crew of mountain bikers – Kurt Sorge, Alex Volokhov, Nico Vink, Jaxson Riddle and Remy Morton – surveyed the steep mountainside in search of possible lines down yet another unridden face. The vast expanses of potentially rideable terrain here were remarkable. And therein lay the challenge: where to start?