In mid-January of 2017, world renowned skier Wiley Miller was skiing powder near his home in Pemberton, British Columbia, when he got a call from Sterbenz. “Conditions were really good [around Permberton]. It was snowing, we were skiing the trees…” Miller remembers. “My initial thoughts were, AK, during the first week of February? Are you sure? I just know Alaska is so dark, and I’ve never really heard of too many people going up there in early February and getting anything done. So, I guess I was hesitant.”

As Sterbenz outlined the details of the trip—that they would be hooking up with a local whom neither had actually met, who would then unselfishly tour them around his home turf—Miller grew more skeptical. “Josh could have been any number of a type of person,” Miller says. “And when you’re out in those conditions you want to trust who you’re with.”

Randich had concerns of his own, but not with his would-be partners. He planned their visit around his favorite stomping grounds: Turnagain Pass. “When they said they were coming up, I knew if we got the right window, this is what I wanted to do,” he recalls. But as the trip approached, Randich began to second guess himself.

“I’ve taken lots of people out to that area, so I was comfortable with the idea of bringing new people, and I knew that they all probably had strong mountain skills,” Randich says. “I was more worried about the quality of riding. Here’s Wiley Miller, who’s been a professional skier for a long time… He’s skied all over the world. So, that’s what I was nervous about, wondering, is this even going to be up to snuff? Are they going to be stoked on it?”

Before he could find out, the conditions needed to line up. “When they called me, where the snowpack was at that point and what the weather had done… we needed three weeks for everything to set up,” Randich says. “It just so happened in those three weeks, everything that needed to happen, happened. It cooled down, it snowed more, everything bonded and had time to heal. They got there on a Wednesday, and that Tuesday was the first blue day we’d seen in a while. Immediately, we were able to go out to these prized zones, and they hadn’t been touched yet. We were the first ones to start opening them up. It was perfect timing.”