Ski Turns and Sun Burns—Summer Skiing

The Kenai Peninsula’s snowpack skipped leg day this year. The high elevations were pummeled with snow, leaving the tops of the peaks looking huge and the bottoms barren. I’ve been feeling motivated to get out and enjoy the copious lingering snowpack, walking with skis on my back to reach snowline—looking for smooth and soft turns.

Alaska provides an extended ski season due to its northern latitudes and the low sun angle. This, along with a lower average temperature, causes lower sublimation rates in snow. Sublimation occurs when a solid directly turns into a gas, so the sun essentially starts to evaporate the snow in its solid state. In Alaska, the snowpack doesn’t rot like it does in the Rockies. The spring isothermal snowpack eventually condenses into a brick, providing supportable soft slushy snow. 

My buddy Matt and I were sitting on a moraine above the Harding Icefield, lounging in the sunshine. There is a feeling of carefree fun that flows on these summer outings. Perhaps empowered by the Hawaiian shirts, or the copious amounts of vitamin D coursing through our veins. Whatever it is, it always seems to take us to places, whether that be mental or physical, that you haven’t been before. Smiles are pervasive, laughter is inevitable, and the soft snow makes me feel like a kid again. 

For the majority of the year, these places we ski are inhospitable, cold environments. And here you stand in a floral button-down, skis on your feet, feeling the sun’s heat. To me, that’s what makes summer skiing so much fun. Keep the fire, and set that alarm for 3 a.m. You won’t remember that weekend you cut the lawn. But you’ll remember that morning you hit the snowline at 5 a.m., or those lovely turns looking across a Pleistocene daydream.