The Evolution of a Revolution
By Eli Potter

Mediating this battle of kite against wind can be a challenge. Sometimes I lose. If you’ve ever had whiplash, you know the pain. It’s the harsh reality that snow-kiting is a sport that has risk. My partners are here to lessen this risk. But in this terrain, safety in numbers seems ancient in its defense. Sometimes my partners are in earshot, and other times they are small dots against the surreal glacier landscape. Each of us are alone. As we kite into the alpenglow of one of the world’s largest mountain ranges the Chugach, I am reminded to be humble. After all, this is Alaska.

Snow-kiting the ice-fields is a sport full of objective hazard. Crevasse falls would almost certainly be fatal. All of my glacier travel experience tells me to wear a goddamn rope. When used as a safety line to catch a team member in the event of a crevasse fall, I love the rope. But try skiing with one on, then connect to your partners who are connected to a kite. Love will definitely not be the first four letter word that comes out of my mouth. But, the beauty of kiting the ice-fields is that, for most of the time, a rope is not needed. Because ice-fields lack a large gradient, they are relatively flat. Their stillness and utter vastness of uninterrupted ice minimizes any frictional stresses that create highly crevassed terrain. They are by no means safe, just safer for us to roam free.