Thursday, March 15, 2012

Back in Alaska with a great first stop: Turnagain Pass

On my flight from Frankfurt to Seattle, I was seated next to the window and I happened to sneak outside just as we were flying over Greenland.

The view of those mountain that doesn't see much travelers was really impressive. 

After seeing those mountain, I was way to excited and I kept opening the window every 10 minutes to make sure I wasn't missing anything! I finally got to take some pictures of the Baffin Island which was also featuring some great mountains!

I finally landed in Seattle as planned and from there, I had 8 hours of layover to kill…. 

As I was checking my email, I've received a message from Amelie who was telling me that she had missed her flight connexion and that she wouldn't be able to make it as planned.

On my side, I finally got to Anchorage as planned at 23h00 local time after 28 hours awake and travelling. 

I spend the following day wandering around the town, getting our rental car and waiting for Amelie. 

She finally got to Anchorage about 18 hours later that what was originally planned!

After doing some grocery and getting some camping fuel (both are classic things to do!!) we slept in a parking lot in-town too tired to drive towards Turnagain Pass.

We eventually made it to Turnagain Pass the following morning. This road pass is located about an hour from Anchorage on the Seward Highway. As we got there, the visibility wasn't quite cooperating since it was snowing on and off fairly hard. 

We skinned up near an area called Tincan. We didn't made it up to the alpine and stayed in the trees where we were able to get some decent low angle turns.

We drove back to Girdwood to dry up a little bit and cooked our dinner in the bus stop of the Alyeska ski resort. 

We certainly had something really closed to a perfect day today. 
After about 8-10inches of snow overnight, we woke up to a clear blue sky without any wind. We drove back towards Turnagain Pass and we skied on Pete South. 



It was really nice to skin up on a windless day under a clear and warm blue sky.

We made turns all day and we even got to ski when the sun calmly came down at around 19h00!

We will now drive back up and stop tomorrow at Hatcher Pass which is located just north of Palmer on our way towards Valdez.

More news from the north soon!!!
evans

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