The ability to forecast the surf and weather goes hand in hand with forecasting snow. It's a little trickier when taking in the temperature of the atmosphere at different levels, but the same skills can be used to forecast when a good dry powder day is lining up in the mountains.

The crossover between surfing and snowboarding is closest when riding powder as everything is shifted more onto the backfoot instead of the normal forward weighting. Turns become like big open face carves, and a hard 'snap' sends you into a glorious cloud of white powder.

Thus the obsession to hunt out deep, dry powder began, starting with trips to Japan but now moving onto the real mountains and terrain of Alaska.

Most people head to Alaska for the heli-skiing but the high costs and fixed schedules aren't ideal. Instead we planned for the harder option, that being backcountry splitboarding up the mountains we wished to ski.

While taking much longer and requiring a lot more effort, the rewards seem much higher, with the scenery and the conversations on the walk up all being part of the journey. It's not unlike the division between towing into or paddling big surf.

The great thing about Alaska is that the roads run through passes as the bottom of the mountains, providing access to seemingly endless terrain. You can simply pull the car over, get your gear together and hike up as far and as deep into the mountains as you want, notwithstanding avalanche danger, aspect, and exposure.

This was the modus operandi for our trip, along with a day doing sled bumps and one resort day when the avalanche danger was too high to safely ski further afield.

A highlight of the trip was seeing the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights). The sight of seeing the sky light up and then dance around directly above, firing off all the colours of the rainbow is difficult to describe. The ever talented Steve Wall managed to catch footage of the aurora as well as a tidal bore closer to Anchorage (see the video at the bottom of this article).

Alaska is pure wilderness and the mountains unforgiving, so every trip up and run back down was analysed to reduce the risk of injury or death to avalanche. One large slab avalanche was set off by a mate but luckily he wasn't caught up. Seeing the mountain slide away in slow motion was unsettling and the resulting avalanche debris consisted of large, rock solid ice cubes.

Apart from the mountains and snow there was lots of drinking, fireworks, guns, and all that typical American carry on, rounding out an amazing trip into the wild.

Video teaser thanks to Steve Wall

Tidal Bore through Turnagain Arm