The sun doesn’t rise until 8:30 am but we are waking up around 7 am in the dark and it is still snowing hard outside. The Alyeska Mountain Report says there is 24″ of new snow on the slopes in the last 12 hours. I made us my oatmeal granola yogurt fruit porridge and potatoes for breakfast and at 10 am we geared up and headed out.
There was over 6″ of heavy wet slushy snow on the ground; school was cancelled and kids were on the road throwing snowballs. It was a quick 5 minute walk to the Daylodge where we got into our boots and stashed our gear bags next to the ATM and headed to Chair 4 which is now Ted;s Expreess Quad and painted a bright green, with RIFD gates and a long line of skiers and riders all eager to go.
We rode up the lift past Chair 6 which is also painted the same sickly green and re-christened the Glacier Express and unloaded at the bottom of the bowl. It is not all that familiar, the view is non existent as it is dumping snow, at least there is little wind.
We decided to ski all the way down and cruised past Chair 3 (now the Bear Cub Express) and down the long flat run to the base of Chair 7 (still called Chair 7) to the tram which was not open yet so we rode Chair 7 to Chair 4 and back down again and took the Tram up and skied to Chair 6 which took us to the top
It is all socked in, the back of the valley obscured by the snowfall, the headwall rising out of the cloud, Glacier Bowl fleetingly glimpsed through snowflakes and the Turnagain Ar all shades of grey and brown between cloud breaks,
My legs were noodles after 3 runs. I can’t navigate the heavy powder so stick to the groomers which have only slightly less powder on them. On the way down to the Daylodge for lunch I end up on Tanaka in 3′ of wet cement snow and have to take my skis off to get down. When I finally make it to the Daylodge Gaelen is done with his lunch. He goes back up to the top while I go to Chair 3 and make several cruising runs on the green circles where I can open up and carve without fear of losing control and wiping out.
The mountain is familiar and not. I really did not spend a lot of time on it especially the last 5 or so years I lived in Girdwood. Most of my time on it came in the first few years I lived here. I like skiing but I am not rabid for all this snow lie the masses around me who once the North Face opened descended upon it like a swarm of Patagonia wearing locusts on snowboards and fat skis. Faces look familiar but as Molly Towner said “you will think you them but you don’t.”
By 2pm my butt was wet, my legs spent so I called it a day and walked back to the house and then walked the bike path over Glacier Creek to the Merc. There is a lot of graffiti under the bridge and the Merc looks the same, I bought some beer and some sausages and walked back home. The sky seemed to be clearing and I thought there might be a view up top that would be awesome so I got my skis and walked back up to the resort.
As I was putting my skis on Gaelen appeared and we rode to the top together which was still clouded in. Oh well, we had one more top to bottom run together before heading home. So nice to come back to a house, take a shower, be dry and warm. This is a luxury Ben and I did not have our first 2 winters here on Virgin Creek.
Tami McCann came over at 6pm with her boyfriend Blaide for burritos and we hung out for a few hours catching up. She looks exactly the same and it doesn’t feel like it’s been 15 years since we were last in touch. After they left we watched a big loud dumb with lots of car crashes and explosions movie on Netflix before turning in spent at 11 pm
