The only weather we encountered all trip was in whittier. There were 70 mile an hour winds on the other side of the tunnel.
The tunnel to Whittier opens every 30 minutes for vehicles.
I told Cole to get out and give me a thumbs up. 70-80 mph gusts could easily blow you off the ledge and into the ocean.
The ferry coming into port. Took him half an hour and about 8 tries to dock with such fierce winds.
Pulling out of port in Whittier. It got beautiful real quick but you can see the wind scouring the tiny town.
Tebenkof glacier on the kenai side of the penninsula.
Binoculars were a great xmas gift, thanks!
The ferry ride was definitely worth the wait. Icebergs, glaciers and mountains coming straight out of the ocean!
Kristen is having a summer ale, i told her that was a little premature.
A 3 hour ferry ride and we're pulling into the port of valdez in the prince rupert sound.
If you look closely you can see the oil refinery on the mountainside. The trans-alaska pipeline ends here to ship the black gold to texas to be further refined and shipped back to AK at 5 dollars a gallon.
The snowiest city in North America was a site to see.
Look in the lower right corner and you'll see black bunnies running around. They were all over the town for some reason.
Lucy was excited to get out of the car after a long ferry ride.
We drove up the glacier haul road to find our cat road. This was the cat we would take up the mountain the next day.
It's difficult to see but the cat road goes right up the center of the range about 9 milles all the way to the top! We were blown away when we saw the road.
After seeing the cat road everyone's adrenaline started pumping so we decided to get our gear on and participate in some shenanigans.
It was quite a view looking out of valdez. We have some panoramics to post later.
Morning briefing and getting prepared.
Top of Bowl 1. Still kinda in the morning shadows.
Our first run of the day. A very mellow welcome to the mountain run.
Sooo much snow. It's hard to describe the scale of things. We would ski for ten minutes at 30 mph and barely touch the terrain.
Pretty cool, huh?
Top of Bowl 2. The cat track stopped about 100 yards from the summit which we promptly hiked with one of the guides.
No fun at all...
I think Cole will be back.
First group up the mountain. We had three guides with us because it was the first nice day of the season.
Looking back at the top.
Once you are down you just look back and stare at your line for ten minutes.
Katherine and Kristen on top of the world.
The cat track to bowl two is visible here.
Our ride.
Our guide Nate saying DO go here, DON'T go here...
Cole meandering down.
Cole badassing down.
This was probably our favorite run. Two people would head down and be the size of ants in the valley below in 10 seconds
Accessing the goods.
Here comes our ride.
DO go here, DON'T go here...
There was always a mellow way down.
really our only good shot of the valdez glacier buried under 20 feet of snow.
The port of valdex in the back. The day is coming to an end and we had to ski down this massive terrain.
Kristen skiing past the porcupine. Don't get too close!
A hike the next day.
Moose tracks after a windstorm.
Cole and Nate headed up to Thompson pass to do some snowshoeing and boarding. It is so HUGE here it is unbelievable. We got some great panormaic pics and took over 500 pictures over the whole trip so we are working on posting more soon... tootles
You know the word I wanna post right now but i just can't do it...our little inside Joke! I really don't wanna go back to work vacation is way better!
ReplyDelete