November 7, 2011
It snowed rather substantially Saturday night (I wasn’t expecting it) allowing for some fantastic powder skiing on Sunday. The sun moved in and out of the clouds, and despite the warmer temps down low the snow stayed nice and light. I even got a few Alta style faceshots. All this snow, this early in the year has left me feeling weak and out of shape, as my legs haven’t had a chance to build into the conditions, and everything looks so good it’s hard to hold yourself back and take it easy.
November 6, 2011
Fall is an awful season, I’m so glad its over. As with every year, each fall season that I don’t leave the country my accomplishments consist of driving my self crazy over tedium, and boredom. The skiing has been pretty good the last couple of weeks though, and I’ve been feeling better, but today was absolutely fantastic, I feel like I got put back on my medicine. I went up to Goldpan with Andy this morning, and enjoyed a nice ridge walk along Magnum with the Viking before dropping in to Superbowl. Some other folks had beat us up there, but no one had skied the line I was planning on taking, so it was all good. A little wind affected up top, but absolute pow down bellow. I didn’t ski so well, as I’m not really in shape yet and embarassingly my legs were gassed halfway down. From there, Andy and I headed up Cornbiscuit and skied the corner-pocket chute before bushwhacking our way back to the road. Our run down Superbowl has had me in a permagrin since I got to the bottom. After last years horrible season it felt so so nice to finally ski something steep and interesting. Video bellow.
May 16, 2011
Planning on skiing the north side of Byron, Max, Charlie, Spencer, Corky and I got an uncharacteristically early start leaving town at 6:30. We arrived to find Byron enveloped in pea soup clouds, and made a unanimous decision to keep driving in search of some sunshine. After deciding on Granddaddy, we sped up Bertha Creek, the frozen early morning snow making for super quick travel. The wind was pretty strong with occasional deep throaty groans and the clouds were racing with an artificial looking high speed that we decided against skinning up the ridge and chose instead to boot up the looker right of the chute next to the rocks. Corky led the charge, and despite a pocket of super firm snow we all reached the top without incident. With the clouds whipping by at a fantastic clip we thought it would only be a matter of time before a sucker hole blew in, but we all got cold and anxious before that had could occur and ended up skiing the line in a cloud. The snow was surprisingly fantastic, the wind had filled the chute with a couple inches of dry styrofoam like snow that skied great. Also, be warned, Max and I were fooling around with our cameras so the video bellow is a little strange.
April 14, 2011
Yesterday after work (around 3:30pm) Max, Wilson and I drove to Johnson Pass with snowmobiles hoping to get in a late afternoon lap on the Captain’s Chair (pictured above). It only took 10 minutes or so to get to the base of the climb from the parking lot. The trail is getting a little thin, but was still easily ride-able. From there it wasn’t more then an hour before we’d skinned up the ridge and were getting ready to traverse / climb over to the line.
Unfortunately that’s when the clouds came in limiting our visibility to a few feet and draining everyone’s motivation. We cracked a couple beers in an attempt to wait for a sucker hole, but after an hour of waiting, with daylight dwindling and no sign of any clearing we retreated back down our skin trail to the snowmobiles and motored back to the parking lot. And of coarse, as soon as the snowmobiles were back on the trailer the crowds broke and we were forced to stare up at what could have been bathed in beautiful orange sunset colors. So the season of frustration continues, however, I know it could be much worse, for example, all of you that are forced to read all this dross. Anyway, having seen the line up close I can confirm it’s sweet and I’m more likely then ever I’ll be back.
April 8, 2011
I have a bunch of bits from the last couple of weeks. First a couple of pictures form the conditions in Valdez while I was in Abaco.
And a couple of videos; first a Wilson and Max skiing some shorter lines of Easter Bunny in Thompson Pass
And a short video of retreating with our tails between our legs on Cornbiscuit this past Wednesday. Nothing to special but worth watching to see Max’s accidental air.
Oh, and the word on the street is that Hatcher is going off right now.
April 7, 2011
With clear skies and the storm of the decade of the week foretasted to roll in today, Wilson and I drove down to Turnagain for some skiing yesterday afternoon. With the sunshine and recent round of fresh snow I couldn’t have been happier with the extended day light that allows me to leave town at 3:30 and still be entirely confident of finding good light. The pass was pretty deserted, with less then 2 handfuls of cars parked along the entirety of the skiers side. Wilson and I decided on Corn biscuit (which was trackless) hoping to get some fantastic evening light on the northerly shots. The snow felt hollow and a bit spooky the entire way up, and upon inspection from above the first two lines were incredibly wind loaded and looked ripe to pop at any moment. Wilson and I decided on putting in a ski cut on the second chute. After marking my exit point and shuffling backwards for a few steps, I took a step right towards the ridge (in order to skin up above and cut the slope from above) and felt the ridge collapse as the slope slid away. For any enthusiasts out there Wilson captured a picture of me standing in the exact spot from which it was triggered.
Anyway, the slide and the accompanying larger then expected dust cloud convinced Wilson and I to have a couple of PBRs up top before retreating back to the car. And amazingly, while drinking up top, Max showed up, who, having been unable to leave town before 4:30, drove down solo, found my van, and skinned full speed in order to catch us, without the slightest clue as to where we were headed. I really love this time of year; being able to waste the entire day and still find some fantastic skiing in good light before bed can’t be beat. And to close things off, for those of you looking for a euro fix, my old buddy Clive from Chamonix has a pile of pictures over at Allez Toujours, while Chamonix Insider has a video and write up on the first descent of the Grand Gendarme d’Envers du Plan.
February 15, 2011
Driving home after Saturday’s powder fest I was made to believe that Sunday’s forecast called for more sunshine and more cold, which prompted me to make around of phone calls and set some semi-ambitious plans for following morning. So I went to bed with happy thoughts, a stomach full of beer and thoughts of steep sunny powder to come only to be woken up early the next morning by both my planned ski partners calling to inform me that it was cloudy and they now had other plans. Which at the time wasn’t too bad as I was tired and going solo allowed me to sleep a bit longer.
After a customary late start I ended up meeting up with Jeff (recently back from New Zeeland / Antarctica) and Graham and took a couple runs off the south side of Tin Can. The snow was fantastic, and much deeper then the snow found on Saturday. So deep that I don’t have much video as the lens was usually covered with snow after a turn or two. The most interesting aspect of the day was Sue’s continued insistence on finding her own way down each run. Where as in the past she would normally give chase, now she seems to try to discern where I’m going, and then looks for a solid path to get their. It’s a bit unnerving when you get to the bottom of each run and the dog is nowhere to be found, but she always arrives after a minute or two so I don’t really know if it’s a problem. Anyway, on to some video
February 13, 2011
On Friday, while struggling to find anyone who wanted to ski, and reading the weather forecast calling for sunshine and extreme cold I was bit worried I would spend the day fighting the urge to quit early and go warm up. Well a late night call from Paul solved the issue of having no ski partners, and when he showed up at Tesoro with a team of hungover but extremely motivated future doctors set on turning as many laps as possible, an early retreat for the warmth of the car was never a possibility. The skiing yesterday was nearly perfect, making me glad to have put in a long day, with hardly a breath of wind, cold slow sloughing snow, and decent stability (at least on our laps) made for a perfect day. Like a free agent (or Damphousse) I swapped teams throughout the day and kept being rewarded with perfect runs followed by more perfect runs. Anyway, due to the big day the video bellow is a little longer then usual, enjoy.
February 3, 2011
On Saturday with the wind ripping Charlie, Max and I headed up Cornbiscuit, dropped into the third north facing shot and scored some turns on some windcrust before heading up Magnum, randomly meeting 6 or 7 other friends, and finding excellent snow on the southern aspects making for a fantastic day (whew long sentence). Due to the abrasiveness of the weather I had minimal expectations for the day and yet at the end of it found myself driving back to Anchorage absolutely thrilled with the days events. The wind did a number on my ears, but there was still plenty of good snow and everything worked out. There must be something about the smallish shape of Davis Creek that helps resist the wind because this is the 3rd or 4th time that going in there on a super windy day has paid off huge. Anyway, enjoy the video bellow. Also, make sure to read my childhood ski buddy Ben Nobel’s article over at Mystery Rants.
February 2, 2011
So last Friday, after a week of hearing about how it’d finally begun snowing or how that despite the overall poor stability there were plenty of safe turns to be had in the right spot, Max, Jared and 7 or 8 others who will remain nameless (they have yet to sign release waivers) took their snow machines up to Seattle Creek for some ghost ride laps. Having only seen the video afterwords, I was initially impressed by the shear number of tracks they were able to lay down in a short amount of daylight with super efficient ghost and double riding techniques. Excellent work by everyone involved, enjoy the video bellow.
January 31, 2011
An awesome weekend of heavy maritime powder combined with aggressive winds and lots of drinking kept me from posting over the last couple of days. Max took the photo above in Seattle Creek on Friday. I’ll have some video soon, and take a look at this picture of the Summit lake avalanche that caught 4 skiers on Saturday. We’re hoping everyone recovers soon.
Also make sure to check out Jimmy’s Ketchikan skiing pictures at AKase, and usually I wouldn’t comment on the Tanner Hall story at this link (hat tip to Leland for the find), but since I love drunken rants and rollerblading jokes I’ll give it a mention a come out against the apology.
January 27, 2011
Graham has recently expanded his range and begun making split boards. On sunday, with Graham in need of some product testing, he, max and I all went up Pete’s North to check out the storm and watch Graham display his snowboarding skills. The lower Pete’s North trees, with it’s proliferation of gullies and fall-lines, seemed (from what little I know) like horrible terrain for snowboarding but Graham did impressively well. Meanwhile it’s continued to snow, spirits are high, more to come soon.
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