I just got back from two days in Girdwood. Wow, I haven’t skied powder like that since the last time I went skiing at Alyeska. I know, I know, the snow is great, it’s snowing like crazy every day, the North Face is skiing so well it’s ridiculous, faceshots every turn, this is the best winter ever, blah blah blah. My assignment this week wasn’t the skiing, it was to cover the apres ski band, Great American Taxi, and to remind you all about the great bands coming up this season. As one who is not really into the bar scene, this took some preparation – mostly in the form of going skiing for the day and inviting a friend along to help me brave the Sitzmark after lift hours.

My wingwoman Morgan took this mission very seriously, going so far as to leaving her ski gear at home, ready for the party from the get-go. Leaving ski gear at home? That makes no sense to me, and neither does stopping skiing before the lifts close when there’s powder to be had. It turned out that it didn’t make sense to Morgan, either, and she said more than once “I don’t know what I was thinking!” as it occurred to her that the skiing was great (again) and she only had jeans or shorts to ski in. I guess it was for the best, because we had a job to do, after all – go out and have fun at the Sitz, which conveniently doesn’t start the music until after the lifts close anyway. Morgan’s a great sport and didn’t mind (much) waiting for me to finish night skiing (“Just one more run. This time I mean it.”) before we headed over to enjoy the show.

The band was great and if you didn’t catch their first two shows, you have one more chance tonight. Tonight is bound to be a busy night so for you partiers, it will be a fabulous time. If you’re going to miss out this weekend, don’t worry – there’s an impressive lineup of national acts headed this way over the rest of the season: Pato Banton, Lucero, Shannon McNally, Potcheen and a huge Daylodge show with J Mascis and the Fog are all in the lineup. Check out the Sitzmark calendar of events at the upper right on the home page to see when the action is happening at Girdwood’s favorite music venue. Don’t forget your XTRATUFs.

Jill Missal is the founder, editor, and all around Head Geargal at Geargals.com, a web site for the female outdoor enthusiast who wants to get the most out of her gear, and for the beginner who needs some help knowing where to start. Jill was raised in Alaska and has spent most of her life in the backcountry skiing, climbing, and trekking. When not testing gear for Geargals.com, Jill works as a consultant in the disaster planning and emergency management field, which takes her to amazing places in the world to do exciting projects. Jill didn’t start going to concerts until she was almost 30 so she still has all her hearing. She has to wear earplugs at the Sitz.

It’s a Good Year For Music, Too,

Night skiing at Alyeska is one of my favorite childhood memories. There was just something about skiing under the lights with my friends that bore with it no pressure to get more turns, no competition with other skiers for first tracks, no stress of choosing just the right run or getting separated from my group. Night skiing was always easy and light and fun.

This year I’ve been constantly badgering friends to go night skiing with me. Night skiing was fun when I was a kid, but now that I’m an adult and can take in the apres scene while enjoying a great evening of skiing on the mountain; well, now it’s even better.

And with snow like this—insanely better! My friend Morgan and I skied for a few hours last night in steadily falling snow, every run just as soft and creamy as the last. The rain at the bottom was a mere inconvenience because it was just dumping on top. I don’t know why more people don’t night ski; the tram was barely a quarter full at the height of the crowd.

Towards the end of the evening I finally noticed that portions of the lower south face were open for night skiing. You mountain-savvy readers might be laughing at me right now, but I had no idea it was OK to ski there during night skiing. I watched a ski patroller head down and was hesitant to follow—there were no other tracks on the run, why wasn’t anyone else skiing that stash? Was I allowed? Would I get in trouble? As a kid, I was petrified of getting in trouble with the ski patrol, and I think there’s a little bit of the 9-year-old left in there because I was nervous about doing something wrong. But I’m a grown woman now, and that was knee-deep powder waiting to be skied. It turned out it wasn’t wrong, and I was free to partake. Knee deep powder! Night skiing! The perfect evening.

Morgan, who is just learning to ski this year, gave me her blessing to ditch her for a few powder laps (powder laps at night! Awesome) before we joined back up for one last run. When we left the tram and skied down the cat track, we commented on how dark it was and how it would be safer to have some lights in that area—just before we were stopped by patrol as they corralled all the skiers to wait for the lights to come back on. Oh—no wonder it was dark! It was nice and warm out, though, and we could see that the lights were getting brighter by the moment so it was sure to be a short wait, but we still heard grumbling from the more anxious skiers in the group. We just laughed at them.

Lighten up, people! It’s night skiing. You’re having fun sliding on snow. No one turned the lights off just to tick you off. I would think that standing in front of forty excited skiers and telling them they can’t ski just yet is the last thing a ski patroller would want to do, so give them a break. As is usually the case, the complainers were decidedly in the minority, and it was a cheerful group that launched down the mountain once we were given the go-ahead after a delay of no more than three minutes. Morgan and I enjoyed one last run on the race trail and headed down for good to grab a beer and a bite to eat before heading back to “real life,” aka Anchorage. But already we’re talking about how great night skiing is going to be next weekend.

So the next time you’re not sure what you want to do on a weekend night, or you just find yourself sick of the same old, same old, be sure to try catching a few hours of night skiing. This is the year to do it since the snow just won’t stop!

Jill Missal is the founder, editor, and all around Head Geargal at Geargals.com, a web site for the female outdoor enthusiast who wants to get the most out of her gear, and for the beginner who needs some help knowing where to start. Jill was raised in Alaska and has spent most of her life in the backcountry skiing, climbing, and trekking. When not testing gear for Geargals.com, Jill works as a consultant in the disaster planning and emergency management field, which takes her to amazing places in the world to do exciting projects. She’s still a little bit afraid of the ski patrol.

Night Skiing Is Where It’s At,

Good afternoon skiers and riders. I am writing to you from the GLX. Snow is coming down hard and fast, refills are happening, and the snow is getting deeper by the minute. It’s a Friday afternoon, it’s basically the weekend. Now would be a good time to wrap up those TPS reports, mail in the rest of the day, or fake a doctors appointment. If you can get down here tonight you will have a blast.

Those who can’t, this weekend should be epic. As of 12:30 it is dumping and I see no end in sight. My official, unofficial storm total is at least 6 inches and accumulating by the run. Let’s go, get down here and spray some snow.

Today is a Good Day,

Every so often, an opportunity presents itself to work with or be inspired by a person or a group that share your commitment and passion for their livelihood. That is the fortunate position we at Seven Glaciers find ourselves in this February 26th—the evening of Seven Glacier’s second winter wine dinner featuring the Wagner family of wine especially the Caymus vineyards. This is a night not to be missed. The very special dinner will feature wines from all of the Wagner’s labels: Mer Soleil, Belle Glos, and of course, Caymus!

As professional chefs, it is easy to get frustrated and often burned out by those who don’t take their work to heart.  Perhaps it’s because so much of what we do is repetitive, mundane, routine. Often adhering to strict rules steeped in tradition. We repeat the same processes and techniques daily, sometimes several times a day.  Any chance to refine a technique, to make something different – new – better is looked upon with admiration and appreciation by peers.  Knowing when to deviate from tradition, when to add your own creative juice is what separates a great chef from the crowd.

It may not be knowledge per se, but you can’t successfully break from the process without understanding it and why it exists. For example, on the Caymus vineyards website, there is a video of Chuck Wagner talking about his father and the inspiration for Conundrum. Apparently, Charlie Wagner Sr. was a fan of blending his own wine… at the table. Think of your favorite food that your grandmother made. A pinch of this, a smidge of that… and voila! Magic in a single bite! Or in this case… sip.

I knew Chef Jason Porter and I were on the right track when we drafted a rough menu before tasting the wines as sort of a template of what we’d like to present for this special occasion. While researching tasting notes, two different winemakers mentioned ‘spicy Asian food’ and ‘cornflake crusted fried fish’. Those are two items that chefs don’t always get a chance to play with when it comes to a dinner such as this. However, as I perused our notes I came across words like ‘chicken-fried oysters’, ‘five spice chicken salad’ and ‘elements of shellfish cocktail’.  Similar flavor profiles, similar cooking techniques… maybe great minds really do think alike!

Although the final menu is still in the works, we are excited to have this opportunity to work with a family of wines that hold dear this spirit of tradition and creativity through discovery. We invite you to join us and find out how much better these wines taste when paired with food and presented with service that is committed to the best possible expression of quality.

Coming up in March… Seven Glacier chefs meets Duckhorn Winery. Stay tuned…

It’s A Family Thing,

Friday, February 3, 2012 turned out to be one of those days the locals will be talking about forever, a day all subsequent powder days will be compared to. Days like that are what we live for.

Skier Jason Scheben captured some of the magic for us…

Gettin Shacked at Alyeska,

 The Alyeska Resort Mountain Host job has it’s perks and documenting the Photo of the Day and other related photo media is one of them. Currently we are being blessed by a winter that is making national news and the secret is out. Teton Gravity Research (TGR) rolled into town with 4 athletes on January 12^th to start filming for “Dream Factory” to be released in the fall of 2012. With over 450” total snowfall since October 1^st, can you blame them? They made it just in time to shred the resort on the best powder day of the year and settle in for some high pressure. I had the opportunity to hike Glacier Bowl with them on Jan 19^th to shoot some photos for the resort and this is what I captured.

Sage, Dash, Dylan, Tim and Dustin (TGR Filmmaker) scoping the zone from the top of Chair 6.

Halfway up the boot pack, smiles all round in the late afternoon sun.

Tim stomps a double into Glacier Bowl.

Dash dropping in for a triple.

Dash getting nice air on the third hit working the shadow lines.

Sage getting the last of the light off the top into a mini spine line.

Sweet spot to capture footage with Turnagain Arm in the background.

Mountain Host stoked to be on location and about to drop into Glacier Bowl.

Seeing the bootpack put in on the ridge triggered many questions from the public so I spoke to patrol to see if I could get some answers for you. TGR had special permission to ski this area and they have their own snow safety guide with them while in the backcountry. Due to the size of the cornice hanging over Glacier Bowl this area will never open to the public. I had the chance to look into the Monies on the hike up the ridge and there is still a lot of exposed rock at the top of this area due to wind events blowing the light fluffy snow away. Patrol may consider an opening on the Monies later in the season when it is in condition for potentially hundreds of people skiing it in a day. Alyeska Resort is stoked that TGR has chosen our mountain to session for their latest movie project. So instead of getting down about not being able to ride Glacier Bowl, keep in mind all of the hard work that Patrol is doing to allow all of you to safely ride as much powder as possible this season.

Watching the sunset before packing up the camera gear and heading down Skit’s Chute.

Dream Factory is Dreaming of an AK Winter!,

The line I’ve heard most often from people in the outdoors industry this year is “You Alaskans are hogging all the snow!”

And yes, yes we are.

“Let us have some!” they say. We’re not about to give it away, but I tell them that we’re happy to share, just come on up and ski! There’s plenty of snow to go around this year.

Last week I attended the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City, Utah, including the on-snow demo day at a local resort there. Riding up the lift to see exposed dirt, rocks, and nothing but ice on piste made me long to turn straight around and get back on a plane to Alaska, where the snow is soft and so deep that the public got a chance to ski never-before-opened terrain on Max’s Mountain last weekend (an opening I missed, because I was in Utah. Sometimes, you just miss out).

But I didn’t miss out yesterday when I met up with an old friend to ski the 17” of powder for a while. There was no way I was going to miss a powder day after skiing on ice in Utah and then staying inside at the trade show for three days. Work and unpacking and housecleaning can wait! The temperatures have warmed since I’ve been gone and I struggled with figuring out what to wear, casting aside the three down layers I’d been wearing when the temps were below zero and strangely choosing to wear a balaclava for the first time this year.

I wasn’t the only one making time to take advantage of the powder. I rode the lift with another woman who said she had tossed her kids off at school and driven down from Eagle River to ski all day. “It’s not that common for women with families to take time to do that,” I told her.

“I don’t have a problem with it.” She replied emphatically, making me crack up. Seriously, ladies, once you get rid of the kids for the day, you really should be down at Alyeska skiing. The crowds are light during the week, and there’s a Women’s Midweek Clinic to take advantage of if lessons are your thing. Isn’t that what school is for? All-day babysitting? I don’t have kids but I do pay property taxes that help pay for schools, so if you’re not using my tax dollars for good by going skiing, I have an issue with that. Get thee to the mountain.

My vague plan of a few warm-up runs was dashed when my friend Mike met me at the top of Chair 6, saying immediately, “North Face? Ragdoll?” And shot off to show me a great powder stash running almost the entire length of the North Face. I pulled my balaclava off immediately; it was far too warm to wear it and the faceshots were more fun without it. Even my fat skis were almost not fat enough for the bottomless snow on the Face. It was so good we did the same thing again. Then we hit the South Face, Kitchen Wall, small stashes I’ve never seen before (or didn’t recognize because of all the powder); the possibilities were endless and so was the powder. Even with the High Traverse closed I didn’t feel like I was missing out. What a winter!

“I’m stoked to be skiing with you!” said Mike, after yet another faceshot-filled run down the Kitchen Wall, making me smile. There’s really not many things better than skiing with an old friend, is there? And skiing with an old friend on a midweek powder day; well, that’s just about as good as it gets.

This truly is the Year of Alaska. Most other places are pretty dire; have you ever seen grass sticking out of the moguls even in a bad year at Alyeska? I haven’t—but that’s what they’re skiing in the lower 48. If you ever wanted to ski in Alaska, this is the time. Come on up!

Jill Missal is the founder, editor, and all around Head Geargal at Geargals.com, a web site for the female outdoor enthusiast who wants to get the most out of her gear, and for the beginner who needs some help knowing where to start. Jill was raised in Alaska and has spent most of her life in the backcountry skiing, climbing, and trekking. When not testing gear for Geargals.com, Jill works as a consultant in the disaster planning and emergency management field, which takes her to amazing places in the world to do exciting projects. She’s going to have to learn to ski faster if she keeps meeting up with friends who ski for a living.

Don’t Miss Out! The Skiing in Alaska is Great Right Now,

Well we’ve had 364 days to get ready for the 3^rd annual Ski Patrol Benefit Auction and you’ve had 364 days to prepare for a pre-opening powder skiing extravaganza with your patroller of choice!

The costumes have morphed into their final stages and the music set list has been printed.

Since most of us are fairly shy, we imbibe near toxic levels of hooch which can be pretty entertaining.

We are looking forward to a great evening of entertainment and dog-bauchery. So dig deep into your pockets and bid high on your favorite patroller! See you at the Sitz Friday night!

Soaring to new levels of dog-bauchery!,

Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year!  If you are a snow junkie, you probably are…

We hit the ground running full speed ahead this season and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down!

With over 329 inches of snow since November 1st (420″ since October 1), Alyeska Ski Patrollers’ have been busy—but we love when snow keeps us busy! Alaska is leading the country with snow depths so far this season so we feel pretty lucky (especially after last year’s lack of snow). Throughout the season, Alyeska usually sees some pretty extreme weather. To give you a taste of a week in your average Alyeska ski patrollers’ life:

From December 15^th to the 21st, the top of the mountain received 67 inches of snow. The top of Max’s was not the place to be on the 18th—average wind speed for one hour was 51 mph. The 19th saw a max gust of 115 mph on Max’s, 101 mph on Alyeska summit and 85 mph at the sundeck. There were 21 days of measurable precipitation in December (totaling 59″of snow). Thanks to Mother Nature, we got Christmas chute open on December 19th and received a gift of 8″ of cold smoke on Christmas day!  Max’s even opened on December 22nd (remember it never even opened last year). January so far has seen 50.3″ and we aren’t even half way through!!

Maybe these numbers don’t excite you but it’s one of the things that make our job interesting and keep us on our toes. Having to forecast what new snow, wind and temperatures do to the existing snow pack can be nerve racking—we have to have the knowledge and skills to keep ourselves safe so we can make it safe for everyone else.  But as I said, snow is what feeds us!

So get out there and ski some powder!!

Got Snow? We do!!,

I just returned to Alaska after spending Winter break traveling the west coast. Can I tell you, we have it very good here in the North. Down in California numerous big name resorts are operating on pure snowmaking bases, offering no off trail terrai. My visit to Colorado and Utah was very similiar. Right now Alyeska offers a plethora of off piste skiing and riding. I hit the mountain today for the first time in three weeks and what a change it is from the lower 48.

North face was skiing fantastic all day long. Our choice was Rag Doll gate for soft steeps all the way to Autobahn. The trees of sun-deck also were very soft and buttery throughout. High T was popping off after being closed all day yesterday. Untracked lines went quick around the bend and over towards Max’s. Speaking of Max’s; it is soft and should be skiing fantastic throughout the weekend. Not many people put the effort into making the long traverse, if you do you will be rewarded. Tip for snowboarders: High T is set slightly uphill right now, utilize Low T. Shout out to ski patrol who has been staying on top of keeping everything safe and open throughout the numerous storms we had so far this season.

The park on chair 7 is taking shape, jump pads are pushed and tilled. Lips should be shaped in the near future. On chair 3 park staff has been keeping the features fresh this season. Jibs have been changing up on a weekly basis. Feature of the day: The small down rail at the end of the line.

This is shaping up to be a great 2012, check back for more updates, especially after the big park gets up and running.

Up and Down the West Coast in 20 Days,