For the past several years, Mark and I have been chasing after wild ice to skate in the early winter season. Passing the puck, and skating together outside gives us great joy as brothers and friends.
Something I value greatly in my life is sharing true joy with my closest people..... so this is basically one of my favorite things to do.
My brother lives high in the Colorado Rockies, near quite a few beautiful high alpine mountain lakes. Usually, because it's close to home, that is where we skate the "wild ice".
Wild ice is much different than being on a groomed rink. We never know what we might find! There might be a rock in the ice, or a crack, a frozen ice-fisherman’s hole from the previous day, or you might actually fall through the ice and get wet! It’s a true KAVU adventure.... much different than indoor ice skating.
Ice skating rinks have Zambonis and temperature control. Outside ice, is very different because of the weather factor. In ways, it’s a lot like chasing waves for a surfer. A "wild ice" skater must chase that ice because it’s only perfect for a small window of time, and there is not much advance notice....
.... so you gotta be ready!
Between my brother and I, our favorite place to visit is definitely Alaska. I hadn’t been up to AK since before COVID, so I was already itching to get back up north. We had been watching weather conditions together, and I had heard that the wild ice was going to be "near perfect" condition that week. So Mark invited me to go along on a proper "Alaskan KAVU adventure" with him.
We have family in Alaska, and a place to stay, so Mark is often up there enjoying time with our uncle Lloyd. He picked me up at the airport in my uncles suburban and our search for ice officially started.
We have some friends who live in the Chugach mountains and they already knew exactly where the good ice was! Apparently, the weather conditions were nearing perfect for a "once in a decade" opportunity to witness wild, crystal clear, Alaskan ice. Often, snow or rain conditions, mixed with warm nights make this ice un-skatable.
But not today…. this was our time.
We drove out of Anchorage early the next morning and headed up the Rabbit Creek drainage. A 5-mile trail up the creek drainage led to an incredible alpine lake called Rabbit Lake. Rabbit Lake is an absolutely beautiful alpine mountain lake located underneath four, huge Chugach peaks... and the lake was supposed to be "glass-clear" ice.
I decided the most fun way to tackle the trail would be on a fat tire E-mountain bike. That way, I could enjoy myself the whole way up and save my legs for skating the ice. Other people in our group (including my brother) trail ran to the top in beastly form.
On our second day, I got to team up with a legendary Alaskan named Barney Griffith. He also rode a mountain bike this time, and we had a great time sharing the day together. The last time I had seen or hung out with Barney was over 20 years ago when we kayaked down the Grand Canyon!
We tore up the trail until we got to the frozen lake, which was a blast! Together on the ice it was somewhat of a surreal winter wonderland. We were in awe of the landscape, skating back-and-forth exploring the lake, mesmerized at the beautiful mountains towering above. One of the most magical parts of the trip was staring down through the thin ice at the beautiful lake bottom. Under the ice was separated by only a few inches, and was a different world, almost like we were skating in thin air. Floating and gliding.... and simply making lasting KAVU memories.
The long fall light following the ridge line in the afternoon, signaling our time to take off our skates and leave the Icy frozen paradise.
I really looked forward to this part of the day though.... at times, a 5-mile-high speed single track, (and others, a rock crawl).... mountain bike journey back to the car. Nothing like topping off a day’s adventure with more high-speed adventure!
Timmy Morris-KAVU
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