March 12, 2007

Monday after springing forward is always a rough day. It isn’t any easier after skiing hard for the weekend. The late day sunshine isn’t helping us to get to sleep any earlier. I don’t know how I didn’t fall asleep at my desk today.

Yesterday was a fun day of skiing. A coworker of mine met us at Alyeska. OK, I have said that a lot lately. So far, we have skied with 5 different coworkers of mine and their friends and family. Our companion yesterday had skied with us once before. She likes the same terrain that we like and she is only a half a step behind us most of the time.

We made a few runs in the cold morning, including one off of ’high traverse’, a bit of a challenge just getting there with a little climbing and a long traverse across a bowl to some nice steep stuff. The further we went, the nicer the snow got. The north facing slopes hadn’t been baked by the sun on Saturday so they were still soft. Some of the other slopes were refrozen into a bit of a crust. Since this went well, and since a skier who shared a lift ride with us, who had clearly been smoking marijuana, recommended it, we decided to try the ’head wall’. This uses the same bowl as ’high traverse’ but requires climbing hundreds of feet higher before traversing an even longer distance.

The first pitch was tiring, but a wide flat spot gave us a break before the next section, a traverse across some extreme steeps with some cliffs just below us. Falling off the traverse would have certainly meant tumbling or sliding over the cliffs, and not coming to a stop until an easy hundred feet below. The traverse was narrow and the steep slope made it feel like we were hugging a wall while skiing on a ledge. We were all terrified by that section even though people ski the cliffs quite easily since the landing is steep and gently rolls into a manageable slope.

The next stretch was a long climb up a ridgeline. Foot steps in the deep snow provided a path. The irregularity of the steps added to the physical challenge. We plodded along with a couple other groups making their way up the ridge. We stopped a few times to catch our breath. The sun was beating down on us and we were hot and sweaty. We reached the traverse and began working our way around the bowl. Steep lightly tracked slopes dropped away from the ledge. We kept working our way around to the shaded area of the bowl. A few sections were tricky with rock outcroppings causing detours in the traverse. We picked a spot and dropped in. The snow was smooth, but dense. We joked about working so hard to get there and then making bad turns. It was still fun, but totally exhausting. We took a break and headed to the bar, happy to have taken the recommendation of a pothead.