March 27, 2007

Happy day after Seward’s Day. Yeah, it was another of those goofy government holidays, but it was good to have a day off. This one was especially nice since even the schools didn’t’ have the day off. The ski slopes were empty.

We were supposed to meet a couple of coworkers at the ski resort but one of them ended up at the pet emergency clinic and had to put down her dog. We took advantage of a lack of commitment and had a slow start to our holiday. We went shopping for a camping trailer and did some grocery shopping before finally heading to the ski resort.

We didn’t buy a trailer. We decided we really liked one of the hard sided folding trailers because we could keep it in the garage for the summer. The soft sided folding trailers were OK, but they didn’t seem to be that good of a value and are not allowed in some places where they are especially worried about bears. The hard sided offerings are really nice for colder weather. There is a local dealer who sells ALiner trailers, but they only had stock of some larger versions that were much bigger than we would need and would barely fit in the garage. We haven’t ruled out a smaller version, but we would pay a serious premium to have one shipped up from the lower 48. As always, it was fun to shop.

We skied all three days on the weekend. We had some new snow last week so things were freshened up a bit. We made some fun runs on our fat skis on Saturday including one run down North Face with my coworker/ski patroller friend.

We started Sunday by heading for Max’s Face, a steep, rarely opened, tree covered, avalanche prone slope that takes about a half hour of gradual climbing and harsh traversing to get to. We went far enough to get to barely tracked snow. I had been scoping the slope from below, but it was impossible to tell where we were from above. This meant taking it slow as I knew there were some cliffs and tight trees depending on our line. We stayed in fairly loose trees, but it got pretty steep. At one point, I dropped into a nice steep chute through the trees. Others had skied the chute, but it was still soft and about thigh deep. The snow was sloughing down the chute with me which was an exciting sensation. Kris got a little freaked and took it really slow. It has been awhile since we did any serious tree skiing since there isn’t much at Alyeska.

By Monday we were pretty tired and sore. The bumps were getting pretty serious again and we were banging through them all weekend. We took it a bit easier on Monday. We explored the downhill course, scoping out positions along the fence for watching and taking pictures for the upcoming national event. The course was completely set for practice on Tuesday so it was exciting to see how a downhill course really looks up close and personal on terrain with which we have intimate familiarity. We are looking forward to the upcoming races. One local who rode the tram up with us after a run down North Face claimed to have ridden up a chair lift with Bode Miller. Some of the best American skiers should be here for the next week or so. We are taking Friday off to watch and do a little skiing.

The weather continues to be sunny and cold. It was single digits again this morning, but daytime highs are getting close to freezing. We should see some warmer weather in the near future. The daylight continues to push toward unlimited. It still seemed pretty light outside at nine this evening and it is once again light outside when I go to work. I miss the darkness, but I am ready for spring.