What’s the most asked question of your friends just down from the mountain? And the most answered answer?
“How is it?” I asked Jeannette, as we caught up by the coffee stand in the Eaglecrest lodge on a Sunday afternoon. Brown eyes shining and cheeks cheered with mountain air, she brushed melted snow crystals off her rainbow one-piece ski suit, “You know, it was a lot better than I expected.”
Why, when we drive to the other world up the Eaglecrest road do we expect less and get more?
Maybe it has to do with living in a coastal rainforest, where fifty different varieties of the snow-rain matrix seem to fall between the alpine peaks and sea level fjords.
Or that prime time ski season anymore is February-April. Yes, last year’s holiday gifts were snowy nights and clear days with champagne powder. This year’s early season was icy loud.
Or maybe we have a hard time believing we don’t have to get on a jet down south and line up for a speed quad chairlift for world class skiing and snowboarding.
With the Pennsylvania cousin to our Marmot’s confirmation of six more weeks of winter, the snow gods (sometimes literally) have been raining down at Eaglecrest.
Just after Groundhog Day I was lapping up fresh morning snow in Breakfast Bowl with a few lady friends.
As we waited in line for the Ptarmigan chairlift, I was the odd woman out that turn, ready to ride up alone when a kid with a buff covering his face and skinny slalom skis slid up next to me. “Single?” Sure, why not.
Riding a chairlift with someone you don’t know is a rare opportunity to get to know them, slidy things attached to your feet, hovering over an abyss of snow slathered cliffs.
My new chairlift companion is not a kid but a petroleum engineer. Aaron works on carbon sequestration for a company in Dallas, Texas. He skis in Colorado and had never visited Alaska. Late the night before, he flew into Juneau with some friends for a long weekend. So his first impressions of Alaska were the ice dripping trees and formidable Fish Creek Knob of the drive up the Eaglecrest road. “It so beautiful. I can’t believe I’m really here,” he said.
To our right, the regal Mt. Ben Stewart was shrouded in ubiquitous “patchy fog.” Still, Aaron was astounded.
After my new friend and I slid off the ramp at the summit and exchanged nice to meet you’s and have a great days, my friends and I headed back to Breakfast Bowl. The new snow seemed replenished with each run, allowing sweet, soft turns and an in-the-moment-bliss you can only feel skiing.
It wasn’t better than expected.
It was great.
Hi Sheila,
Loved your latest. Sorry for the reason! You know what though, that introductory graph went with a post from last summer. When I previewed my latest, it did not show that introduction, which I am afraid confused some readers. Do you have any idea how to remove it? I have a request into help and have not heard back from them. I actually broke my collar bone Feb. 27, almost a year ago. I am back on the hill and having fun again. My husband and I loved skiing in the Dolomites 13 years ago. In 2012, I took a group of women on a hut to hut in the same region for my 50th bday. Bellisimo. And hard hiking! In any case, here is my collarbone newsletter: https://open.substack.com/pub/katieb/p/a-reality-check-and-a-glimpse-of?r=c9f4q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
So sorry to read that you broke your collarbone. Read my latest missive and you'll see I just had a similar ski accident. Sending you healing thoughts!