Ski Trips: 2008/2009 by: Tim Kelley Kenai Lake - Late February 2009:
I went down to the Kenai Peninsula to ski up the Snow River. I
found conditions to be bad - too much open water and too little snow.
So I scrambled for a Plan B. I popped into the Primrose Campground
and noticed a musher's tracks heading out onto Kenai Lake. I've
always been leery of skiing Kenai Lake ice, but I trust mushers, when it
comes to safety judgment, way more
than I trust snowmobile tracks. So I headed out skating on the winter crust that
covered most of the lake. In a couple of hours I was at the other
end of Kenai Lake (Quartz Creek) ... and having a good time! I
skied back to Primrose by a different route to check out other parts of
the lake. This turned out to be a fine impromptu crust ski. Mount Susitna - Late February 2009:
One of my goals this winter was to go up the South Summit of Mt. Susitna
with my tough and wild wife. I'd been up this route with our dogs
before, but my wife had not yet done this trip. The days before we
initially planned to climb and ski this route, high winds blasted the
mountain. Pretty much all snow that wasn't frozen hard to
something got blown off. On our last day at the mountain the wind
died down. My wife had to get up and go to work at 4:00 AM (ouch)
the next day back in Anchorage, so we decided to do a quick one day
scramble up to the South Summit. Due to wind scouring, not
much decent snow was left for skiing on our route. So at the
base of the mountain we broke out snowshoes, hiking boots and crampons
and had a great day savoring the best weather February in Alaska has to
offer. If you want to climb
Mount Susitna, consider joining the
Mountaineering Club of Alaska. For the past several years the
fabled "Susitna Stu" Grenier has led winter and summer MCA trips up this
peak. This same day we summitted the south peak, an MCA trip led
by Stu was enjoying this phenomenal weather as they headed up to the
main summit of Mount Susitna. Way to go Stu! Houston - Mid February 2009:
I'd been scheming to do this ski loop for a couple of months. But
I had to wait for the right conditions. Recon I did last fall
indicated that lack of connector trails to the north of Wasilla would
require 4 miles of road skiing to tie this loop together. So I had
to choose a time when these roads would be ski-able. This loop
started in Houston and went out the Herning Trail to the Bench Lake
cut-off, across the Bench Lake Trail (and a new logging area that made
trail finding difficult) to roads that lead to the Bald
Mountain Trail, up over Bald Mountain, down to the north end of the Herning Trail and then 16 miles back into Houston. The trail and
road skiing was good, mostly skating. But it was slow going
getting up and going over the wind scoured, wide crown of Bald Mountain.
With lots of climbing and battling winds on top of the ridge, this
loop was tough. But the big bonus of this 40 mile route was fine
skiing conditions on the Herning Trail ... one of my favorite trails in
the Valley. Chugiak - Mid February 2009:
I was in Anchorage and had an afternoon free. And, as usual, I
wanted to ski someplace I had never skied before. I had kayaked to
Kethtaydut Point a few years ago (while kayaking from the Glenn Highway Knik River Bridge down Knik Arm to the Port of Anchorage). So I
figured I'd start from Beach Lake in Chugiak and try to ski there.
I made sure the tide was on its way out ... and gave it a go. It
was a pretty fun ski and conditions were decent. I used my Fischer Superlight Crowns and did a combination of powder striding, crust
skating and double poling on ice. Palmer Hay Flats
State Game Refuge - Early February 2009:
After having a good time skiing the Glenn Highway side of the Palmer Hay
Flats I decided to check out the Knik side. From the Cottonwood
Creek access to the refuge I skated some nice snowmobile trails to Knik,
and on past until the trail ran out at an old gravel pit / barge loading
facility a mile past Knik. I turned around, skied back to the
access then switched to classic skiing and headed to Weinie Lake and
back. I think the name "Weinie Lake" is "reverse psychology
named". As you can tell from the pictures below - the trail is
challenging and it would be easy to "weinie out" and turn back.
But I didn't weinie out ... and now I can proudly say that I have skied to
Weinie Lake !! Western Susitna River
Valley - Early February 2009:
Recent pictures of skiing and winter ... from west of the
Big Susitna River. Palmer Hay Flats
State Game Refuge - Early February 2009:
I've driven by the Palmer Hay Flats hundreds of times, but I had never
skied there. The main reason for me never skiing there is because
the snow on these wind-swept plains is fleeting. Strong winds from
the Knik and Matanuska Valleys often scour the snow from this area.
So if a bit of snow falls here, you better get skiing on it. If
you blink the snow could be gone. The day I went skiing here there
was not much snow, but enough snow to put in 25 miles of wandering in
perfectly clear, and sub-zero, weather. This is a unique and often
passed by gem of a location. Here is the Palmer Hay Flats State
Game Refuge web site. Yentna / Lower
Susitna Drainage - Late January 2009:
I had never been to Alexander Lake. I'd gone by it quite a few
times on trails to the east and west of it, but I had never actually set
foot on (or in) this lake. So, from Luce's Lodge on the Yentna
River I skied into Alexander and Rabbit Lakes and back out to check out
this area. Good trails. A bit cold (-10 F) and windy. Trapper Creek - Late January 2009:
The Curry Ridge Riders,
the snowmobile club that I'm a member of, has some phenomenal trails in
the Trapper Creek and Petersville areas. This year they are
opening up two new trails that you can access from the Trapper Creek
Inn. The first is the Chulitna Bluff Trail connector from the Inn
to Mile 121 of the Parks Highway. I've got to give the CRR an "A"
for trail layout on this new trail. This section of the Bluff
Trail is right on the edge of the bluff (see pictures below). So -
it's cool to be skiing along and looking down at the scenery off to your
side. Very nice. The connector to the Rabideaux Creek Trail
is still a work in progress. Currently it's marked from the Inn to
Mile 110 on the Parks Highway, and then a bit further. When
this trail is done (next month?) it will be the needed link for a
Susitna Valley "backbone trail" from Denali State Park to Big Lake, Knik
and Point MacKenzie. Glenn Highway - Mid January 2009:
After the mega-meltdown in the Anchorage and Lower Mat-Su Valley regions
I headed north see if I could find winter in Alaska.
Click on the picture above to take a closer look at the center
of the picture. What is that out off the shore of the
island? Open water? A line of trees? A fence?
It's actually a mirage where trees in the background are
"duplicated" by light being refracted through cold temperature
cells. The cold air cell is acting like a prism.
This is called a
Fata Morgana mirage. It's pretty easy to tell it's a
mirage when you are there. If you squat down or stand up
higher you change your optical angle through the cold air cells
in the distance and the mirage either expands, or contracts and
goes away. Susitna Valley - Mid January 2009:
My wife and I left the Pt. Mac Store to head to the Western Susitna
Valley. It was 20 below F. when we left, which was warmer than the
36 below the day before. When we got back a few days later it was
40 above zero F., and on its way to 50. Anchorage -
08 January 2009: This
was a good day to see
Fata
Morgana mirages. Below are pictures showing Fata Morgana
distortion while viewing
Mount Susitna (top picture) and the Alaska Range (bottom picture, Foraker, Hunter and McKinley)
from Anchorage. |