It’s amazing how much can change in a year. A year ago on Easter I was in Boulder, CO spending the day with my family. Since then I have graduated from CU with my masters, packed up my life and moved to Alaska- kind of on a whim- but definitely looking for adventure. I can confidently say, I have found what I’m looking for in Alaska and I’m excited to see what else there is in store.
Last year this time, I would have never guessed that this is where I would be now… 
Happy Easter indeed! After the first day of blind skiing we were very excited about a bluebird day.
The morale around camp was extremely high and everyone was eager to start exploring the endless terrain around us.
Looking across the pass at Worthington Glacier…
This pic is where we were skiing the day before. Carp, Andy, Jodie and I decided to head back this direction, curious about where we had been.
I got a sled ride with Andy and Carp about half way up this valley and then jumped on this skin track.
I made it to the top of a ridge line to find Jodie 🙂 yay
The obligatory mom shots: “HI MOM!!!”
Looking over the back side of the pass….
One of the only group shots we got: EPIC!!! (Andy, Carp, me and Jodie)
The boys went off to do some more sled laps in the valley below. Jodie and I skinned up the ridge. This is looking down on where we had just been. The ridge line across the way is called the Berlin Wall.
Jodie, picking out her line… 
Dropping!
Jodie’s turn… 
With the first official run of the day under our belts, we were eager to get another! We skinned back up the same area but to the left side. It was definitely t-shirt weather!
Hey Look what you can do 9 months after elbow surgery! yay! From here, we dropped into completely untouched snow.
Looking back up at our lines. 2nd run of the day: complete success.
Next, we traversed up the south side of the next ridge line over. 
Jodie led the boot pack… Here’s the ridge we came up from. We could see skiers working their way up a chute (Python) on the other side
Originally we were planning on skiing the south side (left) but after realizing we couldn’t quite traverse far enough to the line we had picked out from the valley below, we decided to ski the north side (right) 
I dropped in first… yikes!
Then Jodie!
After a full day of skinning, hiking and fresh lines, we decided to call it a day and ski back to home base, which was still over 2 miles away…
Looking at the tailgate parking lot and the other side of the pass…
Back at camp.
This picture shows a little better where we had skied. The order of our day went from right (blue) to left (yellow, then purple, and finally orange all the way down). It was an amazing day. Perfect weather, great snow, and a wonderful ski buddy! Thanks Jodie!
Day 3 was equally as beautiful. The “Micks” (which we had nicknamed Nick and Mike) rented their own snow machine for the day and went back up towards Worthington glacier. The other 4 of us, took Carp and Andy’s machines up to Bro Bowl to watch the competition being held there.
Pretty sweet venue…
Carp having some snow machine problems… nothing he can’t fix!
Carp, you got something on your face…
We did a quick ski run up near the competition, which is when my tele binding heel piece broke… AGAIN!!! I decided to ski down and try to do a half day of heli skiing (with my alpine skis). Unfortunately, the groups that were out already kept adding runs to their day, so we got bumped until the next day buuuut we were leaving that night. So no heli trip for me this year… definitely on the list for next year.
We packed up the RV and headed back to Anchorage…
Overall an amazing trip! I wish we could’ve stayed for another week. Can’t wait for Tailgate 2013…
