On Friday, Tim K, Tim M, Benji and I went to Culross Island in Prince William Sound in search of crust skiing. The weather forecast was for clear skies and calm winds, both of which are required in order to create crust in PWS this late in the season. Even though there were high overcast clouds on Thursday evening as we motored out to Goose Bay, we remained hopeful that it would clear off.
The next morning the conditions hadn’t changed and the snow was still soft. So we grabbed our waxless skis instead. Touring around on waxless skis was fun, but a lot different than crust cruising. As Benji said, it only takes a few Fahrenheit degrees to change pretty-boy crust cruising into wanker tourist shuffling.
We reached the ridge and headed south. The terrain was just starting to get interesting when low clouds moved in quickly and enshrouded us in fog. We had no interest in blindly skiing off a cornice and plummeting to the valley below, so we were forced to turn around and follow our tracks back through the fog. After we dropped off the ridge, we were below the clouds. So we explored a little bit in the valleys down below before heading back to the boat.
No crust, no sun. But we were skiing in Prince William Sound (on a work day no less) so I can’t complain!
[Click the photo above to view this photo album.]
You can check out all Tim’s photos here.
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