December Drama: The annual rite of passage to ski season

Life on Southeast Alaska's Weather Rollercoaster

Two years ago this week, I hatched this newsletter inspired by a waking dream of an opening day.

On the ride down our skis turn with ease, like sliding atop light whipped cream, up and over mounds of snowy bliss. As the slope flattens we shoot down to the base of the chairlift and a long line of fellow winter fun seekers wanting nothing more than to do it again.

The key to those wondrous first fresh tracks of the season? December 6, 2021, conditions were more like Colorado than Coastal Rainforest.

The amenability of the snow surface for skiing or snowboarding hinges on the temperature of the air. And this morning’s temperature, under 20 degrees Fahrenheit, is rather rare for this corner of the planet.

So far, nothing like that is happening this year.

But snow was sticking to the lower mountain by the weekend before Thanksgiving. We met our friend Andy in front of the Eaglecrest Ski Area base lodge, absolutely giddy from a quick telemark down nothing more than the lower mountain road. Helmeted and geared up on the ridge, local instagram mountain reporter Riley enticed skinners with “Good old fluff on the upper mountain” And towards the base: “skiable crust”.

By early December @themountainreport907 wore just a light jacket, helmet-free curly locks blowing in the wind. “Three quarters of the mountain, I probably wouldn’t ski, unless you want to rip up some rock skis.”

Enter: December Drama. We’ve been here before. Another elusive opening day year. It may or may not snow. But it will always rain. After all, this is a rainforest.

The national weather headlines aren’t helping. After a succession of colder La Nina winters, El Nino seems in full swing, no thanks to its trademark warmer Pacific surface temperatures shifting the jet stream. The Juneau Empire reported November temps nearly five degrees warmer than average.

The melting icing on the cake comes from a site called Direct Weather, which predicts snow riders on the East Coast reveling in “a snowy season.” Not so much for the Pacific Northwest, the upper reach of which is Southeast Alaska.

The stoke was high a month ago at an annual pre-requisite to ski season. My life partner and I squeezed into a packed Goldtown Theater for the Northern Aspects Film Festival, a home movie night for skiers and boarders. It’s a mixed bag of Alaskan independent made films with moments of brilliance. There were well earned turns on fresh fallen fluff, dubious decisions in treacherous territory, comedy and poignancy. I’m just a wee bit partial, but my favorite film was by Eaglecrest’s own Jonny Antoni, trailing locals dancing through the trees and launching off their favorite promontories on powder days.

The collective body heat borders on stifling as frost collects on car windows parked outside the arthouse theater. Up on the screen our Sitka Southeast extended kin strive to justify why it’s worth skinning and hiking over fallen trunks and rocks to near vertical inclines for few seconds- if you’re really lucky-minutes of magic. Sometimes the reward is the agony of “variable” aka nearly un-skiable snow. Other times the snowfall, temperature and sunshine line up for perfect conditions on the way down.

As I put it in that first Katie B’s ski newsletter: After more than a generation of living here, I’m convinced the people who stay absolutely thrive on this rollercoaster of rain or sun in the summer, and powder light or heavy, wet snow in winter.

So for now, we might heed the advice of “the official unofficial mountain report.” Fill the void with “something weird” like fat tire biking.

And remember, winter anymore settles in for good some time in January.

Katie B. at Eaglecrest Ski Area, Douglas Island, Alaska, December 4, 2016

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