Everybody's Doing It

 We are well into the best time of the year in Alaska.  The best time of the year in Alaska spans from February 15 to June 15.  There can be no debate about whether this is the best time of the year in Alaska or not. There are a bunch of reasons why this is the best time of the year in Alaska. Here are a few of them:

There's more daylight each day.
Around February 15 is the first time you can really feel the warmth of the sun for the first time each year.
There's always plenty of snow for skiing between February 15 and June 15.
It tends to be the sunniest and driest part of the year.
Most of the summer tourists haven't arrived yet.

For local skiers, there's a logical progression of ski outings that begins close to town and close to sea level in late winter and gradually transitions to more exotic and higher elevations as summer arrives. One of the first classic trips of the spring ski season is the Arctic to Indian traverse, a 30 kilometer trip in the front range of the Chugach, above Anchorage. I skied Arctic to Indian with a couple of friends last weekend. The UAA Ski Team skied it earlier today. If I didn't have to be on Kodiak Island for work, I'd have joined in with the Seawolves today for a second round. There is plenty of snow, and I've never seen better trail conditions than right now.

Success!  And I'm not talking about Toom's broken ski.  Or his intact Triac poles. I'm talking about the fact that, despite his broken ski, Toom is standing in the Indian Valley parking lot, at the end of the trip, and isn't stranded high in the mountains somewhere, postholing his way out of the wilderness, sleeping under trees at night and eating birch bark for sustenance.  It takes real guts to take a pair of lightweight racing skis over the Arctic to Indian traverse, but Toom isn't easily intimidated. 

I think we have a lot of great outings ahead of us this spring!