Ahhhh.. Alaska. Where the oil flows like water and everywhere you look you see Russia....

Recently I have been lucky enough to spend some time in the great white north. I have been making the trek to Anchorage about once a month since November. Since I've started, every day has been about the same. The sun rises somewhere between 9 and 10 AM to a cloudy gray day and then sets between 4 and 5 leaving you wondering why you even got up in the first place. However, this last trip was different. Finally, the sun came out. The Chugach mountains, covered in snow, were set in beautiful contrast against a clear blue sky. Anchorage was balmy 30 degrees. A virtual tropical paradise. So I took the opportunity to embrace the Alaska winter and go play in the snow.

Saturday I woke up late, took my sweet time putting my bindings on right, and at 11:45 started the 30 mile drive down to Girdwood. If you ever have driven down Turnagain Arm, you know that the drive is absolutely stunning.

Mountains all around you. Ocean to the right... full of glacial silty chunks of ice that form mini ice canyons on the surface of the water. It's unlike anything I have ever seen. My day could have ended there. But it didn't. It got better.

Afternoon lift tickets start at 1:00 PM. I met up with my friend Dave and his step-son Devon and we got on the lift as soon as they would let us on. Made it to the top and rode all afternoon. No new snow, but what was there was softened by the sun. Alaska has a NO VEGAN policy so my forward lean was juiced. Dave was tricking out - you know... 720's and the like - and Devon was just ripping. It was a great day made better by the great company.

A few beers at the lodge and I was back in Anchorage getting rested up for day 2. I slept like a baby.

Sunday morning my friend Jim called me at 8:00 AM. I have been working with Jim for the past few months and in that time I have really gained a great appreciation for his communication style. Here is how the conversation went:

CFM: Hello
JSG: Carrie. This is Jim. Sandy and I are leaving at 9:00. Do you still want to go?
CFM: Yes
JSG: Ok. See you at our place at 9:00.
(click)

Perfect.

Dressed. Packed. On the road again by 8:45. At the mountain for first chair (which is at 10:00 AM because the sun rises so late). The morning was cold, but the sun came up over the mountains quickly and by 11:00 we were practically sunbathing.

Jim and his wife Sandy are skiers. And they are good. They pushed me way out of my comfort zone. We skied/rode hard for 5 hours. Steep bumpy trails all day.

By the end of my last run my legs were jelly. I went home content knowing that I had given the mountain everything I had.

The weekend ended with a coffee porter at the Moose's Tooth in Anchorage. I couldn't have asked for more.

I got my winter fix. Thank you Alaska.

Journal filed at MTNOPS.com

Many moons ago, the seven years winter was born in North Conway as an excuse to spend a winter in the mountains with friends. Sadly, it was proved an idea that was not sustainable. As the winters have blown through, the friends have drifted away. Last winter marked the 7YW yet very little time was spent amongst friends.

Luckily 7YW.1 has been pegged on the epicocity meter for some time. When you bring good snow and good friends together, you know good things are going to happen.

This is the story of the first run at Mad River Glen.

For the full Mad River history as collected by bad colonies, [CLICK HERE].

I awoke, well unpassed out, early Sunday morning with a dream in my foggy brain. A dream that I have lusted after for quite some time, to finally inked some turns on the sacred snow of the pinners and rear entry sick booters. The plan was simple, which of course was the beauty of it.

First, we would all walk around the house aimlessly for 30-45 minutes, discussing conditions, checking 5-6 separate weather sites, and very briefly (and I mean extremely briefly) glancing at a trail map of Mad River and the Long Trail. From this clinic in preparation, it was determined that we should load our bellies with an exorbitant amount of heavy breakfast grub.

Completing the aforementioned preps, we loaded some junk into packs while Rawlings lectured my dog on the merits of checking your pack at the house, something along the lines of, "See Bob, 5 minutes in the house is worth 6 hours on the hill, blah, blah, blah." With that bit of wisdom imparted, we hit the road quick like so as to ensure no further map reading was performed.

Rawlings and I were dropped at the top of App Gap while Medros and Vin Diesel rolled to the base to spot a car. Naturally, Rawlings had ensured failure by bugging Bob with his prep bragging. We found his toe strap snapped completely off. Luckily, we grew up riding when your bindings snapped every fourth trip down the mountain and were able to jimmy the little bastard back together before the Avalon came roaring back up the pass. This had the added benefit of guaranteeing that my fingers were properly frozen, a prerequisite for any hike in my honest opinion (IMHO).

The punters suited up while Rawdog and I scooted up the first headwall to scout out the sick lines. Lucky for all involved, we didn't utilize any of this extra time to ensure we were on the actual Long Trail. And off we went, into the great white unknown.

I proved my worth as a human being, strapping my board extra high to knock every last bit snow out of the trees and on to my head, shoulders, down my back, into my pants, and any where else snow likes to go. This came in extremely handy when we found ourselves completely unsure of our whereabouts. I was able to clear large expanses of snow for my fellow cartographers to stumble through. While certainly an enjoyable sightseeing tour, the misplacement of the trail also allowed us to elongate what should have been a relatively short hike by walking rather aimlessly around the woods of the Green Mountains.

Finally Medros, the least likely to the find the trail, directed us to the well camouflaged white blazes that marked the Long Trail. Now all we had to do was figure out how far to go on said trail before embarking on the descent portion of the adventure. At some point amongst the huffing, panting, and complaining, it was discovered that we lacked a carabineer between the four of us. A long conversation ensued as we tried to determine if we could carry on with this extreme activity lacking such critical equipment. Vin decided he would put his water bottle in his bag and not clip it to his pack. We all continued on, deeply saddened by our lack of extremeness.

Sometime down the trail, we stumbled upon a sign for the Mad River snowshoe trails. This seemed familiar to me from the brief glance at the maps. I also took a wild guess at the elevation which Vin confirmed to be close via his GPS. (Yes, we had a GPS yet no carabineer or maps or clue.) All this resemblance of having a clue of our location combined with a desire to not hike anymore and we halted our progress and prepped to descend.

Now don't get the false idea that you are dealing with amateurs, no bush league stuff here, we know how to hike. I broke out the Chimay Grande Reserve and we all warmed up around the cold beer.

There was a lot of discussion about the probability that we would all end up post holing our way out at some point. Gazing down into the gentle slope, it was easy to see myself bitching about the snow shortly.

Taking another appraisal of the situation, smiles were broke out by all, no better way to spend a Sunday.

As luck would have it, the ride down was fairly righteous with no post holing. The turns were deep, the trees were sparse-ish, and the lads were ripping-ish.

Vin sported his kit from the last Seven Years Winter in honor of the epicness, including the same smile I last saw in North Conway.

At some point along the way, these wee female skiers came upon us. They looked at us with eyes wide. I took the opportunity to wrestle the head ass title from Medros and asked, "Is this Sugarbush?" followed by some admittedly lame verbal pollution. The girls seemed unfazed and decided the best route would be to send us to detention at the bottom.

It turns out that we should have taken at least 5-10 minutes longer learning the trail map. Seems odd, doesn't it. Well we ended up on what has to be the lamest traverse at Mad River. I was pretty stoked that my forward lean was lax, as Carrie will have you know, "Vegans hate forward lean." I am a pretending Vegan that really misses bacon and cheese and hamburgers and roots, wait I get to eat all the roots I can handle, ummm dirt taste. After traversing around for awhile, we locked in a few turns and did not fall in front of the chair lift, which would have sucked large.

The little girls of the forest found us at the bottom and after some words about us being in big trouble, they shuffled off in their rear entry ski boots to find "Bruce". Had we wanted to escape, we could have simply run off in our snowboard boots while the rest of the resort waddled after doing their best impression of the Family Joseph from Lowell. However, we had nothing to fear and in fact many people asked how the snow was and were honestly very welcoming to their area. I have a feeling a fair few people feel the ban on snowboarding is an idea that has passed. We closed the day and the weekend sipping a rather tasty Bloody Mary while slowly nodding our heads and playing air acoustic guitar in the lodge.

I will conquer the Glen in the future, more to come...