Valdez back country skiing

[rlcofmn]

I am thinking about heading to Valdez next weekend to do some AT sking but was looking for some info and ideally would find someone to meet up with and do some sking. from what I have seen it looks like the snow and avi danger is decent so it could be a good trip if I knew more about the area. Any info would be great.

Thanks,

[Brian M]

I can't make it anytime soon, but I'm kicking around the idea of doing a similar trip from March 7-10 or so. If you're interested, let me know.

[EricS]

If you haven't already, you should check out Matt Kinney's book. It's got all you would ever want to know about the skiing around Valdez.

http://www.outdoorsdirectory.com/pro...ska_skiing.htm

[rlcofmn]

thanks for the link to the book. Do you know of anywhere I can just go buy it not order it? I am going to try to do a couple of skin runs up but also do some snow cat skiing depending on the cost. It should be fun though it looks like the snow is good. Brian yeah I cant say for sure but if the snow is still like this in town I would be up for it almost for sure. Thanks guys i'll post what I find this weekend.

[EricS]

I got a copy at Title Wave in ANC last year. I'm sure they still have it.

Have fun there...tons of great runs right from the road if the snow cat gets too expensive.

[rlcofmn]

well as with many places this year they need more snow. In valdez there was about 2' base with 2' fresh soft powder on top. But that was not enough to cover anything yet so sugerloaf was fun do to the great powder but the alder skiing was interesting to say the least. It was fun though. Thompson pass had some good skiable areas but was windblown with 6" soft or so. I wanted to ski there on the way back but it was blowing bad so I decided to ski by sheep mt instead and that was horrible due to not knowing where to ski and it being windblown with a layer of crust that was basically un skiable. All and all it was fun but I would have rather just done more alder skiing at sugarloaf if I wouldn't have broke my new bindings on my first run so I had to switch to my short hard pack skis.