Eaglecrest

 

We got back from our Juneau ski vacation just over a week ago and this is my final post about the trip.  This post is about the whole reason we went to Juneau - the skiing.  The skiing in Juneau was amazing.  Every day but the day we arrived and the day we left we skied at the local ski area Eaglecrest.  The ski area is tucked in behind the mountain on Douglas Island across from Juneau, and it is a remarkably big mountain.

For some reason I had heard that it was a small, 'local' hill, and that if you wanted serious skiing you had to use the ski lift to access the backcountry.  I was expecting a small local hill - something like Hilltop at Anchorage, and we brought along our backcountry ski gear in case we got bored and wanted some serious skiing.  So on arrival I was shocked to find a big mountain that absolutely blows away the Alyeska ski resort that I had thought the best in Alaska.  

The day we arrived it had snowed a foot, and they do have abnormally good ski conditions there this year.  Needless to say, but we never needed to use our backcountry gear, and we never got bored.  There were trees to ski and basically the terrain was such that you could do the same run multiple times without ever doing it the same way.  

The first day we helped ski off all the new powder on the main mountain.  Then on the second day they opened a lift that had not been open on the first day and we got another day of skiing off untracked powder.  And then on the third day it snowed again.

We were in snow heaven - at the end of this post is a 36 second silent movie that shows the ski conditions pretty well.  

Patrick