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| Our group out finding the goods near Nicks. |
Snow is back on the menu in Valdez. The La Nina winter in Alaska has been a crazy season of incremental weather. Growing up in Anchorage, Alaska I know that La Nina winters are always unpredictable. The snow conditions this year gave been less then ideal with high winds and a high-pressure system from hell sitting over Alaska for more then a month.
Heading up to Tailgate Alaska everybody was praying for snow. I have been looking forward to skiing Valdez and camping out in Thompson pass all year. The snow conditions in February and most of March was downright. We stared at the snow forecasts for endless hours trying to see if this new low-pressure system was going to dump any snow.
We loaded up the sleds and took off for Tailgate this last Friday to cloudy skies but no snow. As we arrived, we could see the wind crusted slopes with the dust on crust. The parking lot was less then half full but people were starting to dig in.
My friend Joe Shimek and I took the sleds up to Nicks to check out the Berlin Wall and Python. The coverage was less then Ideal but it was good to recon the area. We headed back to camp and started and continued to dig in.
Snow forecasts were being talked about around camp and that low-pressure system was about to finally hit the Thompson pass area. We woke to snow on the tent!
Hoots and hollers could be heard around camp as the snow continued to fall the entire day. Every body started digging in. Snow Kenzies and tents started popping out everywhere and spirits were high.
I had yet to get any ski runs in so we headed up to Bro Bowl to get a couple of snowmachine runs. The lighting was horrible but the snow conditions were improving drastically. Although you could still feel the wind crust the snow was piling up and conditions were finally improving.
On March 28 the snow continues to fall. Tailgate is in full swing and people are starting to show up after hearing that we are getting some snow. Checking the weather forecast from the ABA parking lot you could see that the current low-pressure system is going to be sweeping up and hitting Valdez head on. The snow temps are quite warm however and it will be interesting to see how the stability plays out.
If we get more then a foot or two it could produce some underlying layers to trigger into a avalanches. We are digging and continue to wait this storm out.
2 days ago we went Ice climbing down in Keystone Caynon. The Ice is in good condition and it was nice to get on some WI 4.
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| Am ABA guide, Dave shows us how it is done. |
I decided I wanted to vertical with my Camera and shoot the ice climbers from above. I sat in my harness for about an hour snapping some really good shots.
Yesterday, was a big day for us. We decided to try to ski Python. My buddie Joe broke off a slab pretty high up and it was a bit scary. Luckily we had our safe zones dialed and nobody got caught.
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| Me up on the top of Python getting ready to drop in. |
The entire day is worthy of another blog post coming soon. Till then enjoy this picture of it.
Cheers,
Greg
