alaska kiteboarding

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!

In what continues to be a very dry and low-snow winter, a week of heavy rain has removed pretty much all the snow at sea level in this part of Southeast Alaska. The bare ground continues about 15-20 miles inland -- quite unprecedented for the middle of winter in Alaska. In contrast to our usually regular kiting on the local rivers and flats, we have had a total of about 4 kiteable days this winter!

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.
 

This summer in our corner of Southeast Alaska has so far been one of the windiest in local memory. We've had 3-4 kitable days almost every week for the last couple of months. Some days have been TOO windy!