Ingram Creek and Nosebleed

The clouds finally blew in yesterday and gave SCAK a little bit of low pressure.  Flat light proved our descent of the south face of Eddie's fairly challenging.  Josh and I skied a steep south facing shot into Ingram Creek on Wednesday.  Just as we were skinning out, the clouds broke and gave way to clear skies.

Josh contemplates which way his sluff is going to go.

Today B-real and I headed up to Hatcher Pass to see what Eddie and the crew have been boasting about.    We headed up Microdot and skied the shady north face - known more commonly as "Nosebleed".  This is my favorite run in HP.  We only saw a party of two walking behind us, and a mere 3 cars in the parking lot on our return.

Tyler sees the light......or lack there of.

The viz was kind of in-and-out.  We dug a pit at the top of our run.  Typical shallow snowpack of Hatcher Pass (and Eagle River for that matter).  Facet farms at the bottom of our column, with failure at the ground.

That's a wrap for skiing the last 18 out of 20 days.  Tomorrow is a rest day.  I guess if you call a rest day skinny skiing, then its a rest day.  Or I may go out and see what this storm has brought us.....

Getting Back to Alaska...

My return greeted me with high pressure, clear skies and sub-zero temperatures.  B-real and I headed south to sniff out some softer snow.  The last storm rolled through nearly 2 weeks ago.  With longterm instabilities, we made the slog out to Eddies for a couple of runs.

It was -8F at the truck when we left, and at the bottom of Ingram Creek the temps read -15F on my thermometer.  With the cold temps and moisture source, we witnessed some of the largest hoar frost crystals i've ever seen.  They were the size of potato chips.

It was so cold that I didn't take any pictures of our ski runs.  I was too busy trying to get my hands and feet to stay warm.  Our skins didn't even stick to our skis on the second run, so we only made it about half way up.  Eddie's was pretty tracked up, but we managed to find some nice soft snow on the lower elevation flanks.  Tyler slogs it back out to the road

Pausing for the ever-so-famous "end of tour group shot i'm freezing so lets hurry up".  Like the beard?

But this never gets old.  Redoubt Volcano taken from the Seward Highway.

Oh yeah, the only cars in the parking lot were Toyota Tundra's.  Seems the only folks who can hack the cold were Tundra drivers....go figure.