April 26, 2008

We stayed out until dark last night. We were driving home around eleven and it was just getting dark. The lightness has really snuck up on me this year. It is now light during all my normal waking hours. It seems early, but perhaps the change in daylight savings time has me confused. Perhaps the early closure of the ski resort has me confused. Perhaps the weather has me confused.

Last weekend was a beautiful spring weekend. The snow on the mountain was great fun, turning to nice soft slushy snow late in the day. We skied both days, but Sunday was the best. We found some late day sun baked steeps along South Face that were wonderful, forcing us to take another ‘one more run’.

The crowds were pretty bad last weekend. We have lost our tolerance for lift lines. The snow was actually nicer, softer, down low on the mountain so we spent most of our time avoiding the crowded upper mountain. We skied North Face once, but it was pretty bad. The warmer days and colder nights cause just enough late day softening on the north side to refreeze things into a brick overnight.

Kris took a half day of vacation yesterday and we went down to the resort for the afternoon. The weather had started to change from the sunny warm spring weather we had been enjoying back into winter. The first report of the morning said snow and rain with no accumulation expected. An hour later, I checked and it still had the same forecast, but they were reporting a half an inch of new snow. By the time we headed down the road, Anchorage had several inches of slushy snow that made travel slow. We spent the afternoon skiing in the unexpected accumulation of several inches of snow. It was mostly rain at the base so we spent most of our time at the top of the mountain suffering through the poor visibility. We did make a couple runs on North Face that were pretty good. A dense layer of new snow covered the frozen bumps below. We could feel the ice below as we sunk in on every turn, but it did not disturb our direction. It was merely a disconcerting scraping sound that could mostly be ignored.

The rest of the upper mountain was pretty fun. We stuck mostly to the groomed trails, now covered with several inches of fresh snow, to avoid the hard icy stuff underneath. Since it was a Friday, we were practically alone at the mountain. We were getting fresh tracks on the groomed trails. We did see a friend skiing, but we seemed to be out of sync with him most of the day, watching him ski by as we were about midway on the chairlift and waving to him on the chairlift as we skied down. We finally synched up for one run, and then met him for a beer in the bar at the end of the day.

The drive home was fine until we got close to Anchorage. The highway had only one lane with tracks in it. The main roads in town were slushy, but the traffic was mashing it down. The turning lanes were a little scary though with over a foot of deep, heavy stuff with just a few random tracks through. When we arrived at our condo, several cars were stuck in the driveways. My 8” of ground clearance left me scraping several inches off the top as I pulled into the garage. After attending a going away party last night for our friends who are moving to Fairbanks, the snow was 16” deep in our driveway with a couple more vehicles stuck in our parking lots. We got a couple more inches over night. The ski resort is reporting over two feet of new snow to kick off its last weekend of the season.