Spring Skiing Photos - 2005

By Tim Kelley

These are shots from some of my 2005 spring skiing trips.  They are in roughly reverse chronological order.  I like to use spring skiing as a way to check out places I've never been to before.  Firm snow and ice in the spring make exploring places easier and more fun than wading streams and swamps and bushwacking to these places in the summer.

** Click on any picture below to expand it **

It took two tries to get to the Curry Lookout from Troublesome Creek.  The first attempt didn't pan out due to 60+ mph winds (see top 5 pictures).

"Seating Capacity 75"

Always be on the "Lookout" for cool places to ski to in Alaska.

[Left] You know what kind of "tracks" these are?  They are moose lip tracks!  This is where a thirsty moose was munching snow for hydration.  Okay ! - now you've seen it all !!!

[Right] Lots of snow at Trouplesome Creek - should be good skiing until late April / early May.

[Left] Note to self: Check freeze dried food expiration dates.  Freeze dried terriaki chicken with an expiration date in the last century ... tastes like meat flavored, musty cardboard.

[Right] On the way out I stopped to make a few turns on this old ski area.  A ski area?  Yep - back in the 40's and 50's a portable rope tow would operate in the spring at this location called "6 Mile".  For more info, click here.

For years I have looked up at the distant cliffs of Trail Ridge while traveling the Big Susitna River and Old Iditarod Trail.  I had this location on my list to check out via spring skiing.  It turned out to be a very unique and intriguing area - rugged terrain that is hidden and off-limits in the summer due to dense brush and swamps.  But definitely a cool place to spring ski.

Earlier this year I skied up the north ridge of Mount Susitna (click here).  I went back and skied up Wolverine Creek to check out the backside of Mount Susitna.  On the way back out I skied back up to the top of the north ridge.  Nice day.  No people.  Decent skiing.

From the air the Susitna Valley looks pretty flat.  But there are a lot of plutons this area.  A pluton is an intrusion of granite or other metamorphic rock.  And in the case of plutons in the Su Valley, they have been smoothed and rounded by the ice sheets of the last continental glaciation in this area.  A favorite pluton of mine is what I call the Chedatna Pluton, a remote rocky bump in the Chedatna Swamps near the base of Mount Susitna.  I've skied and hiked to this location several times.  It's a neat place because you feel a "presence" there.  No doubt for untold centuries these high points were used by Denaina Indians that lived in the area for scouting game.

The groomed snowmobile trails in the Trapper Creek / Petersville / Peters Hills area have offered some great skiing this spring.

Abandoned Mystery Cabin

Since the mid 1980's I've noticed the remains of an old cabin on a ridge north of Flathorn Lake (at the north end of the "Dismal Swamp").  I seemed to always be in too much of a hurry to stop and check it out.  Until this spring ... I finally went up to visit the place.

The place is barely standing, Very delapidated.  Lots of stuff in the cabin.  Beds, old clothes, kitchen stuff, little kid's cowboy boots, luggage.  It almost looks like a family just up and left this cabin in the 50's or 60's?  And left all their stuff there.  Eventually bears got in and tore the place up.  The picture to the right was taken using an old mirror still on the wall.  Vandals would have likely trashed this mirror - so I figure not many folks have stopped by this site over the years.  What is the story of this place?  I'll likely never know ... but the mirror saw it all.

My theory about this place (based on on-site evidence and local geological history) ... Back in the 50's and early 60's there could have been a homesteader's road to this place.  A pioneer road could have come across the "Dismal Swamp" because back then it may have been dry enough to drive over.  The huge earthquake of 1964 caused much land to sink in this area.  So parts of a road to this homestead could have dropped below the water level and became impassable in the summer.  Because they couldn't get to this site anymore, the homesteaders abandoned this place.  Dat's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!  Unless I hear otherwise from someone that REALLY knows the story.

Skiing past signs of life ...

[Left] Spring skiing brought me to Thomasville this year.  I was in a hurry to leave the place ... I just don't like big cities like Thomasville - way too many people!!

[Right]  Well, who's responsible for the fact that you can't spell ?!