Anchorage

 

I spent most of last week in Anchorage.  I was there attending the annual Alaska Anthropology Association meetings (more to come in subsequent post).  Last week when I arrived Anchorage had less snow on the ground than Kodiak.  I was actually bummed to leave Kodiak for the trip because there was snow on the ground at the golf course and Stuey and I had been cross country skiing there.  

On arrival I found a completely brown Anchorage.  It was sort of shocking to see absolutely no snow on the ground.  However, I still went cross country skiing at Kincaid where they have been making snow and had maintained around 5-10K of ski trails. I actually found freshly groomed trails (see below) and excellent XC ski conditions.  The trails were like raised white highways snaking through the brown landscape.  Each trail was raised over 2 feet above the ground on packed man-made snow. I happily skied for over an hour and only saw 3 other skiers.  That is fewer skiers than I saw at the golf course the day before when we had had no groomed trails and had to scamper across the grassy areas. Anchorage skiers are spoiled!

It was not supposed to snow while I was there, but somehow the snow followed me to Anchorage. The first night there was a surprise 6 inches, and it pretty much snowed every subsequent day that I was there.  By the time I left they were grooming all the trails at Kincaid. So for the first time all winter I got to experience a little bit of a winter wonderland.

Patrick

What the skiing looked like on the day I arrived