Shredding in Thompson, Hatcher and Turnagain Pass!!!

We woked up under some beautiful weather in Valdez. 

The village has received so much snow this winter that the highest structure in town is a snowpile right in the middle of the town. It is actually so big, that you can carve turns in it (and of course, I did!!!)

All stoked to finally have a nice day, we drove up to Thompson Pass all hope!  We headed towards an area call Promise Land. This little plateau is suppose to have a lot of couloir that should have protected the snow from the wind of the past days. 

We started with decent weather, but the wind quickly picked up! From our experience, the gust were probably around 80 km/h to 90km/h. We were hiking from one tree to shelter to an other one to avoid frostbites.

Then Amelie got cold. I'm sure you all know that there isn't much you can do when the lady is getting cold beside then taking the skins off and skiing down!

The snow wasn't deep but it was nice and steady. 

We enjoy this rather short day of skiing to shower at the Rendez-Vous Heli-ski Lodge. The warm water really contrast from the cold temperature of the day! We also cheated on our cook-our-own camp-stove diet for some nachos, burger and beer!

After spending as much time we could inside the lodge, we finally slept in their parking lot. We woke up the following morning with the helicopter taking off which was a sign of great weather!

A bit bummed from our turnaround of the previous day, we headed back to Promise Land (you need to park around Mile 35.2). On our way up, we catch up with Wendy and Brendan who were heading pretty much towards the same area. The hike this time was much nicer with the wind much lower. 

On the way up, Wendy suddenly disappear!

She fell in a 'crevasse' created by the detachment of the huge cornice from the slope. She was unharmed and was able to climb back up of the 'crevasse' by herself!

We kept going and finally got to the Promise Land. The area certainly deserves its name! There are multiple of couloirs to be hike and shredded.

Unfortunately, we found that the higher part of the couloir has been wind hammered and was featuring a breakable crust. We stayed low and were able to get some nice turns!

The lower part of the run was mostly windbuff and wind pack snow and wasn't the greatest skiing but fun anyway!

This allowed us to leave Valdez on a good note since this was probably the best day we had during our stay there. We started our journey back towards Anchorage as Babiche was landing the following day! 

Since I've already told him that I wouldn't be at the airport when he will land since I will be out skiing (he was landing in the middle of the day!!!), we stopped in Hatcher Pass to carve turns. 

We didn't get the perfect day like we did the last time we skied it, but it didn't looked like the wind has hit the area as much as in Valdez. We worked our way up to a peak (don't know the name of it!) and were able to get some really nice turn in the areas that hasn't seen the sun. 

On the drive down from the pass, we saw a moose about 10m from the road. He was certainly not impress by our presence since he kept eating like we were not there. 

We then understood why he wasn't scared. Apparently, there is about 2 moose per day that are getting into car accident in the road nearby! I guess it must be quite an awesome place for hunting!!!

Babiche was at the airport waiting for us. We now had to puzzle how to get his stuff and him into our Matrix. After a rather successful Tetris game, we were all onboard and ready to go!

We drove down to Girdwood (home of Alyeska resort) to camp out. 

The following day has brought about 10inches of snow in the parking lot. Amelie was a bit tired from all the consecutive ski days we've done and decided to rest for her last day. 

I took off with Babiche and drove back to Pete's South in Turnagain Pass. The poor visibility we had made us move towards somewhere I knew there would be great tree skiing and not any open snowfield hanging above us. 

Babiche is now alpine skiing and it was my first time with him on his locked heels. He didn't get the chance to ski much this winter around Tahoe since they have had quite a terrible winter. He quickly showed me his new alpine skills!!!

…. as I was just enjoying nice soft turns!!!

After a few laps, I guess he was a bit more into it and was able to get some nice deep turns (his deepest of the season so far!) 

We drove back to Girdwood where Amelie has spend her day off. Apparently, the Alyeska resort has received 22 inches at the top and most of the good terrain was closed!

Looks like we have some resort skiing lining up for tomorrow!!!

Cheers, 

evans

Hatcher Pass and a Thompson Pass classic that certainly deserves it's name: Crudbuster

Hatcher Pass is not hard neither easy to find. You can either access it by either Wasilla or Palmer using either the Wasilla-Fishhook or the Palmer-Fishhook road. After having to look for it, I think it is easier to find via Palmer since there is also a small sign on the road. 

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As we got there, we were both shock by the amount of tracks there was! It really looked like a resort!!!  We finally found out that a lot of people were car-shuttling up to lap the lower part. 

As usual, the part that requires to climb haven't seen as many tracks. We aim for a ridge that was starting straight at the parking lot. The climb went really smoothly and we quickly found ourselves at the top of a peak that was overlooking most of the nearby ones. 

It was really a beautiful day and even if the temperature was about -7Celcius at the parking lot, the powder on the sun facing slopes were melting up and becoming more heavy. 

This is just something we learned on our way down….

We've been able to find nice powder on the way down nevertheless!

We left after this rather short day to drive towards Valdez. The great weather was nice since the roads in Alaska are not always greatly maintained and that our car was on 4 seasons tires…

On our way, we witnessed probably the nicest moonrise we've both ever seen. The moon was big, orange and rose straight behind a huge mountain that was just in front of us!

We stopped probably 5 times to take pictures and we finally haven't made it to Valdez and slept in Glenallen.

We woked up to a nice -5Farhenheit (about -20Celcius). As we got to Thompson Pass, the temperatures haven't climbed much, we didn't had great visibility and it was really windy! We chose to go for some willow turns not too far from the road around Mile 42. 

The face we intended to ski wasn't far, but to find a place to cross the river that was separating us from the face made it a much longer hike! 

We eventually made it up not too far and not too high since the conditions were far from ideal!

We then went to all the heli-ski company to try to get an heli-drop like I did few years back with Babiche, but it didn't work this time. Most of the company were either too busy or were charging too much to our budget! Couple of guides pointed us some backcountry options and we opted for Crudbuster around Mile 40. 

The temperature was better and we had good visibility all the way up then we got fogged up as we got to the top and we had to ski in a nice whiteout.

The mix of snow, windcrust and breakable windcrust made it quite a challenge to ski!

We went to the opening party of the Tsaina Lodge. It actually didn't looked too much as a party but rather as a big family reunion. 

We saw most of the guides from all the company we've visited that were here to kick off the heli-ski season. It was a great way to show everyone the installations!

It has been really windy on almost all the days that we've been up at the pass and it seems that the best skiing was between Mile 45 and Mile 35. We spotted from the car a nice crack between the rock and we thought that it would be cool just to skin up this narrow feature. It was also nice since we were sheltered from the wind!

This felt quite weird to be so squeezed in but the slope to climb up was nice and steady.

Just as we got out from the crack, the wind picked up and cut a bit our motivation to climb really high. We were this time able to get some nice powder.

We picked a different line on the way down that featured a mix of cliffs and trees. It was certainly interesting to make it down safely!

We are looking to stay around Thompson Pass for a few more day before having to drive back towards Anchorage to pick up Babiche who will fly in to join me until the end of March!

Cheers, 

Evans