A bit of Anchorage skiing nostalgia hit me yesterday. I went to ski the north couloir of Ptarmigan Peak, a local alpine climbing/skiing icon that stares at you all year, visible from many places in town. In the 1995 or so era, I skied it the same year in August and September, just because I wanted to ski every month of the year for once in my life. During that time frame, the couloir is a solid sheet of rivuleted ice and generally a pretty sketchy place to be. Consider that I booted it in leather tele boots with no crampons and no ice axe and you start to see why I vowed never to ski it again after the second time!!

So yesterday I was lured up there by Billy's report that the snow was good, and I wanted to come to grips with my fear and general distaste for this place in good snow. You can see pix of yesterday's outing here, scroll down the page a bit:
http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=46885&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1215

So here's what it looked like ca ~ August 1995 in skinny Tua 205cm tele skis, canvas pants, and summer everywhere else but the couloir!