Jeremy Jones and Pontoon Peak

www.jeremyjones.net

Almost ten years ago to the day I finished my season with one of the best runs of my life down Pontoon Peak. Since that moment, that experience has held a place in my "most-cherished" memory bank. I refer to lines like this as “lifetime achievement awards.” Here is the short list of these lines; The Tusk, Grizzly Spine, The Brothel, Meteorite, Storm Troopers, Shoulder of Death, Stevie Wonder and Pontoon Peak.

Pontoon Peak towers above the rest of the Chugach and sits all by itself as if other mountains are afraid to get close to it. Whenever I am around it I feel its gravitational pull and can not take my eyes off it. The fact that it was ridden in the early '90s by Trevor Peterson and Eric Pehota proves to me that I was not the only one to feel Pontoon's pull. At the time terrain like this was considered unridable and most of the Chugach was unridden. To top it off, Trevor and Eric had to sit on the helicopter skids (pontoons) in order to land on the peak. It was so far outside the realm of what people where doing at that time that they must have felt like astronauts exploring outer space.

I do not know when Trevor said these words, "THERE COMES A TIME WHEN ONE MUST RISK SOMETHING OR SIT FOREVER WITH ONE'S DREAMS,” but there is a good chance it was while sitting on the pontoons of the heli moments before being lifted to the top of Pontoon Peak.

“Airy” is the best way to describe the feeling of standing on top of the Pontoon. There is a weight to the air one can only get by standing on an edge that drops away for thousands of feet on all sides. I found myself crawling to my line even though I had a few feet on either side of me.

Dropping in, the rollover seemed to never end and I felt like I was riding on the edge of the world. 5,000 feet below, I hopped over the bergschrund just as the shadow crept up the face. It would be my last run of the trip and was a storybook ending to an incredible Alaskan experience.



Have you ever seen a better looking mountain?  Whether in person or in photos, I have looked at this peak more than any other mountain in the world.  The line I hit 10 years ago is the center spine to cliff.  Due to the conditions this year, I started off the peak and faded to the right, exiting just looker's right of the cliff.



So much sick terrain everywhere you look but it is hard to take your eyes off of Pontoon.



I took at least 50 photos of the peak over a two-week period.



A good view of the Peterson and Pehota line down the right hand ridge.  The bottom of the photo is the halfway point.





THAT’S IT, THAT’S ALL!  Check out the movie coming this fall. If you have not seen the teaser check this link. Check back in a few weeks for the new teaser.

Check out the first of 3 trailers for Travis Rice's HD epic That's It That's All.