[Click the photo above to view this photo album]

In Anchorage, if you tell someone you went skiing in Bear Valley, they assume that you were up above Anchorage in the Bear Valley that leads towards McHugh Peak. But there is another, less known Bear Valley. If you’ve ever waited for the tunnel to Whittier, you’ve seen it off to the North. It doesn’t look like much - especially in summer when it is a tangled mess of brush and swamps. But in the winter, with plenty of snow, it makes for a fun place to crust ski. Nobody goes there, probably because it is across the street from Portage Lake, which is the mecca for southcentral crust skiing because of its spectacular scenery and easy access.

On Friday, fresh off our ski to Grandview, Tim, Benji and I were discussing other places that would be good crust skiing right now. The consensus was that the Portage area was the place to be for the weekend. Tim suggested Bear Valley as a good bet if I wanted to go some place new.

So on Sunday, Ian and I skied up Bear Valley. The route finding on the first part was tricky - the river was washed out so we had to navigate lots of brush. But eventually it opened up into some really sweet skiing and great views.

The entire ski took less than two hours, so after we were done, we decided to drive down the road to Placer and ski up to check out the ice cave at Skookum Glacier. I could not believe the crowd of people out in Placer on Sunday! We saw about 50 people - and we didn’t even go up towards Spencer Glacier! We had a hard time finding a parking spot. What were all these “lycra-clad NSAA skate skiers” doing out there? Didn’t they know that Hillside was groomed last night? (Full disclosure admission: I think I was the only NSAA skate skier who was actually wearing lycra out there. Guilty as charged.)

Is crust skiing joining the mainstream? It’s hard to see why it wouldn’t when we get perfect days like Sunday.

Plenty of snow this winter + recent warm weather and rain + overnight temperatures below freezing = Crust skiing 2007! I kicked off my spring crust cruising season with a trip to Spencer Glacier with Chris, Seth, Chris, and Gary.

Feb 18: Wow, three months since I’ve posted any trip photos. Well that about sums up my winter so far - not much fun. The skiing has been great, but I haven’t been out enjoying it much. But on the bright side, I did manage to get a jump on the crust skiing season. Today I joined Tim Kelley and Tim Miller for a ski up the Twentymile River valley.

Its Thanksgiving and we’ve had skiable snow for almost 4 weeks, so I can’t complain. But right now, the skiing isn’t nearly as good as the ice skating. Photos by Tim Kelley.

April 29: This was one of those ski routes that I have drooled over for a couple of years. Always wanted to do it, but needed to go with guys who know more about glacier travel than I do. Tim Kelley and Tim Miller gave me that chance on Saturday. As always, you can also see Tim Kelley’s pics from the trip on his website.

April 14: It seems like I’ve been doing everything twice this spring. Two times up Twentymile, two times across Arctic to Indian. And today I did my second ski up the Placer River valley. This time I went to Spencer Glacier.

April 8: The recent weather hasn’t been conducive to crust skiing (cloudy with occasional snow showers). But yesterday afternoon was sunny and it got cold last night, so I decided to give it a go this morning.

March 28-30: Crust skiing came early this year! We’ve had a good week or so of freeze/thaw cycles, so I knew there should be crust somewhere. I headed to the Twentymile River near Portage to check it out.

Sun, March 26: Linda and I skied on Portage Lake

April 21. Linda and I took the two dogs (Anouk and Taz) and did the ‘classic’ Anchorage-area crust ski across Portage Lake to Portage Glacier and Portage Pass.