Near Anchorage there are a number of refuges with open areas at sea level that can make for good crust skiing.  The Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge is the most-skied of all these refuges.  The Goose Bay State Game Refuge is skied infrequently, and the Susitna Flats State Game Refuge is hardly ever skied.  There are other similar areas near Anchorage, like the Chickaloon Flats of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and the Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge.  But these two areas seem to be more brushy and are often snow-sparse when crust skiing conditions arrive.

I had crust skied the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge and Susitna Flats State Game Refuge before (and I also skied them this year).  As for Goose Bay... I'd skied across the bay (under the powerline) a couple of times, but I had never crust skied this area.  I finally crust skied Goose Bay, and here are a few pictures from that ski ...

I had skied the Sustina Flats tidal areas a few times before in the winter.  So I figured I'd give spring crust skiing in this area a try.  The catch to skiing here is the access.  You need snow to ski the powerlines from the Pt. Mackenzie Road to get to the coast.  No snow would likely mean lots of water and mud.  It worked out for me.  I got to the coast quickly on firm crust snow.  But the conditions on the flats weren't the best.  The crust was fragile and it started to go early.  To get out, I hopped on old snowmobile trails that offered better support.  Beautiful area that you can see from Anchorage, but it is skied very infrequently.

I went to the west side of Hatcher Pass to do some crust skiing.  But conditions were bad, the light and dry snow we got this winter had not yet settled and compressed well, so the crust layer is fragile (your poles break through it).  As a backup, I headed to Big Lake.  I found good crust skiing conditions on the lake.  I also found confusion and mystery in the Big Lake Boat Rentals mural.

My wife and I went to Broad Pass to try and do some crust skiing.  Winter in this wide-open area, which was characterized by light snowfall and lots of wind, didn't leave good conditions for crust skiing.  So we opted for a plan B that the owner of the Backwoods Lodge told us about - skiing the Jack River up through the gorge and into the mountains.  A great plan B indeed ... what a cool ski!  Good crust skiing with a snowmobile trail as backup, super neat (and safe) gorge, beautiful views.  This was a "scratch the surface" sampler of what is available in these mountains southeast of Cantwell.

I had long wondered how cabin owners got to the Chuitna Pass area.  So what better way to quench your wonder than go do some research on skis?!

Many cabin owners in this area, and to the south towards Talkeena, use the railroad to get to their cabins.  There is a long history of people using Alaska Railroad whistle stop train service to help them live in this remote area.  The winter trail access from the Parks Highway is easy going to the railroad crossing at Chulitna Pass.  Now how I know hot to get to this area, I plan to go back again to ski more of this beautiful country.

In the Susitna Valley there are two kinds of trails: mapped trails and tribal knowledge trails.  The mapped trails are pretty easy to find and ski, because, well, they are readily found on maps.  But cooler than mapped trails, in my opinion, are tribal knowledge trails.  These are trails that cabin owners and area travelers know about, but you probably won't find these trails on maps.  When you hear about such trails, the description always seems to be vague.  And it usually comes down to doing field research to find the trail and what route it follows.  Of course, this is all good ... as it means you will spend more time skiing and exploring to figure out a tribal knowledge trail.  And more skiing is always good!

This post is about the Amber Lake Trail, a tribal knowledge trail.  Though I'm not sure this is the real name of this trail because I have heard other names.  This trail starts on the Oilwell Road in the Trapper Creek area, at Amber Lake.  It then works it's way southwest to the Kahiltna River and on to the Yentna River just below the mouth of Lake Creek.  The country this trail traverses is a nice mix of wooded moraine country, sprinkled with glacial erratics and interspersed with muskegs.  It crosses the Kahiltna River and ends at the super-highway winter trail on the Yentna River.  A lot of the trail is on old seismic lines made for gas and oil exploration 50-60 years ago (notice the straight lines on the map).  As was the case when I was last on part of this trail, a large tracked vehicle had been through freighting mining supplies (I assume).

I skied this 35 mile trail from Amber Lake to Lake Creek, and my wife came along on snowmobile.  On the way back, my wife skied a part of the trail that appealed to her.  A beauty day in the Su Valley skiing new country and getting tribal!  ;-)

We drove up from Anchorage to Milepost 131 of the Parks Highway.  I was planning on doing a long ski the next day, so we decided to do a shorter ski this day.  My wife came along on snowmobile as I skied the Curry Ridge Rider's North Loop Trail to the Tokositna River.  I then skied the Tokositna to the Chulitna River.  Good skiing on a snowmobile trail on the Tokositna.  But the Chulitna was wind-ravaged from the recent high winds.  Passed Tokosha Camp, which looked like a neat place.  My wife skied the river section on the return trip.  Nice day on the edge of the Alaska Range.

There are a number of cool local Trapper Creek trails that are not shown on the Curry Ridge Riders maps.  These marked, un-groomed, low usage multi-use trails link B&B's and rental lodging to the main Curry Ridge Riders groomed trails.  My wife and I recently skied parts of the Blue Trail and the Red Trail.  Neat trails.  Seems like the best way to find out about these trails is to go stay at a place in Trapper Creek and ask the proprietor for a map.  If you stay at the Northland Inn, owner and xc skier Debbie Filter will give you one of these secret maps.

Late March and cool temps are still hanging on.  So that means good trail skiing in the Lower Susitna Valley.  Here is a loop that I have done a number of times, but have never previously posted on this web site.  My wife and I did this in a way that I could ski the whole loop, and she could ski part of it.  It works like this: I start skiing from point A.  My wife comes along later on a snowmobile and catches up to me at point B.  My wife skis (while I drive the snowmobile) to point C.  We then both ride the snowmobile back to point B (and then she leaves me).  I then ski to point C and on to point A to close the loop.  A fun way to share a ski loop between two people that want to ski different distances.

I figured skiing there from the Hunter Creek trailhead to Inner Lake George and back would be a good outing.  The trail to the glacier was great.  Beyond the glacial bottleneck in the Knik River Gorge there was okay skating on wind crust.  As I got near the lake the snow became softer.  Skiing on the lake using 44 millimeter wide skis was not much fun.  So I didn't go the the Colony Glacier this time.  Not as sunny as my last trip here (see previous trip post).  But it was some fun late winter cruising in a neat location.

Earlier this winter there was Internet discussion about the Knik Glacier surging and creating a dam of ice at the Knik River Gorge.  The Knik Glacier used to do this, prior to1964.  A glacier-formed ice damn would back-up water flow and eventually an outburst flood would occur when water pressure above the damn won out over the ice.  Such floods, also called jokuhlaups, were massive and destructive in the old days of the Knik River valley.

I was curious about this situation in the Knik River Gorge, so I figured I'd ski there and check it out.  I headed out as I usually do when I ski to the Knik Glacier, from the Jim Creek trailhead in the Butte area.  Only saw one person in a Jeep as I was skiing up the valley.  But when I got to the glacier lake there were fat bike tracks and bikers everywhere.  Come to find out, these folks had come in from Hunter Creek.  There is now a legal access from there, it used to be that there wasn't.  So I ended up doing an extra 25 miles (round trip) by my choice of trailhead.  Doh!  Oh well, extra miles means you get in better shape.

I skied through the gorge, with the exception of one short stretch where you had to do some easy hiking between ice and rocks.  Definitely a neat place.  I'm no glaciologist, but it seems this tongue of the Knik Glacier has too small of a mass to make a much of a dam.  We'll see.  And ... the next time I go to this area ... I will definitely go from the Hunter Creek trailhead!

A stick imbedded in glacier ice.  I wonder how old the wood is?
My guess: This wood had been in the glacier for less than 100 years.  I say this based on a military plane crash on nearby Colony Glacier.  The plane crashed high up on the glacier, yet in 60 years parts from the plane were showing up at the glacier terminus.  This stick was likely ripped off of a mountain and washed out onto the glacier by an avalanche.  And just like the plane remains, the flow of the glacier eventually delivered the stick to the glacier terminus.

I hadn't skied much on my regular haunt Lower Susitna River trails, south and west of Susitna Station, for the last 3 years due to warm and snow-sparse winters.  But finally we've had a decent winter, so there's been good river skiing recently.  Mostly the good skiing is on snowmobile trails ... with some crust skiing (on wind and sublimation crust).  So it's been fun reconnecting with our cabin backyard trails.  Brings back memories of good adventures of the past.  Some of these memories are from boating, as we boat some of these trails in the summer to get to our cabin.

It's probably a rather unique situation: you are skiing with your wife on the Big Susitna River and sharing memories of a different season, and of a different world.  Like pulling someone's jet boat off the sand bar you are skiing over.  Or hitting that same sand bar full throttle yourself.  Or stopping to rescue boaters with a blown engine.  Or walking a boat down a shallow channel you mistakenly entered with 600 lbs of Malamutes on board (and even though you are standing in only 6 inches of water, the dogs refuse to get out because they can't see the bottom in the murky water and assume that you are trying pull a trick on them and get them to swim).  Or the times we dodged massive cottonwoods that were bouncing down the river.  Or the time we dodged a 300 foot length of old gas pipeline that was rolling down the river.  Or the times I buzzed the Susitna Station whirlpool (and got yelled at by my wife for doing it).  Or watching brown bear, black bear, moose and seals swim past the spot we are now skiing.  Or the time hooligan were running so thick you could catch them by hand.  Or the time we laughed non-stop because we couldn't believe how hard it was down-pouring on us (in an open boat).  Or the times we pulled into the Big Su after getting the shit scared out of us while crossing Cook Inlet from Anchorage.

Yep, lots of memories on these Lower Susitna trails.  And hopefully many more to come.

When I got back to the Mystery Creek trailhead after this trip, I ran into some seasoned Kenai-area snowmobilers.  When they asked me where I had been, I said "Pincher Creek Cabin".  Immediately they were impressed.  "Wow, we tried to get there a couple of times on snowmobiles, but never made it across the Chickaloon River!"  I then told them I did not cross the Chickaloon on a snowmobile, but on skis instead as I skied from the eastern edge of the Chickaloon Tidal flats to the cabin and back.  Soon I could tell that they were definitely not impressed with me any more.  Oh well.

I have been looking at the Chickaloon Flats from our kitchen window for the last 20 years.  I couldn't believe I had been looking this long without skiing this area.  My wife and I had tried earlier this year to check this area out.  But dense fog kept us from seeing much.  I went back alone this time.  I drove my snowmobile out 30 miles out the Mystery Creek Road and Enstar gas pipeline right of way and left it, skied across the tidal flats to the Pincher Creek cabin and back and then spent the night where I parked my snowmobile.

This area of tidal flats is many times larger than the tidal flats to the south of Anchorage.  It seems like it is rarely visited, except by small planes now and then.  And maybe a few snowmobilers.   Huge crust skiing potential here, but it is not an easy place to get to, unless you have a small plane.

I got across the Chickaloon River on skis pretty easily.  But if temperatures were warm, I could see how this wouldn't work.  The Chickaloon River is tidal influenced for its whole length across the flats.  You never know if the next tidal surge with be easy or devastating on the river's ice cover.

I got the feeling that I could not have skied much further than the Pincher Creek cabin.  Recent high winds had been scouring the sandy bluffs that lead to Pt. Possession and the snow was getting progressively sandier the further west I went.  Snowmobilers also told me that because the water comes up close to the bluffs that lead to Pt. Possesion, that you never know if there will be too many ice blocks to (easily) get through the area.  I'd like to connect to the Point Possesion, but I will have to have more time and be prepared to hike.

Anyway, a cool, quiet and unique location.  Glad I went.  And glad I no longer will be looking out our kitchen window and feel the need to say: "Damn!  When am I going to ski the Chickaloon Flats?!"