Are you a guest or are you staff?

Typical existential questions while heli skiing

But first, a scheduling update

Today is the equinox and with it comes light and spring. This calendar year has been brutal so far. Deep injustices have me roiling in a current I can’t discern and it’s all I can do to just float.

In an effort to stay present and tethered, I plan to try something new. For the next eight weeks, I’m taking a page from writers I admire and sending a newsletter each Thursday. Call it a spring cleaning of the mind? No more waiting for inspiration to strike but instead, I’ll stumble along and attempt to find meaning in the churn. Let the practice begin.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝

So you want to be a heli skier

My home last week was an old cannery three miles north of downtown Cordova. It’s now a wilderness lodge that houses sport fishermen in the summer and, wait for it, heli skiers in the winter. I was a last-minute addition to the ski group, courtesy of a New York friend who booked the trip but suddenly couldn’t go. The fees were non-refundable and my friend offered to transfer the spot to me in the hopes it wouldn’t go to waste. I dropped everything and said yes.¹

View from my room in the lodge.

Heli skiing is a bucket list opportunity. Instead of being confined to a resort or having to hike your way to pristine backcountry conditions, a helicopter lands you on top of a remote ridgeline and picks you up at the bottom of the run. Yes, it can be dangerous, and yes, it is expensive. The Chugach mountains north of Cordova are perhaps the best place to heli ski in the world—there’s a reason they are where most of the top ski movies are filmed.

Familiar enough with the concept, I arrived at the Cordova airport nonetheless knowing little about the trip. In my head this was a small operation, perhaps fewer than a dozen guests per week. But the shuttle bus picked twenty of us up from the airport, itself merely a warehouse next to an airstrip, and we arrived at a bustling lodge. There were 36 guests in total, 34 of whom were men.

The gender imbalance aside, it had been many years since I felt the need to establish my place among strangers. Most people came to the lodge in groups of three or four. I was a bit of an orphan, and no one knew where I fit. So I bounced from table to table and attempted to make friends.

That pillowy Chugach pow

I’ve long dreamed of working at a camp—a place where I can put my people skills and love of the outdoors to use. That’s what I did over the summers in college, but the aspiration remains. I recall it whenever I visit a wilderness lodge or cabin.

The whole time I was there, a guest at this heli ski lodge, I felt an ache to join the crew. Perhaps it didn’t help that I was asked by other guests if I worked there. People were confused when I said I lived in Alaska, given that none of the other guests (as well as a good portion of the staff) did. I felt a camaraderie with the staff most of the time—we had more to talk about, living up here, than I did with the California bankers.

Sure, the other guests were great. One was a Canadian professional skier on a sponsored shoot for Helly Hansen. I liked his photographer, an Austrian who needed to cut the trip short to be with his pregnant girlfriend. It was fun to gossip about the billionaire who reserves spots for six weeks every year and flies up on a private jet only when the snow is good. And I became friends with one guy in my group who was skiing like a champ in his early 60s.

But I was more curious about the lives of the pilots, ski guides, and organizational staff. Two of the guides live in Juneau, and we discovered some mutual friends. At the end of the week, we exchanged contact information and they told me to reach out when I’m in town.

My connections with the guides and other staff felt genuine. Still, I was a guest. I’m not from Alaska and instead was raised within a hub of coastal elites. I carry a confusing lineage of both working class and upper crust—a mixture I’ve never quite known how to square.

I worry I’ve tried to split the baby. I’d like to think I’ve lived my values but a public interest lawyer is still a lawyer, after all. I remain one of the privileged.

As the experience settles, I wonder how I was perceived. It’s beyond mortifying to think you fit in with the staff and discover they’re just working for you. Heli skiing is a service industry like any other, and the guides angle to make good tips. The fear is that I deluded myself into feeling accepted as one of them.

Part of the tension is my unwillingness to buy into such a divide. In an ideal world, we can all take turns being staff and guests. I’ll host you at my wilderness retreat and the next season, visit you at yours.

We need community, regardless of the nuances of its composition. Last week I explored both worlds, those of the guests and staff, and found my allegiance with the latter. It’s comforting, at least, to recognize that.

View out the bus on the way to the airport. I forget which camera I used for these shots—either way, point and shoot on Kodak film.

See you next week!

1. I’m jealous, said my very cool boss. Have fun.