First Turns Nice and Early

It's hard to complain about fresh powder in September so I won't. It's not uncommon for the first snows to come early in AK. The summer ends fast here and fall seems short. The remnants of a Japanese cyclone sent some wet weather our way and dumped some lovely snow up high. The weekend forecast cooperated so Karol and I went and sampled the loveliness. We were not disappointed.

Early season turns in the Anchorage area are typically found on the Jewel Glacier near Crow Pass to the south or the Lane and Snowbird Glaciers in the Talkeetnas by Hatcher Pass. The Jewel is a super easy get and the crowds found it early. We opted for the more involved approach to Snowbird. The Archangel Road was still open last weekend which knocks off the first few miles of the MTB ride. We took the easy single track only about 15 minutes to where the trail heads uphill through the last of the alders and into the alpine. 

Hatcher Pass in the Autumn - classic AKWe were quickly into snow in our tennies but enough foot traffic had passed to make the walking easy. At about 3,900' we donned skis and made our way through the boulder maze toward Snowbird Pass and arrived in about 1:40. The view from there is always spectacular and the coverage was ample on the mellow glacier below. It looked as if a party of two had already sampled the goods earlier in the day. The hut is close by so they were hanging there. Turns out about 12 people spent the night there.

My favorite kind of weather - sports bra weather!Our light packs and swift skis had us up and down for our two laps and on our way out before the others arrived. The snow was boot deep and blower. It's low angle but that didn't stop one of the others from ripping out a shallow slab where it steepens at the base of the nunatak. Can't let your guard down completely.

Yep. As good as it looks

GU fueled, as usual. We kept our skis on for the out for longer than we should have but managed to spare our bases any deep gouging. The bikes were sweet getting back to the car and after 6 hours on the move, beers and food at Palmer's Ale House sweet. And so it begins....