Skiing has arrived.  MSP Films takes you inside the action with “THE WAY I SEE IT,” featuring several unique perspectives on the progression that took place during the winter of 2010.  The winner of Powder Magazine’s 2009 “Movie of the Year” brings you the best athletes on the planet sharing their points of view on what it means to be a skier and backing up their positions with hard-charging action.  The MSP team traveled the globe in search of what makes this sport so special… the adventure, the passion, the camaraderie, and the fun.  “THE WAY I SEE IT” showcases the greatest deep powder, steep lines, and massive park features from British Columbia, Japan, Alaska, Colorado, Switzerland, Idaho, Washington, and many other locations worldwide.

Location: Palmer Train Depot

Show Date: 11/07/2010

Show Time: TBD

More details on ticket locations and show times, and raffles to come!

Come on out, support your local riding community and have a killer time at Palmer’s first decent ski movie premier.

For more info on the film and Matchstick Productions visit www.skimovie.com

It’s always a fine line on these projects.  We don’t want to blast these locations to everyone, but at the same time as a community we need to protect them and care for their existence.

The club needs all the help they can get to finish the structure before the snow flies this fall.  If you can donate some time, lift a few stones, or even give some money for chopper time, then give them a shout.  Seriously, anything helps!

The Wall of Rock

The event was a lot of fun, with local Palmer band “Back Acres” playing a few tunes, a pig roast out back, Kegs of Mooses Tooth brew and some fun bouldering!

Erin doing her best Wonka Impression…Good suds.

Ski the Jewel…check. Eat some pig…check…Drink some beer…check…boulder till the place closes…done.

“Back Acres”

In other news, I was reading our local climatological predictions for the coming season. I.e: What the heck is happening with our weather???  NOAA is predicting a La Nina winter, which means colder temps and above average precip for Northern Lattitudes on the west coast.  The Southern US will be warmer, and New England will be cooler. Honestly, I don’t care about those places.  All I care is this:

PROBABILITIES OF BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES ARE ENHANCED IN
MOST OF ALASKA, THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, THE NORTHERN ROCKIES, AND INTO THE
NORTHERN PLAINS
LA NINA CONDITIONS ENHANCE THE PROBABILITIES OF ABOVE MEDIAN PRECIPITATION IN THE
PACIFIC NORTHWEST AND NORTHERN ROCKIES IN THE FALL AND WINTER SEASONS AND IN
THE CENTRAL INTERIOR REGIONS OF THE EASTERN U.S. IN WINTER.

BRING IT! (Knock on wood) If you are interested, here’s a link to a report called “What is La Nina?” by NOAA services.  Good stuff in there.  Take all these climate predictions with a grain of salt, as the jet stream and major weather makers can always move.

YO SOY EL NINO!

I’ve placed a permanent link on the right sidebar to the AAC’s snowbird hut page.  Check it out! Pray for snow!

That being said, the recent “summer” weather hasn’t been helping, and neither has our recent trip up to Hatcher.  Those tundra and moss covered peaks don’t look oh so different in short green vegetation.  I just skied lines with my mind all day.  I’m screwed.  Should I say it?  Summer is almost over and I couldn’t be happier.  Here’s a few shots from throughout the summer, from various locations and events.

Shred the Pit!

Wasilla DJ Sesh

Just another day at the office…

This place was beautimus

Some friends and I went hiking up at Hatcher today, and had an amazing experience, topped off with a quadruple quake centered pretty much right under our feet.  Just as we were getting ready to ascend a very large boulder field, we felt a rumble like an avalanche, that rolled from up valley across the whole area.  After retreating to safer high ground, 3 more tremors rolled through in about 20 minutes.  Check out the info here at Alaska Earthquake Info Center.  The first and largest tremor was a 4.1.  Not too big, but bigger than I felt comfortable with stuck at the bottom of a huge granite boulder field!

Epicenter Locale

Tres amigas

Ptarmi Dog = Happy Mountain Canine

Walls and Rocks

One word: Rad

Here’s a quick video Erin took this past weekend in Fairbanks at the Pump Track behind Goldstream Sports.  Big Thanks to Joel for hooking it up with the info, the track and the good times!

Fairbanks Pump Track from Erin Kessler on Vimeo.

If you want to learn more about this project, shoot Beth or myself an email.  A cool website to checkout is Leelikesbikes.com.  Lee McCormack builds these tracks all over the nation and has lots of great info.  Beth is an amazing asset to this community and has been on board the whole way.  She’s already presented the idea to the city council and is working on locations and procedural issues.  Without her none of this could happen.  Please let city know how much we appreciate her hard work!

Also…this weekend is the 24 Hours of Matanuska Mountainbike Race out at Matanuska Lake State Park!  Don’t miss it! Should be a great time, on fun trails, with great folks!

The big news is this: HATCHER AVY CYCLE STILL ONGOING. Yesterday Brian and I drove up to the pass and found widespread avalanche activity on every aspect and almost every slope.  Slab avalanches, wet avalanches and point releases were and still currently are happening.  We got out of the car to find a skier triggered hard slab avalanche on the west face of lower microdot.  The crown was over a meter deep.  The slide was remotely triggered from 10 meters above the crown and by the 11TH SKIER on the slope. I knew this skier, glad she was ok.

We don’t have an AVY center here, but I am confident in saying that the mountains are telling us to back off for a bit. Within the hour Brian and I were touring, the main bowl on Fish Peak drained out in a huge slide.  Widespread collapsing is still occuting on all slopes, and some north facing aspects are loaded with over 2 meters (6 ft) of new wind deposited snow. Fractures were occurring on slopes below 30 degrees, and significant hangfire exists on rollovers.

Today, while taking a mellow route on lower gov, we follwed a single track uphill and ran into a guy named Rick.  He only had one pole, and was acting a bit strange.  Turns out he had just dug himself out of an avalanche.  He had toured alone, behind the East ridgeline where he remote triggered a slide from above him on the NE face. He was on a low angle 15-20 degree slope. Rick said a 2 ft wall of snow came toward him from the slope above and he had to swim to stay on top.  Rick is a lucky man. Just because the slope you are on seems safe, don’t forget there’s a whole mountainside above you.

Rick was a Victim…and a lucky man from Erin Kessler on Vimeo.

We left in blowing snow today, and the next storm had just arrived.  Keep your terrain mellow, ski conservative, and go home to ski again. Hatcher is not messing around this week.  All of North 4068 and Bald Ridge slid, 1/3 of El Dorado slid in a slab avalanche.  There are slides all along Marmot, Hatch Ridge, Government, and inside Rae Wallce bowl.  Let the cycle finish.

NWS is calling for temps in the 40′s, raind and snow mix, and sustained winds 15-30 mph with gust to 45.  Same for tonight.

The snow is dense, but by no means concrete.  Hopefully the snowpack can adjust to the new snow up high.  We didn’t see any obvious instabilities like yesterday, but it could still be a different story in the high alpine.  Enjoy this non-HD video clip.

Feels like snow, looks like snow.  Holy Shit it’s snowing at Hatcher again!

Spring…How I love thee.  Let me count the ways…6, 12…no wait 20+ inches!

Three to Five more inches forecast for tonight.  So far this storm has been doing right by us and absolutely puking up high.  The snow finally started sticking in Palmer around 5pm, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  Weather is supposed to warm up, so watch out for melt freeze crusts…even though there’s wasn’t much snow before this storm, we had some pretty hard ice layers.

New snow in the forecast…3-6″ today with 2 more tonight.  JP called from Anchortown and reported 6 on the car this morning.  Front Range, Highland, Arctic Valley, Hatcher…Pick your poision, just keep it safe.  Lots of new snow in the high country.

Well, some of the crew and I finally rolled out to Hatcher today.  It’s been almost two weeks for me…that’s quite a sin.  It seems that the pass has gotten a good bit of snow, but as usual that snow came with crazy wind.  We drove up to the top to find snow covered slopes, extremely cross loaded gullies, and dangerously inviting North Slopes.

Almost all the snow from this new storm is either plastered to shallow crusted south aspects, or sitting in fat sneaky wind slabs on Northern Aspects.  I REPEAT…NORTH ASPECTS ARE EXTREMELY WIND LOADED.  We simply toured above the A-frame and found widespread collapsing with almost ever step, even on flat terrain.  We kept it very conservative this afternoon.  Where the windblown snow landed, it seems to get quite deep.

Independence weather station reported 42 inches at one point, but it’s holding at 37ish.  That’s about a foot of fresh in 3 days.  Most of the new snow fell earlier today and last night, but it obviously still needs time to settle.  Give it a day or two.

Theres more snow in the forecast, so check back for updates.  In the meantime, enjoy these shots from Pastoral this past weekend.

Taylor Creek Touring

Erin shreds in the gale

Wind on the summit ridge was whippin

JP lays turns in the windbuff

Stoked on the approach!

Figure 8′s for Brian

In the mean time here’s a sick St Paddy’s day edit from Mr. Billings.  Adam has been steadily getting better and better with his edits, definitely look for his stuff in the future.

Last Light Laps on Microdot from Adam Billings on Vimeo.

As for snow updates? Hatcher is getting pretty dry.  There’s probably some good snow still holding on the north aspects, but other than that I’d say it’s getting pretty bare up at the pass.  Grab what you can.  There does seem to be a storm expected to hit Saturday evening, so stay tuned for weather updates and more info.

And if you didn’t know already, Alyeska is epic right now….I don’t know.  WEEKEND WARRIOR STATUS INITIATED.

The Perch

The skin track up Marmot is hanus.  Snowmachines, bootpacks, lack of snow and ice crust made the climb a goat rope if I’ve ever seen one.  We made it though, and were pleasantly rewarded with untracked, steep goodness.

Into the darkness

Ed approaches the crux (if it could be called that)

Nick gettin Styleee

Powder Turns on the Apron

Mitch takes the plunge

Check that off the list.  Thanks for the ride Hatch!

South facing aspects are pretty stripped of snow, especially in the high alpine.  Besides the thin snowpack, the sun and warm temps have turns southern aspects into death crusts, and god forbid you have to cross a track on the way down.  Springtime snowpack rules are in full effect, and if you can avoid it, try staying off the heated slopes in the late afternoon (saves the corn for the season).  If not, well then shred, we are all guilty of creating canoe tracks at some point. I’ve been updating pretty lazily this past 2 weeks…if you need constant inspiration, check out the dongshow blog. Those guys have been getting after it.

It’s 16.3 F and snowing lightly up high right now, yet still sort of clear.  Spring light is messing with my brains. We’ll see what comes of this precip, as it has been snowing on and off in the mountains all day but still no registered accumulation at Indy.  Have fun and watch the southern death crust!

Here’s the Bloodied

Where’s Waldo: Hatcher Volume

Spot the ripper

Cream Dream

And Now the Burned

Cody and Adam shred together