December 9, 2006

Today was another day of skiing. It was warm and raining at home. We checked the snow report for the resort and the report was rain at the bottom and snow at the top. Since they weren’t planning to open the top and since they were delaying the opening of the chair that goes midway, we were in no hurry to get to the resort.

Driving down, we were surprised by the change in Turnagain Arm in just a couple weeks. Most of the ice had flushed out of the arm. The open water was a dramatic change. Even Cook Inlet had more ice when I took my trip to the platform earlier this week. On land, the low elevations were mostly wet and snow free. Some of the ice along the rock walls by the road was gone, replaced by flowing waterfalls. Only one ice climber was attempting to scale one of the remaining ice walls. The meltdown wasn’t too discouraging since the snow was clearly falling only a few hundred feet up the mountain, coating the trees with a fresh powder sugar coating.

As we approached Girdwood, the raindrops started to thicken up. A quarter mile up the access road, it was all snow. Even the road was snow covered. It was a wet, heavy snow, but at least it wasn’t rain. It turns out that the delay on the mid-mountain chair was due to avalanche danger. Only the beginner chair and the race practice chair were open. We started in the race area. Since it is still early season, only a narrow, relatively steep chute is open at the top. It widens out down lower, but the top part was a little tight. Everyone who went up the chair had to ski that chute. It was already pretty bumped up by the time we made our first run. We made several runs in the heavy wet moguled snow. We took a few runs in the beginner area which has a couple of steep pitches that were also nicely bumped up, but the line at the lift was unbearable. We headed back to the race area as the competency level required to ski the slope kept the line short.

We skied for a couple hours. Our legs took a beating making short turns in tough snow. The echo of explosives thundered through the valley as avalanche control efforts attempted to reduce the hazards higher up the mountain. The mid-mountain chair began to move, but no one was heading up. When the chairs from higher up made their way down to the bottom, we could see how much snow had fallen further up the mountain. The chairs were full of snow. We skied to the lift and talked to a ski patrol person who explained that they were trying to open the lift, but it would be at least a half hour. With less than an hour till closing and tired legs, we decided not to wait. We called it a day without ever getting any higher than a few hundred feet up the mountain.

I went to the dentist the other day. My dentist is at one of the local medical campuses so I had to drive around and look for a parking garage that was tall enough for my truck. As I stepped out of the garage to cross the campus, I stepped between two moose, a momma and her baby. Momma was trying to eat high branches off a tree and she was standing on her back legs, towering above me. I looked right at baby. I looked left - and up -at momma. I turned around and ducked back into the garage. That was closer than I wanted to be between two potentially crabby moose scrounging for food in winter. They didn’t seem to mind me, but I was uncomfortable with the situation.

The moose are back in town, looking for food. I noticed moose crap in our driveway last week. At work, I was on the phone and missed it, but a moose walked through the Office Max parking lot across the street. This is right in downtown Anchorage.

We went to REI yesterday. Kris bought a shirt and a lanyard for her ski pass. I have been researching backpacks or more accurately daypacks. We were there for an hour and a half and I finally decided to buy the pack I had picked out on the internet. I was looking for something that had a good waist belt because my current daypack allows me to carry the weight only on my shoulders. My shoulders are not so good anymore. I have a nice waist pack, but it is too heavy fully loaded and still doesn’t have room for extra clothes. I also wanted a pack that had a separate compartment down low for my heavy camera gear. The pack I got is sort of in between a backpack and a daypack. The separate compartment is actually a sleeping bag compartment for traveling ultra light on overnight trips. It should work out very well for heavy day trips, especially those where I need to carry extra clothes. The lower compartment is going to provide plenty of room for quick access to my lenses.