Backcountry skiing yesterday on Tincan, Turnagain Pass, Alaska.
I usually think of Anchorage as just a somewhat crowded city near the ocean, but in a way it’s really a mountain town. Most mountain towns have roadside attractions for your backcountry skiing pleasure. While the Anchorage “roadside” is frequently a bush plane landing or helicopter lift, you can get to some good skiing around here with a short car drive and some hiking. One such road accessed place I got introduced to years ago is Turnagain Pass on the Seward Highway. I’m still a gumby without much knowledge of the options for Turnagain skiing (you can get to a bunch of peaks up there), but it’s easy to follow the local’s tracks up Tincan and get some turns, so we did.
You can ski Tincan a bunch of ways, we chose this bowl. The snow was quite slushy by the time we got there and we knocked off a lot of surface sluffs, but overall the snowpack was stable (though by the time we got there anything steep was not an option due to the loose wet snow).
Louie on the ridge, looking northerly at Turnagain Arm and on the horizon a miniscule portion of the gigantic Chugach mountain range (I'm pretty sure, locals please correct if I'm wrong).
Looking in somewhat the other direction. Kenai mountains blow our minds, and perhaps that's more of the Chugach back there? More than once, I've heard the boys talk about living up here for a while. I'm actually kind of surprised I didn't do so myself while in my 20s. The backcountry skiing options were not as highly developed then, but the adventure sure was.
Jordan throwing some slush around.
That's me doing some of my old-school hops in some crusty stuff.
It was terrific to get out again after more than two days cooped up in the truck. The thick air of being at nearly sea level was crazy. Weird to have your legs burn when you’re not even breathing hard. Denali will cure that situation soon enough!
We might get in a few more short tours around here, but we’re focused on final packing and getting our whole mess up to Talkeetna. That process is going well, but I’m tired of REI and Wal-Mart!
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.