SAMAYA x VINCENT LATHUILE
FREERIDE AND BIVOUAC IN ALASKA
After an expedition to Svalbard, a dozen friends born and raised in the mountains flew off again to spend 10 days in Alaska in April 2023. With 6 nights bivouacking, heavy storms, and beautiful faces, Vincent Lathuile acts as the spokesperson for the tight-knit team to share their adventure with us.
Vincent Lathuile: As freeride touring enthusiasts living in the mountains, we’ve all watched ski films at festivals and dreamed of carving beautiful lines in places like Alaska, with incredible snow that holds even on 50° slopes. Four years ago, we went to Svalbard in Norway, and what we loved was finding remote places with beautiful scenery where we’d see as few people as possible. So, Alaska was the perfect choice for our new expedition.
VL: When we arrived, we did some scouting first to see where we wanted to ski in the following days and where we could set up our bivouac. We thought we’d be alone there, so we were surprised to realize that in Alaska, the locals cross-country ski in the mountains, not necessarily on dedicated trails like back home. So, we decided to head deep into the valley to set up our camp. We received weather forecasts via satellite, and on the first evening, we rushed to set up our base camp because we could see the storm approaching from afar.
VL: The next morning, after weathering the storm and dealing with the wind, we were thrilled to see that even though the snow had covered everything outside, our Samaya 2.0s and the Basecamp had held up, despite gusts of over 100 km/h. It was extraordinary because we had a true living base with the camp we had formed. We each slept in our two-person tents, and we spent all our mealtimes and waiting periods for favorable windows together as a group of 11 in the Basecamp, which provided us with a real space for living and sharing—warm and spacious.
VL: In terms of the expeditions and the summits themselves, we were lucky to get 4 days of beautiful, clear weather and, therefore, 4 days of magnificent skiing. It was exceptional. We had great conditions and found some just magical couloirs. We had some concerns about the snow because we were in a place we didn't know, with snow qualities different from what we're used to, so we did some snow pits before getting started. We had chosen a valley without glaciers to limit the risk of crevasses. We quickly realized the snow was unique—very wind-affected, with summits scoured bare by the wind. In the end, it went very well. Since we were a large group, we split into 2 teams, each tackling a beautiful couloir, which allowed us to film plenty of footage to make a movie out of it later.
