I took this photo today while I was out cruising through the Chugach. The snow cover at the lower elevations is pathetically thin, and rather disturbing. I struggled to find a place to land because of all the rocks sticking through the snow on the gravel bars. Normally there is at least a couple of feet of snow this time of year. We had a nasty warm spell in early January and a horrible amount of wind so the combination of those events left us a bit thin. I am very optimistic that things will improve, and I still found some awesome ski runs up above 3000′. The snow at higher elevations (3500′ +) appears to be fairly average.
This little video simply shows a normal turn in the mountains during a normal days work. The turn is not sharp or hurried, the Cub could easily turn twice in this distance if needed. It’s nothing really spectacular, but I think some of you will find this entertaining. Notice how I lower the nose during the turn so the effects of the tailwind (from the glacier) does not diminish my lift…. I’ll explain later in a “downwind turn” article.