Tincan Trees

3/5/24

After a few busy weeks and many days skiing at the resort, I found time to make it into the backcountry for a day tour. I had plans to ski with another instructor at Alyeska, Keller. Having both seen the weather up here, we knew not to make plans until the morning.

As forecasted, two weeks of relative stability ended the night before with a low moving into Prince William Sound. Scattered showers began depositing snow on a surface of what I had been told was windboard in places. All we could do was wait until the morning and see what was going on in Turnagain to make our decision on what to ski, but the Library was in the back of both of our minds. 

We woke up and checked the weather immediately. The storm didn’t seem to hit as hard as expected, with only a few inches falling according to the weather stations. We began our drive into the pass and kept our eyes peeled for any clues on how this storming was holding. With the skies much bluer than expected, we agreed to walk up Center Ridge towards the Library knowing that it was an ambitious line if visibility was bad. The benefits being the protection from the likely sluff that the new snow was expected to cause.

We began up the Center Ridge trail, and I was exposed to a whole new zone I must explore. I can’t wait to dive into some of the lines over there, likely another winter…

Not too far into the hike, the weather began to turn for the worse. A new small storm had blown in on us, making visibility rather atrocious. We kept moving forward, naively hoping things may quickly show signs of improvement. This was not the case and we eventually had to stop our up-valley progress with the intention of remaining within the alders to help provide contrast.

Quick deliberation lead to the decision to climb the south face of Tincan to 2,400 feet where we could head into the trees and have some lower angle fun in the fresh snow. Our climb provided a hip burning sidehill to return us to mellower terrain where we began our kick turns within a ping-pong ball. Along the way, we found a shallow layer of fresh snow sitting on top of a surface that took extra care to find an edge in. 

As we made our way to the saddle we were aiming for, we found a deepening snowpack. Has the snow been moving the snow off of the south face? We transitioned and waited for a tiny bit of better lighting to make our way to the trees. Nothing quite has defined this winter like poor visibility within a white alpine environment. After a few hundred feet of skiing braille, we found ourselves in the trees. The snow up to this point was stellar, but as we entered the trees, we found ourselves in shocking deep powder. Turns were easily providing face shots when slashed, and plenty of lift was provided to my floaty skis.

After cliffs were dropped and spruce were popped, we reapplied our skins and started back up for another lap in the trees. As we started down the trail to the uptrack, we ran into friends and we agreed to take a lap together. This time, we climbed to just shy of 2,000 feet. The snow seemed even better on the second lap, it seemed like it was the deepest I had skied in a few weeks. We enjoyed the rolling minigolf that is the Tincan Trees, and I even took it over the handlebars on a small cliff and found my right ski two turns beneath me upon wiping my goggles. There is something so beautiful of the humbling act of skiing powder on one ski. 

At the bottom of our ski, we transitioned and all agreed it would be our last time heading back uphill. Keller and I were going to head a little higher than our friends we met in hopes to ski a line on the south face we scouted from the hike in. It looked like some interesting cliffs with plenty of alders to provide contrast. As we made our way across the final gully to our ridge, I shot a crack maybe 20 feet straight out from my ski tip. Message received, we turned to the previous ridge. We discussed skiing different ridges to isolate ourselves from each other, and after making a plan I ended up retreating one more ridge to put us on separate ridges. I skied lower than Keller to scout the money roller he was ready to drop into. After what we had seen on the hike up, we both knew it was likely we peel off a small storm slab on the south face and if there was a piece to break it was the roller Keller was on. He quickly skied over it and out of the path of anything that could break, and a small storm slab did indeed break off on his turn. It was hardly more than a sluff, but we were happy being in a situation where a traverse to save us a hike out was a viable option. 

We did exactly that, knowing it would be a good way to avoid any steeper terrain and also save us time and energy hiking out. We made our way down the Center Ridge trail where I found one last cliff drop. I dropped a 5-10 footer, and upon takeoff, nearly a foot of snow across the length of the 10 foot wide pillow had followed me right off the cliff. I landed flat and rode away regretful of ever hitting it, but seeing another reaction in the snow was interesting. 

We reapplied our skins after running out of vertical to ski out and hiked our way to the parking lot. Here, we saw friends who were at a kicker that they had built. We ran over to them and exchanged stories of the day, finally leaving with a final jump to carry momentum straight to the car. All in all, a successful day that didn’t go as planned, likely better.