I headed up to the Eureka area to try and ski a new loop.  Nice snow for classic skiing.  But there was so little snow that trails that would normally be in ... were not.  So my intended loop didn't pan out due to the lack of trails.  Oh well, I had a good time getting in a long ski on what trails there were.

One thing I did in this area was to revisit the ski route of what is likely the first spring backcountry cross country ski race in Southcentral Alaska.  In mid-April of 1982, the late Tom Besh, the UAA ski coach at the time, put on an out and back 30 kilometer ski race in this area.  The race was on snowmobile trails, with no grooming for ski tracks.

Tom Besh's spring ski race preceded the first Oosik Classic ski race by about 18 years.  You can actually see parts of the initial Oosik Classic race course from the highpoint of this route.  The first Oosik, in 2000, started and finished at Sheep Mountain Lodge and was billed as a 50 km race, but it turned out to be around 63 kms.  We sure got a bonus deal on kilometers per entry fee dollar on that race!

I skied Tom's spring skiing race back in '82.  I ended up winning the race, John Swenson, UAA's top skier, was 2nd and I believe Jim Renkert was third.  I can't remember who won the women's race.  The results are likely somewhere in newspaper archives if someone wanted to dig for them.

The defining feature of Tom's race was the long climb up to Crooked Creek Pass, which on the return became a wild, fast and super-fun descent (see picture above).  I remember that Guy Thibodeaux, UAA's assistant coach, was at the turnaround ... a small mining shack with wind-whipped snow swirling around it.  I recognized the drainage and the spot where the turnaround was at, but the shack was gone.

It was fun pulling back memories of one day ... 33 years ago.  And I even threw in some marathon skating, the ski technique in use back then, as a salute to Tom Besh.

No new ski routes to post.  Have been playing catch-up on cabin projects due to the very late-arrival of snow in Southcentral Alaska.  Usually I like to haul all supplies in the "dark winter" and save all the "light winter" for skiing.  Not the case so far.  Most of my out-of-town skiing has been trail skiing in the lower Susitna Valley on river trails.  Good skiing on a thin snowpack.

I heard a good description of our current winter: "This is the longest October ever!"  So true.  Here it is, mid-January, and winter still has not gained traction in much of Southcentral Alaska.  Warm, hardly any snow ... definitely not a good winter for the mental health of backcountry trail skiers.

But the good news is that there is a bit of winter 2 hours north of Anchorage.  The Curry Ridge Riders trail system in the Petersville area has enough snow for them to groom.  And it's worth the trip.  My wife and I went up for a couple of days.  We like to stay the night in the area at a nearby lodge, rental cabin or B&B.  Doing this increases your skiing to driving time, which is a good thing.

What we like to do now and then is what I call "snowmobile relay skiing".  The way it works might go like this: I ski for 2 hours, my wife skis for 1 hour, I ski for 2 hours, my wife skis for 1 hour, etc.  The times can vary, there are no rules.  And when you are not skiing, you are doing snowmobile support for the one skiing.  This arrangement allows you to travel over more country and it allows a ski trip to be shared between skiers of different speeds.  On the days we were in Petersville, because my wife was recovering from a recent bout of the flu, I got to ski the majority of the time.

Due to the low amount of snow in this area, I was able to do something I had never done before.  And that is to ski through the Peters Creek Canyon on the Petersville Road.  The road here is pretty much just a bulldozer gash on the side of the mountain.  So with normal winters, and lots of snow and drifting, this road disappears into the mountainside and this route is too dangerous to traverse.  Instead, to get over the Peters Hills, you normally go over them to the north via Lunchbox Hill.  So it was fun to ski through the gap and chalk up a new trail in this area.

7 or 8 years ago I did a clock-wise loop around the Haessler-Norris trail system in Willow.  But this ski loop didn't go quite as I planned.  Everything went smoothly until I tried to hook onto the Zero Lake Trail, which I would use to head to the Intertie (power line) and on back to Willow.  Then things went awry when I couldn't find the Zero Lake Trail.  I was sure I was where the map said the trail was.  I poked around a bunch and eventually dead-ended at Ramey Smyth's dog yard.  Giving up, I skied the Zero Lake Road to the Parks Highway and then skied a death march through soft snow back to Willow.  That was a long day.

After that ski I emailed Steve Charles, a key Willow Trail Committee player, and mentioned that I couldn't find the Zero Lake Trail.  Steve said that me not finding the trail made sense, because the trail didn't exist.  At the time, the Haessler-Norris trail map showed red line on the map where the Zero Lake Trail was proposed to be made.  Guess I should have talked to Steve before I did that ski trip!

Since then the Zero Lake Trail has been cut.  And the Mat-Su Borough has made a large, new parking lot on the Zero Lake Road.

Recently I went to Houston to check out the new Zero Lake Trail.  I found and skied the trail this time, though finding the southern end of the trail was a little tricky.  Hint: Heading up the Zero Lake Trail go past the main parking lot, past a smaller parking lot, up a hill, past the left that has the "Private", "Dog Yard" signs (that's Ramey's place) and it's the next trail crossing (at the corner).

I skied the Zero Lake Trail to Bruno's Boulevard, the Intertie and then up to the outskirts of Willow and back.  The trail was rough in the woods.  It needs another foot or two of snow to be good.  Due to logging in this area, there are zillions of side trails.  And many of these side trails are used by mushers.  So it's easy to get sidetracked here.

The Haessler-Norris trail system is a great, and infrequently skied, trail system.  But this is dog team country.  I consider mushers and their dog teams the lords of these trails.  So I am very attentive when skiing here and am always watching out for dog teams.

On another ski trip in the Willow area, I tried to figure out how to link up trails along the Willow-Fishhook Road.  In the past, when I have skied from Hatcher Pass to Willow, I skied the Herning / Willow Creek Sled Trail to Houston and then go northwest to Willow.  Based on the Haessler-Norris trail map, it looks like you can link together trails along the Willow-Fishhook Road instead.  I gave this a try but was unsuccessful.  Will have to try it again after it snows more and more of the trails are in.