I’m not going to lie, I was terrified every day on this trip. The lines we were able to ski were nothing like anything I’ve skied anywhere else. I definitely got to ski the terrain and snow that I’ve always envisioned as the Chugach experience.
There’s a different skill set to skiing here, slough management, steep terrain, exposure. The objective hazards are a little more in your face here.
Things to know:
Getting here:
- Find a flight to Anchorage (United has direct flight that I was able to get a window seat on when I booked it 24 hours out on a saver ticket.)
- Then get to Valdez with a rental car (5 hour drive) or on the 45 minute Ravn Air flight, which also doesn’t seem to fill very often ($180)
Skiing in Alaska
- It’s steep here
- Light is everything, you’re not skiing much (anything) in flat light
- Just because it’s overcast in Valdez, doesn’t mean it’s that way on Thompson pass
- Bring platinum lenses for usability in all conditions
- Well fitting boots are key, they stay buckled on the heli and then there’s the sled pulls…
- I wouldn’t bring tech bindings here, with the sled there wasn’t much skinning, just straight up booting, the Vert looks pretty handy.
- The Mack 5s were ok, but a 180 A-lotta would likely be a better choice, rocker’s good, but you need to smear a turn in the dense snowpack on steep terrain very comfortably and five point skis don’t like that.
- We got here just as Tailgate Alaska was ending and the Thompson Pass hill climb took place while we were here. It needs to snow a lot after these two events to get anything that’s accessible by foot from the pass back in shape for skiing.
- In light of that, you need either a snowmobile or a helicopter to get to good skiing in April. Expect long days on the snowmobile.
- It would be worth checking this place out earlier in the season to get higher quality snow on all aspects / elevations. We needed to use caution when transitioning at the bottom of slopes and on even slight aspect changes the snow would transform very quickly.
Weather
- The weather controls all skiing here, and with the general length of approach, it was all or nothing. We generally made decisions around 7:30-8:30am about the days plans with as much weather data as we could get.
- https://proudline.wordpress.com/weather-web-cams-snow-reports/
- http://www.mountainweather.com/index.php?page=alaska_weather
Valdez
- I didn’t find any places (coffee shops, etc) to work, just the hotel
- It gets really sad, really fast here on down days, drinking is the activity of choice
- Cell coverage was fine in town, but I had nothing with ATT from just outside of town
Heli Skiing
- We had an amazing time with H2O.
- Having a man on the inside made that very easy. The main benefit was showing up without any reservations (with the knowledge that there would be room) and getting clear insight to the weather on the morning of to make a decision from.
- It’s critical to have enough skiers (3-5) to get a heli of your own.
- Even without inside knowledge, if you show up with a strong group, you will get to ski terrain with H2O that will scare the shit out of you after proving yourselves for a few runs.
- The main wildcard is the weather.