There’s still time to scratch your cross country skiing itch

PALMER — You might not have any snow left in your backyard, but up in Hatcher Pass they’re still skiing.

“Right now in fact they’re getting snow up there,” Ed Strabel, who grooms trails in the Archangel Road area, said early Thursday evening having just gotten back from getting the trails in shape.

He said he’s been skiing up there since early October and intends to continue until… well, he’s not entirely sure, actually.

“It’s tough to say. There were indications that especially in the first mile and a half of Archangel Road the snow column was beginning to collapse,” Strabel said.

But he was out grooming Thursday and intends to be back out in time for people to ski on Saturday.

“It’s excellent shape, especially for skating. We’ll be attempting to put a classic track in for Saturday morning but guaranteed there will be excellent skate skiing,” Strabel said.

Skiers should be able to ply their sport through the weekend and maybe even through next week, Strabel said.

He said that the trails are in an area where there is no danger or avalanche, so skiers don’t have to worry about that hazard of springtime. They should stick to the trails, though, since there are areas of the pass where avalanches are a concern.

“If folks get out and do crust skiing they can run into some trouble, but on the trail that we groom there’s no danger,” he said.

He said he’s seen a number of people out on the trails in the past week or so. With sunshine like there has been the past few days, it’s hard to pass up, Strabel said.

“There was a bunch of guys that were out playing hooky from work,” he said, and he noticed they had their cell phones out. “They were calling into the office to take care of business.”

If the trail conditions posted to the Mat-Su Borough’s website are any indication, most of the trails outside Hatcher Pass aren’t being groomed anymore and likely don’t have snow on them.

So if you’re in the core area of the Valley and just can’t bring yourself to hang the skis up quite yet, Hatcher Pass is probably the place to go. As long as there’s enough snow to groom, Strabel said, he’ll be grooming it.

“Our grooming grant money has run on out. But we’ve still got some fuel that we bought before the grant ran out so we’ll be trying to use as much of that grant money as possible,” he said.

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