Two summers' worth of sun

For this last two summers, it seems Anchorage has had nothing but cold rain. This past weekend made up for it.

A friend spotted me in traffic the other day and sent this photo.

If the snow turns out to be too soft for skating, at least you get a motorcycle ride out of it.

There are a lot of options here.

Groomed skiing has ended for the year at Hatcher Pass.

I think this fox wanted to come home with us.

231 days...

...of winter.

According to the local television station, winter ended yesterday, after 231 days.

 

It has snowed here in Anchorage for the past couple of days but it hasn't amounted to much, so we drove an hour north to Hatcher Pass this morning, where we knew we could find some good skiing.  We spent a couple hours on our classic skis, skiing on hard wax.  It was definitely one of the nicest days of the "winter".

  

Nothing wrong with the grooming this morning.

Powder snow / hard wax conditions.

When we started skiing there were only a few cars in the parking lot, but by the time we were done the parking lot was completely full of skiers, and more were arriving and parking down the road.

Powerline again

I went skiing at Powerline Pass again yesterday.  Brandon Brewster was headed out skiing the same time as me. We had a nice little workout.

Crust Skiing closer to town

If you get in a car and drive 15 minutes east from the UAA campus, you can go skiing at Powerline Pass. The crust was perfect there yesterday.

Portage Pass

Lasse, Marine, Erik Bjornsen, Etienne and I jumped in Lasse's Ford Explorer for one more road trip  before he sells it and moves to Copenhagen.  Our destination:  Portage Lake and Portage Pass.

On the road: Lasse, Erik, Marine, Etienne

A short road construction delay along Turnagain Arm

Portage Lake

Portage Glacier

Our destination: Portage Pass in the left background

Climbing the pass

That's Portage Glacier in the background

Passage Canal and Prince William Sound behind Lasse and Erik

Les Francophones et Baird Peak

Heading back home

 

Portage Glacier

Final exams are over, which makes it easy to relax in the warm sun after skiing.  No need to rush home to schoolwork.

 

Turnagain Recon

We went to Turnagain Pass looking for skate skiing, but we found out it's still a little too early in the season for the crust at 1,000 feet.  Good thing we brought our alpine touring skis. The snow may have been a little soft for skating, but there was nothing wrong with the weather, the view, or the powder.

Hillside Nordic Trails - May 1, 2013

Patricia and Lasse invited me along to check on the status of the trails.
Things were in good shape:

 

About halfway through our ski, the groomer came out and smoothed things out for us with the Pisten Bully:

 

 

 

Skookum Skiing

There was nothing wrong with the ski conditions over the weekend in Skookum Valley: