Warm Up

Is there some place I can live where it is March year-round? March here in south central Alaska was damn-near perfect this year. The first half of the month was cool and snowy, then the second half was warm and sunny. And with the long days stretching daylight until after 8 PM – it’s simply an unbeatable combination. Despite the warmer than average temperatures for the past three weeks, the snowpack is holding up well, and even increasing in some mountainous areas.

But it is now April, and all thoughts turn to crust. We’ve had a couple of good windows of crust skiing, but its been limited to the “warm-up” areas like Portage Lake and Skookum Glacier. These areas are right at sea-level so they melt out first. I like to hit them early as a warm up for bigger crust skis to come.

On Saturday, an old friend and co-worker, Yin, was in town. We went south to Skookum early in the morning. The crust was punchy near the glacier, but very good in the base of the valley.

I’m not sure if I’ll have much time for crust skiing this year, so I’m glad that I got in at least one good day.