Rabbit Creek - Skiing Peaks 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 & Yuyanq’ Ch’ex - 5.2.2015

Note: updated below the original post to include a spring evening and a day tour at the Anchorage Ski Club in April 2022.

By early May the already shallow low-elevation snowpack was melting out. Higher, there was still snow, but getting there was a challenge. The other issue was the convective showers that had been passing through each afternoon. Had the precip fallen as snow or rain? 

We decided to try the Front Range, planning to test snow conditions in the S Coulior before heading for bigger sheltered north facing lines. As we started to climb the S Couloir, snow conditions were not ideal: a thin rain crust underlain by as much as 9 inches of graupel. Maybe it would be better higher? Nope.


Reaching an spatially variable windslab high in the couloir, we called it, skied down, and reassessed.


A corn tour was settled on. So, we headed for Ptarmigan Pass and the southern gulleys of Peak 4. We walked...

Peak 3 Ski - 3.6.2014

The story of skiing Peak 3, an Anchorage evening classic, isn't really a story of skiing, its a story of the last year.

It all started almost exactly a year ago when I arrived in Anchorage. I'd just quit my job in Colorado and heading north unemployed and filled with excitement. The minute I got into town last March, my good friend LP and I headed out for a sunset ski of Peak 3. It looked about the same then as it does now.


That time around I didn't forget my skins, like I did this time. Boot packing sure was a lot more work than skinning. But just like last time, I was fresh off leaving a job. In fact, when LP started skinning I was still sitting in Anchorage tolerating an unannounced exit interview. Sure glad I caught up with her though:


I was just as glad to see Malcolm. Malcolm had a great story about the pirouette he once did in his truck on the skating rink that is the top of the road to Peak 3.