Wolverine Peak Ski - 4.10.2020

Updated in February 2025 to include another great day on Wolverine.

It was April and we were all chomping at the bit. But, I was tired from my solo Bench Peak slog the previous day, and was looking for more vertical and less horizontal. So, Connor, Jordan, and I settled on a circumnavigation of a Turnagain classic - Wolverine.

We parked at the Eddies lot and followed the familiar trail into the woods before leaving the Iditarod Trail and contouring into Wolverine Creek. 


Leaving the hemlock forest behind, we startled two moose who, cautious of hungry bears, high-tailed it up the north face of Eddies. Oddly, the moose were still postholing towards the heavens as we skinned out of sight. 

Under Wolverine's iconic northwest-facing catcher's mitt we turned left and started climbing. I'd found good snow in the mid elevations of Bench the previous day, and hoped for the same, but no luck. By the the upper face we were front-pointing on a nearly unskiable mix of rime, ice, icy windboard, and debris.

Photo: Connor Johnson

Kickstep Mountain Skiing - 1.25.2015

Updated January 2016 and again February 2025 to include more great days on Kickstep.

There are days that you know that you have everything in your favor: weather, stability, beta, etc. Then, there are days where some pieces of the puzzle might not fit, you don't know how it will turn out.

Josh on the approach up CFR ridge.

Sunday was a day that started out as a question mark, but in the end, it lined up perfectly.

The warm up run.

The question mark was the weather, forecast to be cold and breezy. Cold enough that a wrong turn, avalanche, or crevasse incident could mean hypothermia. We set our sights on a smaller objective: the Library via Tincan Proper.

The Library dwarfed by Kickstep.

Zero Bowl - 11.11.2024

Early season skiing is a challenge for me: the snowpack is thin, there's limited beta, and I'm so hungry. These factors have led to close calls for me, those I care about, and our incredible community, and it makes me hesitant to head out. The reports of quality conditions and stability have been trickling in, and it was time for us to set aside our piles of chores and head for the hills. 

After a late start, we drove south past the snowy peaks of the Chugach and the Kenai mirrored in the still waters of Turnagain Arm, and chatted about ideas for the day. Usually, we go into each day with so much recent beta and many ideas, it was fun to start this one with a blank slate. By the time we were nearing the top of Turnagain Pass and pulling into the DOT lot, we had a plan: we'd go check out the sunny bowls, chutes, and ribs of Seattle Ridge.

Skinning up the icy uptrack, my stoke and excitement built as we caught dogs and friends enjoying the winter wonderland of a beautiful sunny day on our public lands. Cresting the ridge, we looked across the arm at the iconic ski lines crowning Girdwood, Peterson Creek, and Twentymile. We talked about our favorite adventures past and our dreams for the future in these magical valleys.

Anchorage Ski Outlook - 4.5.2023

THURS - FRI: partly sunny, light winds, moderate temps (moderate confidence).

Quiet weather for the end of the work week with in-and-out sun and light snow showers. Thurs will be sunniest in the Kenai Mtns; Fri will be least cloudy at Hatcher. Light ridgetop winds. Sun affect on southerly slopes if/when the sun comes out. Decreased confidence due to timing of sunniness and showers.

 

WEEKEND: stormy, cloudy, dropping temps (moderate confidence).

A stormy weekend is on tap with all of our mountains receiving snow. The mountains closest to the western Prince William Sound are favored (moderate snow for Turny/Gird) with lighter snow elsewhere. Heaviest snow (and highest winds) will be Sunday in the WPWS mountains when temps will be cold for this time of year. No rain concerns.

EARLY NEXT WEEK: mostly cloudy, light snow, cool (low confidence).

Light snow, showers, and clouds look to continue for our zone into midweek. Low confidence in timing of snow with some sun possible in between. Moderate winds Monday for the mountains around the PWS and the ANC/ER FRange. No rain concerns.

 Read more >>

Falls Creek Skiing - 4.29.2018

Updated below on 4.20.2019, 12.22.2021, 2.2.2022, and again for 12.17.2022 to include more great days skiing new-to-us lines in Falls Creek. 

Around 2 PM on Saturday the texts starting coming in from Jeff: they were storm skiing untracked pow in Falls Creek. I was sitting in gloomy, windy, and rainy Anchorage mourning getting shut down on the Alaska Range by storm after storm. The forecast was calling for more of the same Saturday night into Sunday, and I wasn't going to miss out on more stormy couloirs. The next day, hiking out of the rainy parking lot in our running shoes, it was hard to imagine winter was up there somewhere.

But, by the time Andrew, Alex, and I had climbed past a sleepy black bear, traded our running shoes for ski boots, and skinned into the alpine, winter was back in full force.


Making a right turn, throwing our skis on our packs, and starting the booter up the first coolie of the day, we began to realize just how good it was going to be. From the top I looked back down at Andrew as the falling snow swirled out of sight below.


Alex ski cut the slope before dropping first. After a foot of rapid loading overnight, we weren't sure how the new snow had bonded, but nothing moved.

Kenai Black Bear Hunt - September 2022

Briefly back in Anchorage between fieldwork, weddings, and COVID, I was treated with what has lately been a rare dry day to go look for a blueberry bear on the Kenai. Nyssa was down for the count with COVID, and I was dragging too, so motivation was low and I honestly kind of hoped I didn't finder any keepers.

Driving south thru Turnagain Pass, I stopped at each pullout to look into as many nooks and crannies as I could on Seattle Ridge. The countless drainages, ridges, bushes, and terrain features here make it hard to check all the terrain. On the south end of the pass I could see the large three brown slugs of a brown bear sow and her cubs grazing on the shoulder of TT43. I'd never seen grizzlies there this time of year, and didn't feel like it was a particularly good sign for a black bear.


I kept driving south towards Summit Lake with a pit stop at Granite Creek to shoot my 270 and confirm I hadn't bumped the scope during my recent bushwhacking and tumbling on Kodiak. By the time I'd made it to the south end of Summit Lake I hadn't glassed any black bears. Figuring that it wasn't my day, I started to make my way north. Looking up from the Johnson Pass trailhead I could see the distinct hump of the shoulder of a big brown bear eating in the alpine. At first I assumed it was the same sow I'd seen a couple hours before, but then watched the sow and her cubs walk out of a gully a quarter mile away.

Another big bruin probably chasing the black bears off the berries - I was really feeling like this wasn't my day. But, looking through my binoculars from the Cornbiscuit lot, I saw the distinctly sharp edges of a black shape waddle out from the yellow leaves of an alder clump high above the road. To my surprise this blackie happily chowing down within a half mile of the four brownies.

Chum Bucket Ski - 1.30.2022

Spring and summer in AK is a manic time of year. Fueled by the midnight sun I become a caffeinated wreck who finds myself craving projects at 12:30 AM - I think I'm beginning to know what meth is like. Every week my self inflicted sleep deficit grows; my blogging backlog is not far behind it. Hopefully I never catch up on this backlog as the memories of one great adventure after the next pile up, but between midnight mania, midnight fishing, and midnight real estate mini-empirism here is an effort to catch up with a look back at a sort of soft, sort of stable, and sort of sunny January day at Turnagain.

Mid-winter at Turnagain was beset with storm after storm followed by surface hoar after buried surface hoar event. It was frustrating and had me wondering why I was pretending to work as a corporate drone in this unstable and dark land.

Swimming thru the classic fog of a midwinter inversion.

By late January we finally got a break in the cycle with a brief window of calm, cold, and clear weather. Well. Sort of clear. The "problem" with these calm midwinter periods following nuclear winter events is they leave the air full of moisture, and with no wind to scoop the soup out it becomes fog. You can get above the fog, but its particularly annoying when you are also navigating a considerable avalanche day with BSH 18 inches down. So, as we swam thru the fog of the Cornbiscuit parking lot and felt our way across the bridge, we knew it would be tricky finding a safe way up Seattle Ridge to Gulch Creek and eventually TT43. Using a combination of jedi mind tricks and black magic Tom located fresh avalanches debris whose bed surface we could safely follow to the top.


As we climbed higher, breaks in the clam chowder began to appear, teasing us with windows into Lynx Creek:

Return to TT43 - 1.5.2019

Note: updated below the original post to include a Gulch Creek link-up in January 2022.
Watching old school GoPro video of Jimmy Kase ripping the TT43 spines on teles in midwinter light sold me on Alaska. After years of waiting for snow, stability, and weather to align we finally got to experience it.

As we drove south thru the pass, the bottom fell out of the thermometer. By the time we parked at Bertha Creek it was -8 degrees. Next up, was finding a way across the creek. Matt found a crossing and lead the charge across the cold water creek. Eventually the twig he was standing on collapsed, but he hovered over the water and kept his feet dry.


In retrospect, parking at Cornbiscuit and using the bridge would have been straightforward. Still, it was drier than skiing TT43 with Matt and Nick years ago:


We followed ptarmigan and hare tracks across the valley and up the climb to Seattle Ridge. Above the valley inversion the temperature rose to 10 degrees. Tropical.

Silvertip Skiing - 12.13.2015

Note: updated below the original post to include a version of the Silvertip Traverse in March 2022.
After a great window of high pressure, last week brought two and a half feet of new snow to the top of Turnagain Pass.

Waking up in the morning dusk, we followed the old mining road up the creek. 

But, the high pressure had a downside, it left a weak surface for the new storm snow to bond to. As it slowly got lighter, we were treated to a view of Twin Peaks:

By the time we reached the upper basin, there was a foot of new snow sitting on a settled base. 

Wanting to take advantage of the new snow, but to avoid the danger associated with a thick slab we headed to the southern end of Turnagain Pass.
Avoiding potential avy danger, we followed the north ridge towards the summit. On the skyline is TT43, one of my favorites.

Lynx Creek Ski - February & March 2022

In the middle of February 2022, a wet storm riding strong south winds pounded the mountains above Turnagain Arm, overloading the snowpack, and producing a dramatic avalanche cycle. We needed a snowpack that received less of a load, so headed south for the Johnson Pass trailhead. 

As we drove along the Arm we passed the terrifying remains of splintered trees, new avy paths, and concrete debris that had covered the road and railroad. My reptile brain screamed to go home and ride the Stairmaster, but we knew what we were seeing told us nothing about the stability, or lack thereof, in Lynx Creek.

Rolling into the parking lot we could see a couple big crowns in the headwaters of Lynx. As we skinned out of the parking lot and thru the two-stroke exhaust hanging in the valley I figured our odds of a shutdown on our objective of Captain's Chair were around 75%. Soon we were skipping across the flowing waters of Bench Creek; I love a good creek crossing and figured this was a good omen for the day.


As we entered the Lynx drainage we left the creek and started to gain altitude towards Captains Chair. But, not before first stopping to inspect the little cabin overseeing the valley. Tom and Erin took notes for their future cabin - especially on the importance of having a good supply of food for the local porcupine population. 


Entering the hanging valley below our objective we could see that the chute had already slid. Sweet. We weren't in for a complete shutdown.

Petes Skiing - January 2021

Early season last winter brought every southcentral Alaskan skier's dream: storm after storm rolling off the Pacific, into the Gulf of AK, then burying Turnagain in feet of snow. The north end of the pass usually gets more snow, and it was getting too much - overloading the snowpack - so we headed south to Petes.

On a January Saturday Tony, Erin, Nyssa, and I broke trail thru the rain crust of the Johnson Pass parking lot towards a refresh of 18 inches of Alaskan velvet awaiting in the alpine. We were joined by Sydney and Rob - old friends of mine from Crested Butte.

It was still stormy as we climbed out of the trees and onto the exposed ridgeline. The avy danger for the region forecast as considerable, and although we didn't think it applied to our end of the pass, it would be a day of slowly working into bigger terrain. So, we started with a low consequence run down the rolling ridge and into the trees. Without the telltale cracking, settling, or moving snow of instability we were ready to move into the alpine.

The next progression was a north facing chute scoured by the predominant storm winds that funnel through the pass. Rob and Sydney skied first into the tight entrance with precise turns that brought back fond memories of many inbounds days in Colorado. We chased them down the chute, whooping gleefully as the storm snow bounced off our faces. The chute had "only" sloughed with no slab movement - another good sign for stability. 

With the clouds clearing we knew it was time to head to the top. Anchorage is as good as it gets for backcountry skiers in the U.S., so it can be easy to get jaded about how good we have it. From the summit of Petes it was awesome to hear the awe of Rob and Syd as the spines, faces, ribs, bowls and mountains of Turnagain opened up around us. We talked about local weather and pointed out some of our favorites, then dropped back towards the road.


Rob:


Yep. Anchorage is America's last great ski city.

Tincan Skiing - 2.8.2014

Note: Updated on 4.19.2021 to include another great day at Tincan Mountain Resort.

The last month here has not been winter as we know it. The forecast has been filled with terms like "atmospheric river", "tropical infusion", and "veritable firehose". Unfortunately this cascade of precipitation fell largely as rain, not snow. Then it got warm. There's been a lot more basketball, running, skating, and hiking than my winter dreams normally consist of.

This weekend we thought we'd go up to the Snowbird Hut for a little adventure, but then Friday the forecast started to look promising for the Kenai. Saturday morning brought 40 cm of snow to Turnagain, calm, and bluebird. How could we resist?

Pulling into the usually swamped parking lot at Tin Can, there appeared to be only a hand full of groups that were not part of the usual avy classes. Awesome. Anchorage had forgotten that it's winter.

Approaching treeline:


At treeline we watched several slides release from remote triggers several hundred meters away.


More signs of instability:

Granddaddy Ski Tour - 12.6.2015

Note: Updated to include another great Granddaddy tour.

After a perfect Saturday, the secret was out, and we'd need to go deeper to avoid the crowds. With virtually no solar radiation, sunny south faces seemed appropriate. We decided on a tour around Pastoral Peak.

Climbing above the inversion with lovely purple tones to the west.

First light kissing Kickstep from Taylor Pass; many fun memories in this picture:

Photo: Brady Deal

Two hours after leaving the car our first line was in view. Carpathian looking nice too.

Photo: Brady Deal

Goldpan Ski - 12.13.2018

Note: Updated to include another great day at Goldpan Mountain Resort.

Alaska is the land of feast or famine. November brought days of rain, rain, rain to the Kenai Mountains. Fortunately, days of rain at the road mean feet of snow in the alpine, and in early December we finally got the weather window we'd been waiting for.

It was dark and cold as we broke trail out of the Sunburst lot, along Taylor Creek, and up Basketball. Climbing higher, we watched the sun kiss Turnagain's crown jewel:


Not entirely sure about stability and snow, we started with a long, protected spine towards Bertha Creek. Jono offered to go first; we could barely see him through the trail of cold smoke he left behind. It was going to be a good day.


Playing leapfrog down the long spine, I looked up to see a partially submerged Bucky. He'd later say this was the deepest day he's ever skied in the alpine.

Sunburst Ski - 11.2014

Note: Updated on 12.9.2020 to include another great day on Sunburst.

This was not my most productive week at work. After misunderstanding the weather last Sunday, I spent the day under my car and cleaning the house, only to find out that it had been sunny at Turnagain. Determined not to repeat that, I spent the week twitching in my chair, compulsively checking the weather, or staring blankly out the window.

With the forecast for Wednesday looking better and better, Robert and I bailed on work and headed South. The beginning of the day was a comical spiral through alders as neither of us have skied Sunburst when there isn't enough snow to crush the brush.

45 minutes later we had our skins on and were through the stratus. TT43, still hidden in the clouds, is across the way.

The clouds that had dominated the weather at the start of the week began to lift as we climbed towards our first run.

Bench Peak Ski - 4.9.2020

For some reason no one could ski Bench peak on Thursday, so the day started as they do when I have no accountability: I didn't get out of bed. I eventually stopped hitting snooze and was running out the door sometime after 9:00.

Turnagain is usually a mid winter ski destination with the commute in the dark. It was a treat to do the drive in the glory of daylight. The raw beauty of the rainbow of grays of Turnagain Arm ice never gets old, and driving thru the glacier carved U of the pass in full sun was special.


There were a couple inches of new snow when I pulled into Johnson Pass. And, skinning away from the car, the trail was criss-crossed by tracks of snowshoe hares on their way to breakfast. The non-motorized route was bumpy and indirect, so I left it in favor of the quasi grooming of the snowmobile tracks. The first few miles thru the valley bottom went quickly and I soon left the Johnson Pass trail and headed for Center Creek.


Progress slowed as I was forced off the creek by road blocks of open water in the gorge. Skinning up and down thru the grabby suncrust and pine cones of the woods was comical and inefficient, but the crust was firm and there was no partner to suggest more practical routes, so I kept making pretty good time. Entering the space between the Pastoral and Bench Peak massifs the valley opened up. Behind, Silvertip and Twin Peaks rose above Johnson Pass.

Eddies North Ski - 2.11.2017

Updated 1.22.2019 to include another great day on Eddies.

When we skied the southwest face of Wolverine last week I couldn't take my eyes of the wall across the way: pinner chutes so tight and incised that that they're barely visible. Despite sunnier and easier options I convinced Alex and Bobby to check em out.

Things started off well with a forgotten beacon and a memorable scramble in and out of the Wolverine Creek gorge.

Photo: Bobby Lieberman

Then we were out of the gorge and into the jaw-dropping valley. Breaking trail in the morning light as the final snowflakes of the last storm fell out of the blue sky was one of those really special moments of perfection.

Photo: Bobby Lieberman

Arriving at the bottom of the chute, we could see that it had slid during the night, then filled back in. Perfect. Under the imposing south face of Wolverine we switched over to booting. Noah Lohr and Eric Dahl's insane line from last week is visible behind us.

Tincan Proper Ski - 3.8.2015

Updated 1.22.2019 to include another great day on Proper.

One of the key components of weather forecasting are trends. When consecutive model runs consistently report a storm is coming, confidence in the storm increases. When one run forecasts sun and the next run forecasts snow, confidence decreases.

Twenty Mile to the North, so much fun doing so many things up there.

As March arrived the models started to forecast a storm for the night of the 6th. Each model run confirmed the storm, and even started to increase its size. There was a catch, too much snow and the stability balance would tip. When I went to bed at midnight on the 6th it still wasn't snowing at Hatcher, and the radar showed the moisture way down the Cook Inlet. Were the model trends wrong?
We warmed up in Common Bowl, Matt deemed it a success.

I woke up at 2 AM to check the Independence Mine webcam. Drifts were already forming: windslabs would be a problem. At 6 AM, Independence mine had 8 inches of new snow and the radar and webcams confirmed that heavy orographic precipitation was still in full affect at Hatcher.

Beginning to feel better about the snowpack, we jumped over to Hippy Bowl.

Cornbiscuit Ski - 11.14.2015

Updated 1.14.2019 to include another great day on Cornbiscuit.

After spending 14 hours on a plane, and the previous week in the desert, we landed in Anchorage on Friday morning.


Digging into the weather history, one thing was clear: winds had scoured Turnagain Pass. Gap winds, outflow winds, storm winds, from the north, east, and west.

Saturday morning, looking for protected terrain, we worked our way back into the valley.

Starting to figure out the snowpack, Zack picked a zipper chute for the second run.