Turnagain Pass, Winter Solstice

On Saturday, Fraser and I headed south to Turnagain Pass to do some backcountry skiing. Fraser was up for the holidays and I wanted to show him some of the great backcountry we have to offer. We drove about 50 miles south of Anchorage to TinCan Mountain.

It was snowing as we drove up into the pass. Once we got out our skis and started climbing up the mountain, it didn't take long for us to realize it was going to be a great day. Someone else had set the skin track for us, and the powder was super deep. After the below zero weather for the past few weeks, the 20 degrees at the pass felt balmy and warm.

Here are a few photos from our trip. Due to the short amount of light, we were only on the mountain from about 10 Am till 4 PM. I'm not sure our legs could have handled much more than that! We made one run from the summit, and then two tree runs of about 1,000 vertical feet each. With the falling snow and flat light, it was much easier to pick out lines through the trees than the upper bowl of the mountain that is above the tree line.















Here is another photo of Fraser climbing up through the trees.

On the last run of the days we found some nice drops / pillows in the trees.