I was pawing through my top dresser drawer the other day when a ski season pass surfaced. There's my fuzzy headshot. I'm wearing a favorite knit cap, looking like I'm ready to play in the snow. My gaze fell on it with nostalgia, assuming it was one of the season passes I routinely save as souvenirs of another winter at Eaglecrest, our city-subsidized ski hill about a 20-minute drive north of our home on Douglas Island. Then I noticed the year: 2014-15. Haven't used it once.
Thanks to a rerouting of the jet stream resulting from a melting Arctic, Eaglecrest, like most ski areas in the western part of North America, is suffering its worst season ever. Perhaps the word "season" is too generous. Non-season is more like it. OK, the kiddie hill is open thanks to the miracle of man-made snow. And the ski team is running gates on a miniscule patch cobbled together from a substance that's supposedly snow. For deprived addicts, there are decent turns a day hike or a helicopter ride away. But the chairlift we've ridden to the top of the mountain for the past 20-plus winters is dormant.
Living in one of the wettest places on the planet, the seasonal transition from life in a rainforest to skiing powder through the trees and the opportunity to ski close to home has kept us satisfied. This year, with the exception of a handful of "winter flashes" lasting no more than a few days, the seasons seemed confused between fall and spring. Some days are like October, others April.
A healing white world
It's not simply the act of sliding on snow that I miss. It's the ability to rise above dark, rainy sea level, if only for a few hours. When it's below freezing and snowing at Eaglecrest, the world is a healing white. There's the gorgeous purity wrought by the simple task of letting yourself go in a soft void -- what the late skier and writer Dolores LaChapelle called "the pleasure of being so purely played by gravity and snow."
A ski run with my friend Ann a couple years ago this time of year now seems like a distant dream:
Ann and I glide down the chairlift off-ramp. Seven inches of snow have fallen overnight and the ridge to the West Bowl is open. Spring sunrays light up patches of untracked powder. We take off our skis, balance them on our shoulders, and follow the boot pack up the mountain. After about 15 minutes of hiking we arrive at the ridge and start to glide along the traverse. On the right are some of my favorite runs, High Point, Parker's, and a newly filled-in pitch I notice for the first time. I stop for a second to tighten up my boots and glance to the left. There it is, the view no one tires of. Fog is lifting and morning light illuminating snowy peaks along the bright bluish salt water of Stephen's Passage. I am startled with joy for a moment. Soon we arrive at our destination, what I call The Magic Carpet Ride. It's a run that slightly dips in the middle and rises just enough on each side for smooth turns. The top is slightly crusty and windblown. A small cornice blocks the view of the run. I notice the untouched snow on the right. Perfect. I make the first of a succession of glorious turns, right down the middle on a velvet white surface that no one else has skied before. Ann is not far behind, making her own first turns. There can be nothing in our world more fulfilling than this moment.
"I'm over it," said Ann during a recent phone call when I broached the topic of this dismal non-ski season. "I don't really care anymore. Oh, a few weeks ago I was really missing skiing. Now I'm ready for spring." I guess I can't blame her, with the air warming, the crocuses blooming and the chickadees chirping.
Seasonal family
Our children were 4 and 6 when we moved to Juneau in 1992, and Eaglecrest quickly became our second home in winter. My husband, Karl, joined the ski patrol and I became a ski instructor. The kids were in the race program as soon as they were eligible. We wanted them to experience the magic of the mountains that we had growing up, albeit only a couple weekends per season as we lived at least four hours from the nearest ski hill in California.
I'm not over it. You don't really appreciate what you have until it's not happening. And a ski area so close to home is no exception to that rule. We enjoy more than skiing at Eaglecrest. We're part of a seasonal family of locals, sharing lunches in the lodge and beers at the end of the day in the parking lot. This year, I'm actually toying with the idea of an après ski tailgate party minus the skiing.
I'll admit ski season was the excuse for stuff that never got done around the house all year. The office room that became our catchall for crap finally got cleared. Friends on Facebook report completing long undone "to-do's" like cleaning behind the refrigerator, re-arranging the garage and studying the snorkeling guide to Maui. Eric posts, "It's been the perfect winter to recover from ankle surgery."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," declared our daughter Kaitlyn during one of those flashes of winter. She and our son Kanaan went surfing in a windstorm during a recent cold spell in subfreezing temperatures. They were so cold afterward, they needed help getting out of their wetsuits.
Some of their friends are going as far as Japan for an adrenaline fix, posting photos of deep new snow falling daily. It makes sense. As I understand it, part of the equation is a jet stream now emerging from Siberia, dumping cold air into Japan and largely skipping Alaska. Rather than the majority of storm systems coming to Southeast Alaska from the west as in the past, they're arriving from the warmer south.
My consolation is that even in the leanest snow years, we always get dumped on by March. So I will remain optimistic. It is March. Right?
Freelance writer Katie Bausler is a devoted resident of the island kingdom of rainy Douglas, Alaska.