Cornbiscuit to Superbowl

1/15/24

As my partner for the day and I were on our way through Summit Pass to do some skiing within the central Kenai mountains, he realized he’d forgotten his splitboard. This prompted us to turn around and change our plan for the day. We headed back to Girdwood to retrieve the forgotten board, and headed back down the Seward highway towards the peninsula. We decided to cut our losses and ski in Turnagain Pass as a consolation for our big day we had planned. I had been itching to ski Pete’s North, but on arrival we were met with an unplowed parking lot.

After a morning full of everything but what we had planned, we found ourselves at the Bertha Creek parking lot, and we were headed to the South face of Cornbiscuit. We began up the trail, and quickly made it above the treeline. It was here the troublesome day continued to test our patience. We saw three large glide cracks opened directly above the common skin track in the middle of a widespread glide avalanche epidemic. 

I put my nose down, and put in a new skin track that avoided all overhead hazard, and after more work than expected, we finally made it to the ridge of Cornbiscuit. It was here that we began shopping for our line, and after working down the ridge a bit, we found our line. It was steep, untracked, and wide open, the Turnagain Pass speciality. The only downside was the slight crust that had formed between storms. While not day ruining, it certainly was not dreamy Alaskan pow, and it was going to have to do for us.

I dropped into the line first, slowly making a few turns to feel out the snow. After a few slow turns, I began to open up and still was not sold on the snow quality. Mitch and I worked part way down the face, and about halfway decided we’d benefit more by saving our elevation and beginning a traverse towards the back of the drainage where we had decided to continue our day. The downside was less vertical to ski, the upside was not having to ski crusty snow and to save us a bit of hiking. Luckily, there were a few gullies on the way that gave us some fun terrain to traverse over, and after using our last bit of elevation to take us to where we were headed, we only had a bit to skin up.

We transitioned and began our way up Goldpan. Our plan was to ski Superbowl out, and touring up Goldpan seemed the best way to get there. We were surprised to find multiple parties in Goldpan as we approached; we were a bit jealous looking at the lines they earned as they were much better than our poor snow off of Cornbiscuit. If we had more time maybe we would have joined in the festivities and skied a lap on Goldpan, but the short winter days did not provide us with such an opportunity. We made out way up to the top of Superbowl and had our lines picked out from earlier in the day.

My partner skied first, and after the steep drop in he found his rythm and began linking uniform turns through the near perfect pitched bowl. It was right after he found his rhythm that he found a patch on funky snow and front punched right over the front of his board; however, he managed to keep the pacing alive by landing on his feet and riding like he never fell. It was a good hint as to what the snow conditions might be like.

After wrapping up his line, I followed. I had scouted a line that held at a steeper angle than the rest of the bowl for the first quarter of the line or so, and I got the privilege of finding fully untracked snow from top to bottom because of my choice of entry. I held a consistent pace, and enjoyed every turn I made even though the snow was rather variable. Punchy in places while being settled powder in others. I couldn’t help but let out a yell of joy at the bottom; you won’t find me much happier than after a long consistent ski line.

The beauty of Superbowl is the ability to ski it right back to the car, and that’s just what we did. Once we were out of avy terrain, we party lapped our way on out and made it to the car after only a bit of trailfinding (much more tolerable on skis than a splitboard). Upon reaching the car, we looked back at where we had just come from and appreciated the series of events throughout the day that got us up there. 

Sometimes the worst mornings turn into such delightful days, and this day was a good reminder of how rolling with the punches pays off in the end.