Why else would the skiing still be so good in late March? But it is bittersweet because I know that any day the warmth will kick in, it'll start to rain, and all the snow down low will be gone. My co-workers all will be happy, and I'll be devestated. But at least when the 'no snow down low' day comes, probably sometime in the next month, I'll still be able to downhill ski up high, the ground will be thawed for my archaeological survey down on the south end of Kodiak, and I'll plant my garden. I need to keep an eye on the bright side. Not that I'd mind if my garden got seriously frosted.
And speaking of the bright side - the skiing is great! Today after work I went up the Buskin with Lisa and John Mahoney. After the flood at the end of january cleared out the snow on the Buskin riverbed we have not been skiing up the river, but today we discovered that enough snow has fallen since the end of February to make the riverbed a viable corridor for skiing again. As you can see in the bottom photo, if you look closely, when the river flooded it created a trench through the 3 foot snow pack. So the riverbed is a bit like a canyon with high sided snow banks on either side. We skiied about 2 miles up from the lake and then did a loop back through the woods to where we were skiing a couple of weeks ago on the old over-grown military roads. Sure is nice to be able to ski after work in the sun.
Patrick
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