I found myself sprawled on my side in the snow, one ski missing. I looked downhill: nothing but snow. I looked back up where I had crashed: no ski there either. As I turned uphill and locked eyes with my friends, Mac and Sam shook their heads in unison. I exhaled a wide-eyed and involuntary "nooooooo.”

I shook the snow from my glacier glasses and squinted into piercing low-angle sunlight. Four turns away, the horizon ended. I was kneeling in a nearly no-fall zone. A thousand-foot precipice disappeared down the left side of our sunset ski line, cutting the mountainside abruptly like a cake sliced by some prehistoric glacial knife. My ski had shot downhill and taken a left turn into the abyss.

"I'm so sorry!" I yelled to the pairs of friends above and below me. All of us were thinking about tomorrow–a 15-mile race through technical terrain to exit our 4-day glacial traverse before afternoon heat made south-facing avalanche terrain on Crow Pass unpassable. Sam, ever the optimist, was quick to mitigate panic, "Well… it's a good thing that we're all really good at one-ski skiing." He’s right, and now we finally had a chance to make our childhood ski racing coaches proud.

Jesse, Sam, Mac, and I had booked last-minute flights to Alaska, chasing our friend Victoria, a mountain and ski guide whose backcountry know-how is as exhaustive as she is inexhaustible. Vic had a few weeks off between ski and mountaineering guide seasons and was eager to ski for pure fun. We set our sights on the Eklutna traverse, a 40-mile route through the Chugach range. As the crow flies, it's just outside of Anchorage. As the skier traverses, it crosses straight through the middle of nowhere.

The morning after our flights into Anchorage, a friend of a friend dropped us off at Eklutna Lake. Mac, always thoughtful, tried to hand her a bottle of whiskey as a thank you. Her reply felt like an omen, "You're gonna need that more than me–I'll leave it in the truck for you."

The Eklutna traverse begins on the northwest side of Eklutna Lake and ends at Crow Pass in Girdwood. It crosses three glaciers: the Eklutna, Whiteout, and Eagle. The Alaska Mountaineering Club spread huts along the route, offering A-frame shelters with no reservations and no frills.

An 8-mile skate across frozen Eklutna Lake and a few miles on a rutted 4x4 trail carried us to Serenity Falls Hut. Jesse, a lifelong class clown, had us laughing through the blisters rising in new places on our feet, unaccustomed to long-distance skating in touring gear. We felt elated to be on our way, heading deeper into the backcountry with close friends.

After a night spent refreshing our glacier rescue skills and scarfing boil-in-a-bag pad thai, we set out for the first crux of our traverse: gaining the Eklutna Glacier. Once we scrambled up Eklutna Creek, however, we were in luck. Thanks to a big snow year in the Chugach, we could walk up onto the glacier with just our crampons and ice axes. Pichler's Perch, an adorable abode, or to 6'4" Mac, a hut that felt more like a children's playhouse, welcomed us in.

White Lice Couloir, a 1500', 47-degree line, is framed perfectly by Pichler's small sole window. We couldn't resist a morning mission, but wind slabs halfway up turned us around early. Steep turns with grand glacial views left us smiling as we loaded back up and made our way across the distant Whiteout Pass and eventually to Hans' Hut beyond. With spirits high and the late-spring Alaskan sun higher, we opted for an evening tour up Hut Peak.

Bootpacking through the crystal clear evening, each step brought the summit closer and shifted the horizon further. Peaks rise beyond peaks and ranges beyond ranges. Phrases like, "Wow! Look at that!" and "Oh my god… turn around!" quickly became overused. This literal high point on our traverse also felt like a figurative high point.

Then things got serious.

With a "dink!" from a now long-lost toe piece, I'm tumbling and my ski is gone.

Mac and Sam’s beleaguered head shakes confirmed my panic. I looked back downhill at Victoria and Jesse, an anxious pit rising between my stomach and throat as the weight of the handicap I just imposed on the group sinks in. Sam's right–we are all good at skiing on one ski, but the next day was already slated to be a race against the sun.

Ending the Eklutna traverse on the Girdwood side comes with a choice: Raven Headwall or Goat Ridge. The two possible exit routes each offer unique pitfalls, neither with any recent beta. Goat Ridge requires a long day of ridge line travel followed by a steep 2000' couloir and a truly Alaskan two-mile bushwhack. Raven Headwall is a relatively short, sustained 40-degree headwall with an entrance that tops 50 degrees. In some years, an overhanging and unnavigable cornice forms–and we would not know what it looked like until we made the 3000' climb up to it. If we could get over the headwall, though, we could basically cruise out Crow Pass, as long as we got there before the day got too hot. The narrow valley to the trailhead becomes a minefield on warm spring afternoons, with south-facing overhanging avalanche hazards primed to shed in the heat.

Alaska's late April light was the saving grace to our 5:00 AM alarms. We each downed a two instant oatmeal packet ration and carefully noted food supplies, tacitly acknowledging the real possibility that we could be forced to spend another night on the glaciers.

Our five-mile descent from Whiteout Glacier kicked off with a lot of laughs. It felt objectively funny to be this far out in the boundless Alaskan backcountry, one-ski skiing with a glacier harness on. I leaned back to coast over wind-drifted ripples in the snow and carefully chose where to turn on the scoured snow surface. After several stops to switch feet, we reached Eagle Glacier and our decision point.

Down a ski, a short headwall just made more sense. We moved quickly towards Raven Headwall, feeling the clock of late spring warming ticking. At the entrance to the headwall, Vic belayed Mac out over the roll, where he radioed the good news: "No cornice."

After a climb that felt like -.-.-. (skin, post hole, skin, post hole), my gratitude for my teammates soared when Sam handed me a ski, offering his fresh leg for the one-ski headwall descent. On the crux of the route, our team moved cautiously and deliberately, acutely aware of the consequences of a headwall tumble with heavy packs onto the glacier below, and still at least ten miles from home. Although ski racers are good at one-ski skiing, I think I understood the nerves our moms felt watching super-g races as I watched Sam navigate the refrozen headwall with one boot swinging free.

If we cruised to Crow Pass, once we crossed it, we started racing. We were so close to the finish line, but warming danger hung over us like the loaded south-facing slopes, getting dangerously warm, literally did. We picked our way across slide paths in a game of leapfrog, one leader radioing the next skier through. We never stopped in a group and never stopped for long. Eventually, and with a hoot, we bottomed out onto the snow-packed road.

I haven't tasted something so perfect as that warm whiskey, lounging on wet ski bags in the back of our rental truck, in a long time.