Mount Thor

Tory Dugan, Chris Flowers and I spent a week skiing in the Talkeetna and Chugach mountains. Staying in Chickaloon, we'd pack all 3 of us in Chris's Super Cub and head off every morning looking for sun and good snow. We'd most often land at around 7000' and tour all day. Here's a few photos, starting with Tory enjoying some dry powder in the upper Coal Creek drainage.We skied off the summit below in the upper King's River drainage, then lapped it a few more times off the rocky face to the left via a hidden couloir...

Below is Tory skiing off the summit.
Chris enjoying the view down part of the King's River

One particularly sunny day, we decided to try and ski Mt. Thor, the second highest peak in the Chugach. Here we are parked at around 8000' on the upper Sylvester Glacier thanks to Chris's excellent flying skills.
Heading off...

Here we are skinning up the summit ridge after navigating the bottom 4000' of glacier and icefall...the Harvard Glacier and Harvard Arm are in the background...

Booting the final way to the summit. We skied off the 'south summit' which is overlooking the Harvard Gl, is 1/2 mile away, and I'd guess 50' lower than the true summit of Thor. Strangely, the USGS quad shows our summit as being over 12,300', which it clearly isn't. We were briefly tempted to crampon over to the true summit and back, but the the day was getting on and our urge to ski rather than crampon prevailed.
Chris on the way down...
Chris again, throwing up some snow. Amazingly, we enjoyed perfect powder conditions and good stability which is probably rare for the high Chugach.
Another day, this time in the Talkeetnas. Below is Tory with the Chickaloon Glacier in the background...

Then back to the Chugach in upper Coal Creek...

Pioneer Peak

I'm still working on posting some photos from the past couple weeks of skiing in the Chugach and Talkeetnas, but wanted to report that the North Face of Pioneer Peak is in great ski condition right now. Yesterday I skied it from the notch where the arrow is pointing in the photo below (taken in Feb, 2007...things are just a bit snowier now). It was soft, powdery snow the whole way, except the bottom 2000' which was a bit more wet but still soft and carvable. It's rare that one can ski this face without rappelling, dealing with water ice, mixed climbing or breakable crust...but now is such a time! I was by myself, so there's plenty of snow left for other people. The snowpack was very thick, heavy and well bonded with no facets to be found.
Below is the view at the top of the run...6300 vertical feet, straight fall line to the Knik River below. The best part is that right now you can ski turns down great snow to within about 10' from your car. Travel conditions were excellent, taking me 4 hours 50 minutes to skin/boot up, and about 30 minutes to descend.