I had a free day to do a long ski this weekend, so I rounded up some friends for a trip to the Susitna Valley. Bill, Rachel, JT, Scott are all either doing, or thinking about doing, the White Mountains 100 race in March, so they were eager to get out of town and ski some snowmachine trails.
We decided to head to Willow. There isn’t a lot of snow for cross country skiing anywhere in South-central Alaska right now. But I figured if anyone could create good skate ski conditions with the snow we have, it would be the good folks of the Willow Trails Committee. WTC did not disappoint, and the groomed trails impressed our whole crew.
We started at the Crystal Lake trailhead and headed down the Corral Hill trail to the Susitna River. Our goal was to complete some sort of loop, but not all the trails were in yet. So we headed south on the river to see what trails we could find. We had almost reached the Yentna River (and were thinking about turning around) when we found a trail headed east. That trail was narrow, rocky, and dirty, but after a few nervous minutes headed south, it swung back to the east and intersected with the Big Swamp trail as we hoped. Being back on the WTC-groomed trails, we had a sweet trail back up through the Big Swamp to Willow Swamp and back to the car.
It was a 36 mile loop that took us 5.5 hours, including a bunch of stops. Temps were -5 F at the trail head most of the day, and probably a fair bit cooler on the river in the morning. The glide was surprisingly good, in spite of the cold snow. It was a great day to be out in the sunny Su Valley, escaping the ice fog in Anchorage.
Photos and maps in the gallery:
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