My brother is in town this week. Today we headed up Rabbit Creek valley for some touring and low-angle turns in the new snow. Perfect conditions: a very firm, smooth base with a few inches of cold, dry powder on top. We had the entire valley to ourselves. Skiing on extra blue on April 15th.
I have no idea why he would ever want to go back to San Diego.
Wow, this little tool could become very addictive.
Family trip to Portage Glacier this weekend.
Perfect.
Is there some place I can live where it is March year-round? March here in south central Alaska was damn-near perfect this year. The first half of the month was cool and snowy, then the second half was warm and sunny. And with the long days stretching daylight until after 8 PM – it’s simply an unbeatable combination. Despite the warmer than average temperatures for the past three weeks, the snowpack is holding up well, and even increasing in some mountainous areas.
But it is now April, and all thoughts turn to crust. We’ve had a couple of good windows of crust skiing, but its been limited to the “warm-up” areas like Portage Lake and Skookum Glacier. These areas are right at sea-level so they melt out first. I like to hit them early as a warm up for bigger crust skis to come.
On Saturday, an old friend and co-worker, Yin, was in town. We went south to Skookum early in the morning. The crust was punchy near the glacier, but very good in the base of the valley.
I’m not sure if I’ll have much time for crust skiing this year, so I’m glad that I got in at least one good day.
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We spent last weekend at a cabin on Benka Lake near Talkeetna. It’s always a great family get-away.
When we were up there this past summer, we hiked a little way out the Montana Creek South Fork trail, which is nearby. It was a family hike, so we didn’t make it very far. But on the map, it looked like if we had gone up that trail about eight miles, we’d get above treeline and would likely get some great views of the Susitna Valley, the Talkeetna mountains and the Alaska Range. I’d seen the trail on a snowmobiles trail map, and I thought it would be a good place to explore on skis. So I made a mental note to check it out at a later date.
I had a four hour window of play time during the kiddo’s nap on Saturday afternoon, and I headed straight for the Montana Creek trail. It turned out to be every bit as cool as I hoped. The trail was narrow and bumpy, but easily skiable on classic skis. Once I got above treeline, which took eight miles, 1500 vertical feet, and an hour and a half, the views were spectacular even with overcast skies. The trail fractured into a tangled mess of snowmachine tracks at this point. I tried to follow the oldest (firmest) tracks as I climbed higher, but it was soft, slow going. So I just toured around the hills for an hour or so before heading back down.
This ski was very similar to Willow Mountain, which makes sense since Willow Mtn is only about 20 miles south along the west edge of the Talkeetnas.
I shared the trail with about 20 snowmobiles. There was a big dump of snow two days before, so I was happy to have them breaking trail for me. You could have some incredible crust skiing up in those hills in the spring if it weren’t for the snowmobile ruts…but if it weren’t for the snowmobile trail, there’d be no easy way of getting up there. It’s well worth that price to explore such a cool area.
Photos…
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If you read my last post about being laid low for a couple of months, I am sure you understand how badly I have been needing to get out for a good, long ski.
My first bright idea was that I would do the Susitna 100. Not race it, just ski easy, enjoy the hospitality at the checkpoints, and treat it like a tour. A nice weekend vacation. But when I went to sign up, I realized that the entry fee was $350! Holy crap! That’s an expensive ski tour. Unless they are serving lobster and caviar at Flathorn, no thanks.
So I decided I would watch the race instead, and get in some skiing and camping along the way. I recruited my friend Bill and we headed to Point MacKenzie early Saturday morning.
We started at 9:00 AM, same time as the racers, but we gave ourselves a two mile head-start by parking at the snowmobile lot up the road from the race start. We were able to ski the course, and watch the lead racers go by us along the way. We hung pretty close to the leaders until we got to Flathorn Lake, then stopped for a bite to eat. Our goal was to make it to Luce’s Lodge on the Yentna River (about 40 miles into the race) for a burger, then decide where to camp.
I felt surprisingly good while skiing. Sure, we were just cruising and I was pretty tired by the time I got to Luce’s at 3:00 PM. But I was psyched to see that we were only 30 minutes behind the race leaders at that point.
Bill and I hung out at Luce’s for a couple of hours, enjoying delicious burgers and chatting with many of the racers. Around 5:00 PM we packed up and decided to head back down the Yentna for an hour or so before camping. That would give us a shorter ski back to the car on Sunday.
As we crawled into our sleeping bags at 7:30 PM, Chet Fehrmann, the race leader, skied by in the darkness. We cheered for him, and then cheered for bikers Pete Basinger and Lance Andre when they went by five minutes later. The cool thing about this year’s race was that the conditions were good for both skiers and bikers, making for an even and exciting race. I have a feeling Pete was just using this race for training for the Iditarod Trail Invitational, but it was exciting anyway.
Most of the other racers passed us by during the twelve wonderful hours that we slept. We relished the luxury of sleep that the racers did not have. By 9:00 AM we were packed up and back on the Yentna. A slight tailwind made the return trip a little easier. We passed a few runners, bikers and skiers on our way to the finish. At the finish we learned that Chet held off the bikers to win the race for the third year in a row. Congratulations Chet!
It was a great weekend. Beautiful weather, great ski conditions, and lots of fun hanging out with other people who enjoy recreating in semi-remote Alaska. Oh, how I’ve missed this.
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I had a free day to do a long ski this weekend, so I rounded up some friends for a trip to the Susitna Valley. Bill, Rachel, JT, Scott are all either doing, or thinking about doing, the White Mountains 100 race in March, so they were eager to get out of town and ski some snowmachine trails.
We decided to head to Willow. There isn’t a lot of snow for cross country skiing anywhere in South-central Alaska right now. But I figured if anyone could create good skate ski conditions with the snow we have, it would be the good folks of the Willow Trails Committee. WTC did not disappoint, and the groomed trails impressed our whole crew.
We started at the Crystal Lake trailhead and headed down the Corral Hill trail to the Susitna River. Our goal was to complete some sort of loop, but not all the trails were in yet. So we headed south on the river to see what trails we could find. We had almost reached the Yentna River (and were thinking about turning around) when we found a trail headed east. That trail was narrow, rocky, and dirty, but after a few nervous minutes headed south, it swung back to the east and intersected with the Big Swamp trail as we hoped. Being back on the WTC-groomed trails, we had a sweet trail back up through the Big Swamp to Willow Swamp and back to the car.
It was a 36 mile loop that took us 5.5 hours, including a bunch of stops. Temps were -5 F at the trail head most of the day, and probably a fair bit cooler on the river in the morning. The glide was surprisingly good, in spite of the cold snow. It was a great day to be out in the sunny Su Valley, escaping the ice fog in Anchorage.
Photos and maps in the gallery:
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I used to start hoping for snow as soon as the weather turned cool. Now each year I hope for a few weeks of cold weather before any snow falls. Why? For ice skating! Not the go-around-in-circles kind of ice skating. No, I’m talking about cruising for miles at a time on nordic blades.
Today, Tim and I explored the Duck Flats area at the head of Knik Arm. I’d heard that the skating there last year was phenomenal. Since it hasn’t been very cold this fall, we were concerned that we might be a little too early. But since nordic skating has such a short window of time, we decided to give it a go anyway.
The ice was not good. To get to Duck Flats you have to skate down Rabbit Slough for a few miles. On the slough, there were multiple layers of ice. The base layer was thick, but the top layer was not. Most of the time the top layer held our weight, despite lots of creaking. But occasionally we’d break through and have a split second to wonder if it was going to be wet or dry underneath. Luckily, our feet only got wet a few times. The ice was also gritty from lots of wind, which made it very slow in many spots.
Out on the Duck Flats, the ice was solid as long as we avoided vegetation, but it had been windy when the ice froze out there, so it was bumpy and dirty. A few smooth spot were found, but as Tim said, we should have brought our full-suspension skates!
But in spite of the conditions, we still managed to skate for about 20 miles and explore a really cool area, so the day was a success. When the ice is smooth and hard, this area would be amazing.
Of course, Tim’s the star of my pictures. If you want to see pictures of me, go to Tim’s 2010 Skiing (and skating!) page.
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My favorite run is not long. It clocks in at a modest one hour and twenty minutes.
My favorite run does not climb big mountains. The elevation gain is less than one thousand feet.
My favorite run does not have lots of expansive views. It only has two viewpoints.
Obviously, based on what I’ve said so far, my favorite run in the world is not in Alaska.
My favorite run is not a secret, it is hiked by hundreds of people every week.
My favorite run in the world is not an exciting new route. I first did it when I was six years old.
Most of my favorite adventures are off the beaten path. I like adventures that are little too long, too hard, or too far-flung for most people. But my favorite run in the world is none of those things. There is nothing epic about it at all. It’s comfortable, like an old sweatshirt on a Saturday morning.
On my wedding day, I made all the guests do this run (or hike) with me.
My favorite run is located on the shores of Squam Lake, NH. It starts with the Five Finger Point trail, then goes up East and West Rattlesnake “mountains.” Growing up, I spent all of my summers at a family camp on Squam Lake, and it is my favorite place in the world. I did this run at least a couple of times every week when I was in my teens. Nostalgia is a big part of why it is my favorite, but it’s also a perfect everyday loop. Interesting, but not overwhelming. Tiring, but not exhausting. And while the only viewpoints are at the tops of the Rattlesnakes, the view-to-effort ratio is the best I’ve found anywhere.
Last month, while we were back east, we spent three days at the camp on Squam. I did my run every day. As always, I followed each run with a swim in the lake, and then a big meal at the dining hall. Maybe that’s why it’s my favorite.
We’re about to leave for a month-long trip back east, which means Saturday’s cyclocross race was the only one for me this year. Too bad because this race was not up my alley. A very wet and super-slick course, combined with lots of tight turns, put bike-handling at a premium. I prefer lung-busting courses. After I crashed twice, hit one tree, and skidded out on numerous corners, I decided that not getting hurt was more important than doing well. So I backed off the throttle and just tried to survive. In that respect, the race was a success. But the white-knuckle experience made me a little less sad that I will miss the rest of the series.
RESULTS – ArcticCross #1
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