alaska kiting

November 2012 will go down in the record books as an incredible snow month in Haines, Alaska. We had a total of 11 ft in one month! Normally, November sees us travelling up to the pass to get our snowkiting fun, but this year we had really cold weather for weeks on end and literally mountains of fresh powder - at sea level.

The local crew took full advantage of the conditions getting some really good sessions in. Sometimes, the complaint was too deep, too much powder, etc. etc. The jumps were soft and smooth and the landings even softer and smoother!

I would like to draw everyone's attention to KiteFest 2011.

The event takes place over the Memorial Day weekend in Homer. That's a long way for kiters in Southeast to travel but if you are a kiter in the Anchorage or Kenai area I highly recommend making the pilgrimage.

For kiters in Haines area, we'll be having our own fun on the beach that weekend. We might even be joined by the Canadian Kite Yukon contingent!

In what is a fitting end to this quirky winter, two Haines kiters hit the water this week for some fun spring sessions. It's funny that our opening water sessions happened on the same weekend as the Thomson Pass Snowkite festival, but it matches our experience this year.

Hope everyone has a great time up on Thomson Pass this weekend. Down here in Southeast we'll be flying high over the water! Let the summer begin!

A pretty disappointing Alaskan winter is drawing to a close. All over the state lower than normal snowfall, colder than normal temps, and higher than normal winds have made kiting more of a challenge this winter. The passes in southeast are pretty thin, featuring bullet-proof snow and sastrugi conditions. Down at sea level the flats are covered with barely any snow.

I went out for my first snow-kite session of the year today and was reminded of a few little tips and tricks that I wanted to share.

September, 2010 was a very abnormal month in most of Alaska. It started off pretty normally: windy, rainy, grey (as shown in the video below)

It was a beautiful, sunny day with a fresh 20mph wind blowing in over an outgoing tide which was kicking up really nice waves in the river mouth. Quinn had called around and rallied everyone for a session and Darren and I joined him for a quick sail.