Eight Hundred Six

inches and snowing at the top of Alyeska. Deep soft snow at the top skied sweetly. Dense is a euphemistic way of describing the base conditions.

End Better than the Beginning

Snowing and blowing on Mount Alyeska, storm riding at its finest. Kruser's rally got me going, and it was a good call. Markman, Kruser and yours truly found untracked lines on the North Face until its 5:30 pm closing. Heavy snowfall (medium light density) and wind filling in tracks between runs made exceptional skiing.

Kruser got it right: the end was better than the beginning

Springtime in Girdwood

Turk worked his big boards with a mastery of the mank.

Girdwood is a wet place. It's claim as the northern-most rain forest has me convinced. But, not far above the base elevation, the 'light precipitation' was falling in the form of a structured crystal in the late afternoon.

The snowpack down to 2000+/- ft el remained wintery all day, but by late afternoon, the 24" fresh in 24 hours had become a gloppy mashed potato base down to about 500 ft where it had become slushy.

The image below is Alex carrying some velocity.

Alyeska Rally

Fresh 25" cures a lot of ills. After Friday's 12", Saturday's scritchy base was nearly fully healed with 13" more over 24 hr.

Pent up powder pangs called out the masses. And, although thousands of exhuberant snow riders turned out for the excellent conditions, untracked lines in knee deep powder were still available at the end of the day.

Christmas choke was still scritchy, but the facets below were still yielding untracked lines at closing.

Springtime in Girdwood

10" fresh at the top of Alyeska's Chair 6 at opening, and the additional 6" that fell during the day was a good reason to be there. Alyeska's patrollers did a nice job getting N Face open and it was a typical terrific day in the inch-per-hour snowfall. After the N. Face red flag went up at 5 pm, our karma lifted the fog for a couple of laps on the front side, virtually untracked due to the impenetrable soup that made up seem like down for the remainder of the day.

N. Face Christmas was open and the Knuckles was waist deep. It was good to ski with CW, Doc & Turk. The untracked experience was great today.

New Year's to Max's

Kruser, Dr. Snow, TK Snow, and yours truly covered the extremities of our favorite ski resort, the very best ski resort at the 61st parallel, and the world's only ski resort overlooking the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet. Today we skied only Max's and New Year's the extreme skiers' left and extreme skiers' right lines at Girdwood's best ski area. Both had great snow with lots of untracked lines.

Max's had an arduous, uphill traverse, but no complaints - it kept the traffic down and the powder pure. Max's offers excellent glades and meadows, with some nice steeps. Max's open meadows are a nice contrast to the rock-walled New Year's Chute.

New Year's Chute is a real treat because it's not often open due to it's avalanche hazard; it's a steep, narrow chute that gathers an incredible amount of snow at its starting zone. Max's is open to skiing from the lifts a little more often, but definitely not the norm. New Year's is a great line, the type that I wouldn't dare in the backcountry. Its steep pitch is sustained and jogs, not a good place to fall. And tooday both Max's and New Year's had fabulous conditions!

Friends, sunshine and powder - a great combination.

Anchorage Powder (Ski) Club

Join the powder club! Arctic Valley was still hatching untracked lines at 4 p.m. Snowing and blowing, low visibility. But, visibility is over rated. Anchorage Ski Club is a great organization and the Arctic Valley ski area is a fine local ski hill.













Charter Powder Club members: Kruser & Markman at Arctic Valley Chair 2 Station

Alyeska Valentine

Alyeska was in its typical mid-winter condition with a nice little storm brewing, blowing in the tracks between runs. The Knuckles area of the North Face was a real pleasure. Skied with most of the usual suspects - they all enjoyed the snow.

Arctic Valley Mid-Winter

Arctic Valley is a shining jewel above Anchorage. Conditions are shaping up there after the meltdown. More snow would be more than welcome, but it's great the area is operating.

Markman had control at the top.

It was lightly tracked.

Winter is Back to Back

Alyeska's North Face provided treats worthy of soldiering on to the end. We were the last two through Rag Doll gate. Thanks to the pleasant patroller who said, "No problem"; he had just tied the rope and flipped the sign down, but let us through with no hassle. High Traverse was very good, too with soft snow beneath the 6" fresh on top with a hint of the old tracks. North Face still reigned.

GB & Dr. Snow were amply rewarded for enduring the boney traverse to the Knuckles on North Face.



Storm skiing in Knuckles was excellent.

Winter is back at Alyeska

Expecting dust on crust, 20,000 verts and done, the snow gods gave us waist deep and 39k. The waist deep was in the slough-alicious sloughage in Christmas Chute and the Knuckles. Elsewhere it was 3-inch deep dust on crust, and very enjoyable.

The base at the base was boiler plate. Above the frozen snow zone, there was a sweet, soft base. Even the frozen base had enough fresh on top for carve-ability, though it was a bit scritchy.

Alyeska blogger-mistress & meister.

Kate, Kruser, & Dr. Snow dropped into Christmas.