Skiing in Girdwood

The Anchorage area has one proper ski resort: Alyeska. It's about the size of Alpine Meadows (more or less) and situated down Turnagain Arm in Girdwood. Girdwood is a cute little town in a valley off the arm and has some pretty good restaurants. The resort (or "the Mountain") has a fair number of lifts and some pretty decent runs.

The weekend of the 26th/27th, some friends of Lea's threw a combined 30th birthday party in Girdwood. Paula and Diana rented a good sized cabin (house) and invited a bunch of people down to ski, eat and hang out.

Saturday we drove down and hit the mountain. It would have been perfect, but it was COLD. It was in the high negatives or low single-digits at the base. As you went up the mountain, the air warmed slightly. In the sun at the top of the lifts it was almost 14 degrees! Lea and I met up with Jeff and Geran at the top of the tram and skied a few runs. As it got colder, we decided to take a break at the lodge and get some hot chocolate.

Brendan was sitting in the "sitzmark" (the lodge) and holding down a table that people would just cycle through. He joked that it was like he was running a talk show with a rotating guest list. Once we'd warmed our toes to the point where we could feel them (no joke, it was really cold), we headed out to get in a few more runs before it got too dark.

After our last run we headed to the truck and found the cabin. It was really nice. There was a downstairs area with several bedrooms. Most had bunk beds to maximize bed space. The main floor had a large kitchen, a living area and a huge dining table. There was a deck off the dining area and the hot tub was around the back. Then a loft above the kitchen had two more beds and another bathroom.

Saturday night was great. Everyone brought food and we had a never-ending meal. People sat in front of the fire, played with legos, ate, made trips to the hot tub (where your hair would freeze), and talked. There was a game of twister played that looked more like a sumo match. Eventually everyone collapsed into food coma.

The next morning we had another large meal and people slowly filtered out. A group of us headed for the Bake Shop, a breakfast place at the foot of the mountain. Their cinnamon rolls are very good, but my favorites are still the rolls at the Roadhouse in Talkeetna.

After calorie loading, Lea, Brendan, Jeff, Paula and her boyfriend, and I headed out for some cross country skiing. We started off in moose meadows, but Lea and I branched off and took the trail out to Winner Gorge. The trail went through the trees and wound around and went up and down a good amount. It was great. We got passed by a guy on a snowbike (mountain bike with extra-fat tires and metal studs). Eventually it got a bit too icy and steep for our skis, so we walked the last half-mile or so.

Winner Gorge is a deeply cut canyon that Winner Creek has made. It looks fantastic. I can only imagine what it's like in summer, with water cascading through, but in winter it's full of ice and snow with windows through to the flowing water below.

We headed back on the wider road to avoid the pitfalls that we'd narrowly escaped on the trail. Although we did miscalculate somewhat and instead of coming back out at the lodge, we ended up at the airport and had to walk back to the truck.

Note: the top two pictures were taken with my cell phone.