AKA Winter 2010-2011
 
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2010 Snowkiting: a few months with the AKA Boys... Looking back upon the last several months of kiting in Alaska, its easy to say that things get better every year. This year marks the fourth season the AKA boys have been chasing wind and deep snow across the state. Each year, Alaska teaches us infinitely more about her secrets and her patterns. Each year, she shows us more amazing places to kite, and more great stashes of powder and wind in unimagined places with incalculable opportunity. This year also had its lessons learned, its hard knocks, its down days and deep dig outs, but these things seemed like mere gusts on an otherwise sunny and steady day. The best way to catch up with us on where we’re at and what we’ve been doing is to check out our new albums on the photo page. Gotta go, winds blowin... ../AKA_Albums/AKA_Albums.html../Media.htmlshapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1
Alaska Kite Adventures  End of Snowkite season Recap Winter 2010/2011 - Big Lake Snowkite RoundUp Thompson Pass SnowKite Festival  Parapalooza The Alaskan Winter of 2011 has been one of great fun and questionable weather. Alaska Kite Adventures has been busy teaching and promoting Snowkiting this winter in the South Central Alaska region.  It seems this winter has come and gone with tremendous speed, and we have been steadily building our student base and promoting the sport of Snowkiting.  In the beginning of winter, AKA set up a very nice booth at the Alaska Ski Swap in Anchorage. The likes of Senator Lisa Murkowski and 5000 other people browsed by our booth and checked out the latest gear, lesson information and watched snowkite videos on our big screen TV.  All winter Alaska Kite Adventures taught a good number of students the skills needed to fly snowkites safely and independently. Our Curriculum focuses on safety, flying skills, wind and weather, self launching and landing kites, and riding with kites. "We build Alaskan Snowkiters" Part of the fun we have at Alaska Kite Adventures is putting on Snowkite Event Promotions and Festivals, also canopy promotions. (speed gliders, paragliders and powered paragliders). The First event of the Spring season was the Big Lake Snowkite RoundUp in early March. The AKA boys and gals worked around the clock to prepare for the weekend festival. Thanks to Steve and all his hard work preparing the amazing terrain park with the loader. About 20 hours were put in tomoving snow around, building kickers and preparing parking lots on the 2 1/2 ft of frozen ice! Friday evening was the Kick off party at the Best Western on Lake Lucille bar. Special thanks to the Wildflower in Talkeetna for Catering an amazing meal for the party, consisting of fresh organic green salad with home made balsamic dressing, Carrot ginger soup and 'Alaska Mac' Smoked Salmon Macaroni and Cheese. "The food was fantastic" said Joseph Gibson of Wasilla. DJ Buck of Bernie's bungalow kept the party flowing and the people dancing with his great tunes. Thanks to everyone for showing up in costume! Anders Gustafson won the costume party for being the 'Purple Pimp' and Jeff Brown came in a close second with his 'Retro KiteMare' outfit. The Best Western staff was excited to meet the kiters and welcomed us back next year with open arms. I guess it's the invite to host a real throw down next year! Saturday and Sunday were the most beautiful and wind-less days of the spring! With the flags standing limp and the snowkite kickers sculpted to perfection the event was prime for epic Kiter Cross races and a wicked freestyle event. Everyone that turned up waited patiently for 2 days for the wind to blow. 4mph was about the best we got from Mother Nature.  No one was disappointed. The sun was shining and people were smiling. Alaska kite Adventures set up a booth with great I tunes pumping. Best and Ozone demo kites were available. Beside our booth was Shane with Broken Bones snowboard shop and his mobile tune set up. Chris "The Candy Man" Reynolds was terrorizing the event on his Powered Paraglider, lobbing handfuls of candy to the screaming children below. Ice fishing seemed to be the big hit with the kids. One of the weekend highlights was the Powered Paraglider pylon race, won by Steve Carr on his Ozone Viper wing. Thanks to all our Volunteers for making this event happen! Next year will be bigger and better! Also a special thanks to Mark, the Local home owner at our event site. He was gracious enough to offer his beautiful sauna and his amazing ham and bean soup to the Snowkiters and friends.  The Second event of the season was the Thompson Pass Snowkite Festival, 30 miles from the town of Valdez, Alaska. This years festival coincided with the Tailgate Alaska event, which was the host of the King of the Hill snowboard challenge and the World Extreme Ski Championships.  For nearly 3 months before the event, the North wind hammered Thompson pass, scouring what snow was left off the land scape. There was serious concern a week before the festival if there was even going to be an event. I called several friends from the lower 48 and had them cancel their tickets to AK.  Three days before and during the event, Mother Nature came through and blanketed the pass with a nice coating of well needed powder. Ken Lucas from Hood River, OR made it up, Bryce and Mike from Minnesota made it as well and several handfuls of the local AK Snowkiters representing.  The wind blew for the three days of our event! The weather was cloudy and a little snowy but it was windy for 3 days. We pulled off a first. 4 competitions over 2 days. The comps were fairly small but intense.  12 competitors entered the mass start Kiter Cross Race. Skiers and Snowboarders and Men and Women alike were thrown into a gaggle of starting racers. At the 30 second mark, racers heard an initial gun blast (Alaskan 9mm) then a blast at the start of the race. Eric Newbury quickly jumped into the lead on his snowboard, rounding the first of three orange windsocks on the side of a small hill and across the valley. Soon Ken Lucas and Tom Fredericks passed Eric for the lead. Ken Held the lead to the finish followed by Tom Fredericks and Obadiah Jenkins.  Racers braved gusts up to 25mph and racers speeds topped out in excess of 40mph on the downhills. "That was the best and fastest race of the Season!" exclaimed a winded Ken Lucas.  Later 3 racers competed in the Capture the Flag or King of the Mountain event. A flag was placed on top of a large Knoll overlooking the valley floor. The three competitors had a mass start across the valley to the base of "Newbury Knoll" Tom Fredericks blew out his ski binding bolts early in the race across the valley floor leaving Eric Newbury and Ken Lucas to battle it out up the hill. Eric immediately took the direct line up the face of the hill and Ken chose the ridge route. Watching the race was an amazing site. A snowboarder and skier battling it out to the top of a hill going mach speed. Eric literally blazed up the face directly to the flag parking his kite most of the way up the hill.  Ken's route up the ridge was impressive but was 2 minutes behind Eric.  The next day was blowing once again this time directly on the cliff faces above ABA and the Tailgate Parking area. "A perfect venue for a Snowkite freestyle session" said Tom Fredericks. The third event of the TPSKF, the Big Mountain Freestyle event Happened with 4 competitors. Riders had a 2 hour freestyle exhibition session to impress cheering spectators below. The snowkiters sessioned the top and cliff faces and demonstrated the pure power of snowkiting and the untapped potential of this spectacular sport. Snowkiters were riding up 45 degree slopes, jumping over cliffs going up hill, freestyling and jumping everywhere and gliding off the top and sailing for over half a minute to the valley floor. That was a sight to see.  Tom Fredericks was the overall winner of the Big Mountain Freestyle he freestyled the whole face and showed the capabilities of a seasoned Snowkiter.  Obadiah Jenkins was the winner of the Biggest Glide contest with a Downwind glide along the cliff face of ABA getting ridge lift to a double kite loop landing near the Tailgate RV's. The glide lasted over 40 seconds On the Sunday of the Event The Alaska Kite Adventures crew (Tom, Steve, Obie) worked with new snowkiters and other snowkiters helping everyone work out their individual kite issues and by the end of the day, everyone had a chance to ride behind a kite and the smiles on peoples faces told the story of the event.  Thompson Pass Snowkite Festival Competition Results   Kiter X (cross) Race 1. Ken Lucas 2.Tom Fredericks 3. Obadiah Jenkins Capture the Flag (King of the Mountain Race) 1. Eric Newbury (snowboard) 2. Ken Lucas (ski) 3. Tom Fredericks (ski) Big Mountain Freestyle 1. Tom Fredericks 2. Obadiah Jenkins 3. Steve Carr 4. Ken Lucas Biggest Glide 1. Obadiah Jenkins (+40 seconds) 2. Tom Fredericks (25 seconds) Our third event of the season was the Annual Parapalooza extravaganza! This is one of the  longest running sports event in Thompson pass. Years ago in the 90's a group of Paragliders would meet every spring in Thompson pass. They would exchange information, practice new skills and meet other pilots.  This year there were a couple of RV's full of Paragliders from the Anchorage area and of course the AKA boys… The mission was to explore different launch areas to ridge soar, finding mountains to speed glide and launch off and finding Thermal and XC flying areas.  Highlights include a 3 hour ridge soaring session on Paraglider hill, a 5000ft sled ride from loveland peak to mile 19 on the Richardson Hwy. Also we had a chance to fly over the King of the Hill snowboard challenge and the World Extreme Ski Competition.  Valdez and the Thompson pass Arena offer so many world class options for all of our adrenaline fueled needs. Giant mountains, beautiful glaciers, roadside access, snowmachine access, and all the amenities of a small town 30 minutes down the road. 



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AKA News Feed: where we are, what we’re doing, and how you can be a part of it... The AKA boys are currently spread far and wide. Obadiah is in the midst of the SE Alaska Dive fishery based out of Ketchikan, and Tom just got back from acquiring his P3 paragliding licenses in Maui HI. Seems like we will all reconvene between January and February to begin the 2012 spring kite season! Some things to look forward to: ATARAXIA Project! Last winter the AKA boys met and shared some mountain and flight time with a couple of Germans (GCAT, German Canopy Assault team) who had come to Alaska to speedfly our winter peaks. Steve-O and Philip K. shared with us their excitement, expertise, and dreams, so we decided to team up this year for a roadtrip of high flying proportion! the Ataraxia project is a scaled down, Alaska only, version of a bigger dream, the NASCTY (North American Snow & Canopy Tour of the Year), which is a canopy adventure from Seattle to Anchorage. Focussing on AKA’s backyard this year, the Ataraxia project will be a collaboration of different cultures and various canopy sports across south central alaska. From girdwood and turnagain pass, to Thompson pass and the tailgate AK event in valdez, to Paxon for the Arctic man event, and then on to the inner chugach to climb and fly some remote peaks, stay tuned and come join us as we kite, fly, and ride Alaska! AKA releases the trailer for the AGR The Anti-Gravity Revolution An Ataraxia Project Big Lake Snowkite Roundup- Date TBA TPSKF (Thompson Pass Snowkite Festival)- March 26-31 Tailgate Alaska- April 1-12 Spring Kite Demo’s and Clinics- Coming to a town near you! Schedule currently under construction In recent News: AKA is Featured on Channel 2 KTUU News: