January is a prime skiing month in most places in the Western Hemisphere. However in Alaska the sun barely crests the horizon and only the hardiest are willing to brave the cold. At 61 degrees North latitude, POWDER sent out two robust athletes to do a little dark season heli skiing in the Chugach Mountain Range with Chugach Powder Guides. Kent Kreitler, longstanding big-mountain master was out on this trip hitting the steeps, cliffs, and thousands of vertical feet offered in southeast A.K. On the fourth day of the trip, Kreitler set out with fellow Squaw Valley pro Skogen Sprang, Chugach Powder Guides co-owner Mike Overcast and an assortment of photographers, writers and filmmakers. But on this day Kreitler found himself being helicoptered out of the mountains with shredded tendons and his right femur pushing into new territory. POWDER caught up with Kreitler during a physical therapy session in Munich, Germany.

POWDER: Your injury happened in Alaska; you live in Tahoe. How did you end up in Germany for rehab?

Kreitler: I was invited here with Skogen Sprang and Matt Reardon by one of our physical therapist to do an advanced therapy session to clean up scar tissue and take us to the next level in healing.

POWDER: Your crew had four solid days of heli skiing and you had worked your way deep in the Chugach to a place called Shit Trap. Describe the line you were on when the accident happened.

Kreitler: It wasn't really a line. That's Alaska, everything is different around every corner and things change with each snowfall. I doubt anyone had been in that specific place or will be back there, but who knows. The area had an obvious line to an air, which was Skogan's line and then just rocky fingers. I thought I could ski in above the cliffs and pick an air, scoping the landing from above. When I skied it, I found the landing and then punched the cliff because I had to get out over the rocks. Unfortunately I drifted right towards the true fall line and landed on the rocks. It was a really stupid decision. Usually I know my line totally before I do anything. I didn't this time and I paid for it. Bad mistake.

POWDER: Everyday you go out big-mountain skiing it’s dangerous and anything could go wrong. At what moment did you know something was wrong?

Kreitler: In the air on that run, I actually just saw the rocks coming and I planned to tail slap them and then land. Unfortunately the tail slap became a full impact landing as the arc of my air and gravity pulled me in. I went for the stomp though and thought I would pull it and skip across the rock. I think if I was an ass checker I would be paralyzed or dead. I didn't know anything was drastically wrong until I was tomahawking and my right leg was just flopping loose everywhere.

POWDER: What went through your mind in this situation?

Kreitler: I knew I was fucked. At first I figured I had about ten minutes to live because I thought my leg was compounded and I would lose too much blood before they could get me out. I yelled for the helicopter. I just wanted to get loaded up and flown to Anchorage. I called in all my spirit helpers to assist me and comfort me. Skogan got to me right away and got my ski off. I just lay on my back and held my leg from flopping any farther to the inside. Then I really focused on lowering my heart rate and calming down so I would lose less blood and have more time. After a few minutes of this there was still no blood coming through my pants so I knew that at least it was not a compound fracture. Then I was worried about losing the leg. After ten minutes or so I could still move my toes, and I felt like my artery was still working too. I wasn't in a position to go into shock so survival mode kicked in and the pain wasn't really all that bad.

POWDER: What was the process like getting out of there? Any problems with the rescue, EMT, or dealing with the environment?

Kreitler: It was tougher and took longer than I would have liked. Mike Overcast wanted to drag me to a flat spot about 100 yards away. I didn't want to move anything for fear of doing more damage. The thought of trying to hold my leg while being dragged wasn't going over with me at all. The pain was okay when I was stable but not so good when I’d move the leg. I asked them to just dig a landing zone in the hillside for the heli and also a place for the blades to turn. Once the heli got me out of there, it was late and I couldn't fly on to Anchorage because we had to get the rest of our group out. At the base I took a 45-minute bumpy ambulance ride. I didn't want painkillers at first because I wanted to be clear if I had a loose cannon Doctor that wanted to remove my leg. After 15 minutes the medics assured me that I could have morphine and nitrous and still be coherent, so I went for it, and plenty of it.

POWDER: Your injuries are unique. What exactly did they turn out to be?

Kreitler: The injury was that every ligament and tendon in the knee was severed except for the interior capsule, which all tore off of the femur in one chunk. I don’t know all the names but it includes the ACL, PCL, Patellar Tendon. Everything was torn and when I arrived at the hospital in Anchorage. Plus I found out that my femur was jammed down in front of my Tibia where it went on impact. I was very lucky that I didn't sever the artery. They don't know how it wasn't ruptured and I didn't do any damage to the cartilage or meniscus.

POWDER: Is this the worst injury you have ever had?

Kreitler: Hell yeah!

POWDER: How is the recovery coming?

Kreitler: Good. I've been busting ass. Its just alot of positive thinking, hard work, pain, and asking for the right people come to you. I'll be 100 percent soon and already I’m mountain biking, lifting, and I jogged yesterday since I'm beginning the impact-training phase of this.

POWDER: Besides going to Germany, did you do anything special for rehab?

Kreitler: I'm doing a lot that would be considered out of the norm. Western medicine has its limitations so you have to combine it with other ways in order to have the most beneficial outcome. Getting injured is about the body, mind, and spirit, so exploring why this might have happened on different levels is important to the process. Even if you don't believe in the mind or spirit aspect, you're crazy not to do things like work with energy healers because this works largely on the physical plane anyway.

POWDER: At 33 is it harder to come back from an injury like this than it is when you were younger?

Kreitler: I've never had an injury like this but I actually think it might be easier because I know more. The experience of blowing my ACL on my left knee 5 years ago has been invaluable to the healing process now, because I gained a lot of knowledge and met invaluable people. For example, I used the same surgeon and I think he is the absolute best. All these relationships have made the process as fluid as possible.

POWDER: A lot of athletes push it and try to come back to their sports immediately, have you skied since?

Kreitler: No. I almost did this spring but didn't quite squeeze it in. It's probably better, but if the season was two weeks longer in Tahoe, I would have done some groomers just for my head.

POWDER: It looks like you’ll be back and ready to charge this season; I hear you are going to South America.

Kreitler: I'm planning a summer trip. I don't plan on being 100 percent Kreitler-going-Reichter, taking hits, but I want to go more for the love of the sport and to get on my feet again. Hopefully I'll take it up a little but I'm not going to put expectations on myself right now. I'm not going backwards right away and re-injuring myself.

POWDER: With such a bad injury, the usual complications of the backcountry, and losing a season, does an incident like this change your mindset?

Kreitler: Somewhat, but so does life and my mindset changes with time. I used to go out and not care if I was killed or maimed--I think killed might be better than maimed. I've been given a second chance on maimed, if not more. I still don't have a fear of death for the most part because I sincerely believe in reincarnation, but I do have a new found respect for pain and suffering. I'm going to go back to remembering all my lines and exactly where I'm going, especially on airs, from now on. Because unless the Great Spirit is going to take me quick, I don't want to deal with this again.

Check out Rob Story’s feature Gothic Alaska in the September 2004 issue of Powder.

Also, be sure to look for, "Reverence, the Kent Kreitler story" a film biography on Kreitler coming out this fall and available soon at www.kentkreitler.com