On my old XCSkiRacer.com site, I used to do a lot of Top 5 lists.  Maybe it is my competitive nature, but I have a compulsive tendency to rank things. This is in spite of the fact that I often look back at my lists months or years later and cringe (what was I thinking!).

This morning our week of perfect crust skiing weather took a turn for the cloudy, rainy, and snowy. So probably no epic crust this weekend.  Instead I must feed my addiction by recalling past crust cruising glory.   This was a tough list to create, because if I was ranking my favorite outdoor experiences of all-time, every crust ski would be near the top.   So here is my best attempt to whittle the list to my five favorite crust skis of all time (so far!).

1. Around Bard Peak This ski had everything: perfect crust, sun, glaciers, powder, Prince William Sound, great company, and a trecherous decent into Whittier on rotting snow!
2. Center Creek I’ve done this one three times now and its always one of the best skis of the season
3. Broad Pass The skiing on this one was a little bumpy, but the scenery was great and it was a really fun road trip.
4. Around Avalanche Mountain - My first real Alaskan crust ski adventure, although I wouldn’t do it again.  Skiing up an avalanche chute was dumb, dropping down over Powerline Pass on skinny skis was dumber.
5. Carmen Lake and Twentymile Glacier - An early season (February) treat from the crust ski gods.

Erik, my ski buddy from the Park City days, and his wife Emily were in town recently. Erik really wanted to try this packrafting thing that I’m always raving about. And you know me - I’m always up for a run-n-float!

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.

August 5: Linda, Scott and I did a hike up the new Winner Creek trail in Girdwood. From the pass we went down the other side and floated out the Twenty Mile River.

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.

July 30th & 31st was forecasted as cloudy with some rain. So it sounded like a good weekend to do a sport where you are going to get wet anyway - packrafting! I packrafted on the 20 Mile River and 6 Mile Creek. So I guess you could say I did a packraft marathon (20 + 6, except that I only floated about 18 miles total).