Friday night. I drive past Pyramid Peak in Turnagain Pass looking casually up. I wanted to climb it all winter but my friends are snow snobs; they'd rather ski one run of good powder 5 times than skin up a wind hammered ridge. Now that it's spring they're all out doing spring things - like gardening and river rafting. For some reason I want to get one more ski day in. Looking up at the peak thoughts come and go; "Tomorrow should be an easy day. Almost too easy. I could climb Pyramid and then go ski elsewhere..."

I spend a lazy night next to a campfire watching the moon drift over the Kenai Mountains. Ranger hangs out next to me. He misses his old friend Pharaoh who used to chase him in circles when we camped. I miss him too. That night it freezes and I shiver inside my cheap flannel sleeping bag. Ranger, in his thin coat, shivers so hard he wakes me up so I dig out a jacket and throw it over him.

The alarm sounds at 6:30 am. I sleep till 8. Coffee follows and then I jump into the car and blast to the parking lot where I strap the skis to the pack and start booting uphill. Somewhere in the back of my mind it registers that there is no snow for at least 2000'. It also registers that there is brush for 2000' but I choose to ignore these thoughts.  [Read More... ]

Down low the snow was a hard crust over rotten snow which was nice in that it kept the snow machiners from getting up high. One actually got stuck in the snow just behind us while we were booting up; we waved and kept going! The hard snow continued for a while so Todd and I slapped on our ski crampons and skinned right up the hard snow but Yvonne and Dan had to boot pack for a while until the angle eased off and the snow got softer.

Once above treeline we skinned up to the ridge and soon were skinning up the final summit ridge where we were treated to a spectacular summit view. Up high the wind was howling so we wasted no time ripping the skins and skiing over to the west face where we scoped out the descent.

The West face was not in - the entrance was steep and crusted and the actual run had avalanche runnels down it so we backed off and skied over to scope the north face. The north face was steep and gnarly so we backed off and scoped the south face. The south face looked good - but it had tracks on it and we hate tracks. (We didn't skin up 3000' to ski someone else's tracks!) So after consulting for a while we dropped the East face.   [Read More... ]

Yvonne, Eric (Parsons), Bryce and I continued up towards Pastoral - eyeing the tracked up North face and the untracked West face. However once we reached the col, Santa Claus chute beckoned. I dropped my pack, lead out and broke trail up to the high point to scope the route with Eric right behind me. The descent down to the col looked steep and exposed but doable so we turned around, consulted with the others, then grabbed our gear and started across.

The traverse was steep and exposed - but Sketchy Snow Eric plowed a nice path and spotted me while I downclimbed the crux. Yvonne and Bryce followed and I spotted them in a couple spots - the crux being a rock step in a no fall zone with snow pits for handholds. It took a while but soon we were across the ridge and down to the col.   [Read More... ]

Suddenly old clients who ask for jobs that will force me to work on the weekends  are no longer even considered (whereas I'll happily work every weekend from October - January) and new clients who need something done right away are pushed off to other developers.  From now through July I pledge to only work a 9-5 job!

With all that in mind, on March 7th I headed down to Turnagain with Dan, Bryce and Todd.   The sun was shining brightly and avalanche conditions pretty solid, so we headed up Magnum and skied 4 runs in PMS bowl.  We were able to ski off the nose twice for some 40 degree turns on the infamous "glazed donut crust".  I hucked off the cornice a couple times... only to eat it pretty hard each time.  (I must learn to learn forward.)

In short - a beautiful day with good friends in good snow.  And a wake up call to end my winter hibernation!

Pictures after the jump.   [Read More... ]

Unfortunately our high pressure was forecast to end by early afternoon. The winds were already picking up and NOAA was calling for 12 inches by midnight. However - everything still looked good from the parking lot, so we headed up to give Pastoral a try.

In front of us was another usual Turnagain crew who we caught up with at Taylor Pass where we chatted for a while and then set off once again towards Pastoral. We reached Pastoral Pass at noon; the north couloir looked to be in excellent shape so Dan headed up. Eric and I threw our skis / snowboard on our back and followed behind him. The boot up was fun Kenai range climbing - nice solid snow and a tiny firm snow step to give it some spice. I sunk my trusty whippet into the solid crust and pulled through grinning widely!

Soon we were on the top looking all around and talking about what lines to ski. North, south, east, west - everywhere we looked there was something inviting! Eric and I continued to gawk - but Couloir Dan put us all in place and forced us to focus. We scouted the north couloir - and then Dan dropped in. The first few turns were dust on crust and pretty mellow. Dan stopped at a notch that dropped us down into the north couloir proper - and Eric and I followed down to his stance. He then took the next pitch - traversing out across to the top of the run where he assessed the snowpack. The entrance to the couloir proper had an obvious pillow on it - so he continued traversing skiers right - not willing to risk an avalanche at the top of the run. He skied about 150 feet skiers right and then pulled off in a safe zone to spot Eric and I as we dropped down to his stance.   [Read More... ]

So the Friday afternoon discussions began; where to go what to do who wants to go. I cast big in the hopes of netting some trailbreakers and got 1 yes and 4 definite maybes. Saturday morning we called around and again more reports of indecision filtered in. Eventually we set up a meeting time and at 9:30 we all gathered. First there were 2, then three - until finally 7 people showed up. 7 people is 4 too many for my comfort level, so we chose a spot with low angle trees, jumped in the car and drove south.

We chose to head into Wolverine via the circuitous route through the woods which I had eventually unlocked after 6 times of wandering about in circles in the dense woods between the highway and the peaks. Technically I wasn't lost during those forays - but some had taken to referring to these forays as "getting lost" - a semantic blunder that I always countered. I don't get lost. Lost is when you wander about in circles with no direction... sort of like that TV show where they shoot polar bears in Hawaii and struggle with inner demons. I might, at one time, have wandered about in circles - but I always had a clear direction: to unlock the secret route from the highway to Wolverine. As the cliche goes, Not all who wander are lost.

Tolkien and pop-culture references aside, there is some basis to the notion that people get lost in the Turnagain-equivalent of the Bermuda triangle that exists North of Eddies and South of the highway. On my first foray into the area I tromped into the woods with Dan in the hopes of skiing "Sharksfin" - a fin-like projection North of Eddies on a sunny spring day some years ago. We set out in the morning eager for turns... only to end up at the base of Eddies looking up a slope that we ski fairly regularly. We then set about wandering up and down a canyon before finally figuring out that we needed to ski down a hidden drainage and approach it from another direction. We had fun that day touring to the back of the ridge and skiing some fun runs and returned the next day with some more friends to ski immaculate tree runs in dense powder. However... upon leaving Wolverine we opted for a direct route back to the highway and ended up wandering in circles in the dark.   [Read More... ]

On Saturday Todd and I went in and skied Graddaddys.  We weren't able to ski the North couloir (which we were hoping for) due to a huge crown and icey slopes... but it was a beautiful day! 

Todd had skied Pastoral a couple weeks ago with Yvonne.  His video is after the jump.  [Read More... ]