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Show Li Bie feast SO abl —— | ne Ve ker, 1s a vast piece of property. — those long chutes over there with a group from Powder As far as the eye could see on magazine.” Thanks for shar- ie this cloudless day lay unbelievable ski terrain. The guides pointed out such Homeric pitches as Giant Steps, FourEagle Bowl, and the Warren ing, guys. Bresee offered to go it on his own down one chute ad which was a bit steeper and deeper, and Santa Maria responded with “Sure, just Miller Chutes. Our debut run, give back the skis, Ortovox, _ however, took place on a genand make it back to the ranch tle slope akin to the Chickadee © on your own...har har.” area at Snowbird, sort of a The afternoon was more of shake-down cruise to evaluatethe same, and though all the the group’s ability. With clients were starting to look aghast chagrin I watched one more comfortable in the pow- after another mar the virgin der, the guides didn’t promote white canvas with wide-track figure 11’s and chaotic super- them to anything near the pitch or depth of a normal powder G day in Little Cottonwood. The paying customers seemed to have a great time, excepting traverses. “Try to make round, controlled turns!” Santa Maria implored. With the exception of Hugh, whose smooth Stein Ericksen impersonation was fairly convinc- ing, and his ten-year old son PC Powder Cats charges _ $275 fora weekday, $300 on to the wind, the intermediacy of the group looked terminal. portation to the Ranch, lunch, powder ski rental, and an Santa Maria, as backcountry guides, They ski from December all good places a antness. I’m not sorry I missed it. weekends. This includes trans- avalanche transceiver. Now isn’t this just the ugliest mess of to mid-April as the condees years of ski guiding, he’s never had anyone caught or buried, in an avalanche—so birlorindctola the collective assembly of ski talent limited us to low-angle ‘ pitches...-.all... . days = long. Unfortunately the elder doctor, whose motto seemed to be “To turn is to admit defeat!” twisted a knee on the second run, ditions allow, accessing both virgin powder and spring corn. The average day is 8-10 runs compos- text ing about 10,000 vertical feet, though a fast group can amass more. On our 10,000 feet...although Vertech pit for the remainder of the trip. We skied several runs off suggested it was a bit less. intermediate dome with many pitches that were either too steep for our group or stitched with frozen tracks from poaching snowmobilers. May they burn in Hell! At one o’clock we lunched cuts Windy on and minestrone, fruit Peak, halfway on a our snowcat cold up shelf that driver Marty sculpted with a few deft passes of his ‘dozer. The food was tasty though not exotic, but my true appetite was to drop into Giant Steps; Bresee’s expression told me pained he was thinking the same. The guides’ lunchtime colorful diatribe only poured more salt in our wounds; “Last week we skied with Plake, and he was dropping fifty feet of air off those cornices...next week we'll ski B ut u’ve don day Santa Maria estimat- Bresee’s Peak, a 10,800-foot YO Any It IS al this off-piste adventure. o’plenty to burn, make Sure you reserve an entire snowcat with your skiing buddies of equal ability. Thence you can rip to your heart’s content, and become the stuff of the legends told to the next group of unsatiated ski journalists chomping at the bit. It can be a tough day watching epic terrain through the window, but skiing the gently - rolling hills. For more information call Cats Very etna Reinet et mnt Wn erestl tuckered out, you have access to free lockers at the base of the tram (if staying at the hotel). Large enough for skis, boards, boots, poles and any other gear; the lockers have snazzy electronic locks coded just for you! The skiing was great and the views incredible. From the mountain, skiers and boarders can look out across the valley floor and see the Turnagain Arm and the N 2 Chugach Mountain Range. A wide variety of terrain at the 1500 acre resort, including off-piste hiking and newly opened in-bounds areas (North Face), should satisfy all skiing and snowboarding abilities. _ For those interested in other activities, there are plenty. Near the hotel there is ice skating, sled-dog rides, crosscountry skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobile tours, flightseeing and helicopter skiing (the Chugach Powder Guides do not have any competition or much opposition as Alaska has roughly a gazillion- billion acres- SO big, in fact, that they stopped naming the mountains and glaciers). Glacier cruises and other activities are available farther from the resort- and Anchorage 1 is an interesting place to explore, and only a $60 cab ride away from Girdwood. The excellent restaurants and genuinely friendly attitude of the resort staff made our stay all that much bet at ter. ; . The hotel had many dining choices including an excellent Japanese restaurant in the and a finicsdltainie restaurant, featuring ostrich and caribou, located at the top of the tram (requiring, of course, a beautiful night-time tram ride)- as other spots in town. As for the staff, all the “team members” were happy to be working there. Seeing everyone warmly greet Mr. Von Imhof with a, “Hey Chris, how ya doing,” was quite incredible- as was when I caught two bellmen cleaning an outside ash-tray and saying, a we really noes is a stamp to imprint the Westin logo in the sand.” As the resort offers many summer activities as well, I recommend a trip to Aleyska anytime. Tell them the WCR sent you and don’t forget to request your “Northern Lights Wake-up Call.” Security and the hotel staff keep an eye on the sky all night long and alerts all interested guests when that Aurora Borealis acts up. oe that’s service! Call 1.800:775.6656x2213 for more information. | Page 12 a When as always... you have Ben Franklin’s Powder | On weekends the day doesn’t end when the sun goes down. Night skiing is available on Friday and Saturday nights as well as a few holiday nights. Extensive lighting allows a variety of terrain to be skied or makes for a spectacular scene when driving toward the resort. weritten, As for expert-and-above skiers, I have this sage advice to offer: unless City Nn Q scared and incredibly well verse at Alta will love (80 1)649-6583. be SECA watch who is loathe to fight the crowds on the high tra- — Park t ever _ to leave the top of the mountain until the end of the day. read on. ed we had skied 8,000 to and was relegated to the cock- of Windy First opened in 1959, Alyeska is an unusual ski area indeed. The base is practically sea level (250 feet no shortness of breath here) while the top is 3,939 (lifts go to 2,750), which caused a drastic difference in snow the days I was there. The top third had tons of snow having been inundated with some ten feet or so in the past few weeks. The bottom third was more like skiing in the east in the spring. The cool evening had turned the nicely groomed lower mountain into what the Killington snow-phone used to refer to as “hard packed,” but what we Vermonters lovingly refer to as “boilerplate.” As an extenuation I would like to say that a wrong turn caused me to ski down before the lifts had even officially opened for the day and the lower-mountain softened up considerably later in the day when most people would be going down. The resort has 9 lifts including an aerial tram, which whisks skiers within spitting distance of the top in about 4 minutes. The top of the lift-access terrain is reached by skiing down from the tram to the Spirit Quad, a lift that serves the top, allowing one to remain on the upper mountain. With both a cafeteria and a full-service fine-dining restaurant- and of course that great lavatory- at the top tram station, there is no need the hobbled doctor Bob who still managed to keep his chin. up all day. | Berkeley, a one-trick pony who threw caution and braking page 8 remote control that isn’t glued to the table. The Rieckey ide had all these things and more. Ni ice iGuch: , es in the privvy included a heated drying tack for the towels and a message-waiting indicator on the phone re - so I could not only. stay in touch during my morning constitutional but also see if I had messages wait"ing. The one feature that came as a complete surprise to me was when I retrieved my first voice mail message of the trip. The system asked me if I would like to personalize my outgoing message. Yes, as in, “Hello you’ ve reached the room of David and his Daddy.” I was certainly impressed, but then it doesn’t take much for a bumpkin like me. You should have seen me traipsing around the hotel wearing the little complimentary slippers. (Ed. note: Yes we are broken up that we missed that vista) - Saturday brought the first day of skiing. Being a big group of important journalists, we were given a special early tram up the mountain accompanied by the ever jovial, and occasionally yodeling, Vice President — & Managing Director Chris Von Imhof. Chris (as all his staff called him) gave us. the obligatory PR rap at the top tram station and answered questions. “Alaska??!? It’s freezing cold and the days are five hours long,” still rang in my ears, so I sheepishly inquired. “Bunk,” I was told. Thirty-three-degree average and 8.5 hours of light is what we were told to expect. During my week the temperature estimate was right-on and the days ran to 9-plus hours. “However, the short days do cause the mountain to open at 10: 30am.” Ten-thirty? This mountain was lookin’ to be OK. “Where are the polar bears?” wondered WCR’s own Steve Mayer. We all politely aod him and Chris turned us loose on the mountain after we were all well fed. Our tour guide for the first run was the head _ of ski patrol for the resort, Jim Veatch. He led me out the door and, loudly proclaiming he was going to show me the best thing on the mountain, led me straight into the men’s room. He proudly showed me the gleaming new facilities complete with stainless steel fixtures and without any sort of offensive odor. “Smell that? Really take a whiff,” he insisted. “I don’t smell anything,” was my susurration. “Exactly!” he bellowed and raced back out the door. Apparently the previous facilities were renowned for their unpleas- oe laine Continued from page 9 ‘a surveyor or real-estate bro-~ Reporter _ : Moree: continued rom Cats City Powder Park ae - - |