Alaska Pt 1

Alaska!!

After a stay in one of the seedier neighborhoods of Anchorage we drove to Valdez to find splendid, and apparently unusual, weather.

We skied off Thompson Pass and, on our first full day there, we headed up School Bus over a shallow notch and into the upper reaches of Gully One.
A huge cornice drop had run out onto the glacier, so we stayed clear of the slopes beneath.
We skied down Gully One and found another party skinning up. Boot top powder put smiles on our faces.
We traversed around to Gully Two and skinned up.
Which brought us to a ridge above Nick's Happy Valley.
Just below the Berlin Wall.
We were able to find a short, steep passage down with good powder high and funky crusty snow lower.
We climbed Nick's Happy Valley to a saddle where the views to the south simply took our breaths away.

This is a distant view of The Valley of The Tusk. No, I did not stretch the pic vertically - this is exactly how it looks!
Steve ponders the scene with The Heiden Glacier over his right shoulder.
Above the saddle we attained the ridge which included this short knife edge section (Jed photo).
From the top of the Berlin Wall we skied a huge, steep face with excellent powder left of center in this pic.
Fine glacier skiing out Nick's topped the day off nicely.
Now we were skiing the Alaska dream!