With high pressure in place, Tour Camp continued to fire this past week in the Chugach. Under sunny skies with workable stability, fantastic skiing was found on almost every aspect. From the spines of “Dan O’s”, to mellow powder fields and the continued establishment of new runs, our little slice of AK continues to shine.
The week started with welcoming our new guests from New England, Colorado and the Bay Area. Molly, Adam, Dave, Matt, Eric, Josh and Brian were a solid group that is leaving Alaska having skied a weeks worth of bluebird days in a row.
After the crew acquainted themselves with some of the immediate terrain around camp, we wasted no time in heading towards the Simpson Glacier, exploring new runs in the non-motorized portion of our ski zone. After a long adventurous day in the field, it was time to pick some low hanging fruit in the form of mellow powder skiing before ramping it up for the second half of the week with the coveted spines of “Dan O’s”.
Even though it hasn’t snowed in over a week, perfect steep skiing powder is holding on a majority of high north aspects. “Dan O’s” held some of the best snow we’ve found since the last storm with the lower spine wall and upper spines of the peak proper skiing as well as one could possibly hope for.
The crew followed up a huge day of spine shredding with some nearby couloir skiing accentuated by more great snow. By the end of the week everyone was gassed from the many miles walked, and thousands of vertical feet skied. On our last day a smaller crew and I were able to ski a couloir in an area we’ve wanted to explore for the past few seasons. The terrain seems straightforward enough from a couloir skier’s perspective, but either the ice, crevasses, cornices, or stability have not been in proper shape worthy for a check until this past week.
All in all, the guys and gal from Week 3 are just as FIRED UP as Jeff, Wes and myself after another truly standout week. As a crew, we couldn’t be happier with how rad our guests have been, especially when combined with such stellar ski conditions. We’re looking at just a couple of more weeks at Tour Camp and the skies are forecasted to be clear for at least the next few days. Enjoy the storms down south, and we’ll look forward to checking in from Tour Camp with some more Chugach ski touring stoke in early April. Happy Turns!
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Previous “State of the Backcountry” Reports from the 2013-2014 season: