Skiers finally get some snow

HATCHER PASS — Of all the years for Mother Nature to prolong skiers wait, it had to be this one.

“We finally got some snow,” a jubilant Ed Strabel said Thursday from his home near Government Peak. “Last year we were trying to give it away.”

Strabel, a noted local cross-country skiing enthusiast, said he had been out Wednesday and Thursday grooming trails in the Mat-Su Borough’s new Nordic skiing system in its Government Peak Recreation area. The trails were finished this past summer.

While last year the snow came on strong and stayed that way all winter, this year, with the cross-country skiing community just itching to try out those new trails, Mother Nature played coy.

The fickle weather maker relented Wednesday. And by Thursday, Strabel said skiers were itching to be first to carve tracks in the new trail.

“Oh yeah, oh yeah. There was a race to see who was going to be the first one on them,” he said.

Mat-Su Community Transit has plans to begin bus service to the ski trials from Wasilla and Palmer from Friday through Monday starting Dec. 21. Check matsutransit.com for schedules.

The borough is planning an official ribbon cutting for the trials at 11 a.m., Dec. 28.

But the trails are open and ready for skiers. Strabel said that they’ve been readied for various user groups.

“The Pioneer Loop, which goes off to the east and is about 2 kilometers total distance out, goes around the loop and comes back, and is for pedestrians and folks with dogs,” he said. “The Matanuska and Susitna loops, which go out and come back, is only for skiers when we groom it.”

There’s also a flagged trail for snowshoe use and plans for mountain biking trails next summer.

“The mountain bikers are going to be building mountain bike trails, some pedestrian-type mountain bike trails and some competitive mountain bike trails farther up on the mountain,” Strabel said.

Indeed, the future has all kinds of possibilities for the Hatcher Pass area. The borough has a phase II planned, with more trails and more facilities.

Strabel said the new trails also be able to host races, but still not the big ones.

“We’ll be able to host ski races. Not the state meet yet, we just don’t have the warm-up facility yet,” he said. “The trails are pretty tame in comparison to what they’d want to have for major ski races. However, we have designed and brushed out what would be world-class ski trails up higher on the mountain.”

And those trails would bring in those kinds of tournaments, Strabel said.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.