Episode 1 reveals how naive Alex is to the way the mountains work at their highest elevations. He starts too early in the season and must traverse the ridge line in a lot of deep snow. The mountain range that he chooses is the Cabinet Mountains of Montana.

Alex takes a step back and choses the easiest of the mountain ranges that he has created routes for. The Snowcrest Range in Montana is remote and unknown, but it is a smaller and simpler range compared to the Cabinet Range. The Snowcrest still offers up some hair-raising knife edges but Alex is able to complete this one.

The season is coming to a close and Alex is looking for a real challenge again. He chooses his home mountain range, the Absarokas. He isn't fooling himself this time, he knows it will be gnarly, and it lives up to his expectations. After putting up a good fight and getting past many difficult points Alex has to descend from the ridge.