Lines

Don’t Tell Mama

Don’t Tell Mama
After eight years of buildup, Parkin Costain finally laid down the first tracks on the Mono Spine outside of Haines, AK, with Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures Heli. Photo: Will Wissman
Words Lily Krass Ritter

“Don’t show mom yet,” Parkin Costain texted his dad from the Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures  (SEABA) hanger in Haines, AK.

The Seaba guide team had given Costain the green light to drop into a line he’d been eyeing for almost a decade. Tomorrow, they’d get up before the sun and toe in on the miniscule platform at the top of the endless ridge, dropping him off alone to make the first descent.

When Costain was 17, he won $10,000 in the Quiksilver Young Guns Contest. “I bought a computer and put the rest towards heli hours in Alaska,” he said. That was his first trip to ski in Haines, and when he first caught sight of Mono Spine, a razor-sharp backbone that holds its shape for a relentless 2,000 vertical feet.