Flying out of Anchorage airport, you finally get it. As the aircraft turns its back on the slate blue of the Turnagain Arm and the Cook Inlet, with its scum of grey sea ice, the mountains begin to spread out as far as the eye can see. Mountains stack on mountains stack on mountains.
If McDonald's was going to market a 'family-size' portion of mountains it would look like this. Crenellated ridges separate vast bowls of powder; enormous shattered glaciers tumble down to an improbably blue ocean, spotted with smudges of pack ice that appear suspended in the water like semolina. I look back 20 minutes later and it is still there. This time, I can see a giant glacier spreading out below us towards the sea, for all the world like a powder-blue salamander.
Alaska is a giant place. It makes the Alps look like the Peak District. A fifth of the land mass of the 'lower 48', as Alaskans call the rest of the United States, it had a population of only 622,000 at the last census in 1999, the largest number - 200,000 - concentrated in Anchorage itself.
The last time I felt this small was flying over Siberia in winter. It is a landscape so big you could get lost in it. And they do. Prospectors and trappers came and vanished in the big woods and deep, cold valleys, blotted out for ever by the hugeness of it.
And it is a place for big, demented gestures. Men and women race insanely with dog sleds through this pristine landscape. While I am here, the Iditarod, the 1,000-mile-plus mushing race up to Nome, now in its thirtieth year, starts from Anchorage. It is an approach they also like to apply to their skiing.
Rewind four days. We are among those stacked up mountains, chugging up a snowcat track with our ski guides, Warren and Virgil, from Chugach Powder Guides. The cat is a big blue box on massive tracks. It is heated and has a CD player and a box of sweets to pass the time.
We follow a series of switchbacks, climbing up to an area of ridges and bowls between Sunnyside and Notch peaks. We crest a rise and finally the snowcat halts on a high ridge overlooking valleys full of untracked snow. Then Virgil skis off down a little valley deep with fresh and air-filled powder, which we bounce through as we follow him, over a shoulder and down eventually through the trees to the snow-covered meadows where the cat is now waiting. No one falls (we do that later). Looking back, I can see the sinuous signature trails our skis have cut through the snow.
I change from fat powder skis to my telemark skis after two runs and as I drop down to one knee to make the turns, the powder crests over my thighs and hips like a wake. In 20 years of skiing it doesn't get any better than this.
Cruising through stands of alder and spruce, we do eight runs, stopping for lunch at the Powder Hut, a suitably rugged shack where the guides produce sandwiches, biscuits and hot drinks. As we finish, Virgil tells us we have skied 16,000 feet. We would have only managed 4,000ft more if we had taken a helicopter to reach the powder fields. Thirty minutes later, with Blondie playing in the cab, we are back at the hotel.
The mathematics should tell you something about the resort at Alyeska and the environment in the remote bowls that surround it. Average annual snowfall is more than 700 inches; in good years, it hits 1,000 inches. In a resort 300ft above sea level (you can see the sea from the slopes), that means an awful lot of weather. And Alyeska gets it in spades: wind, snow and even rain. For all that the altitude of the lift-serviced Alyeska mountain is low, it has a very big mountain feel. It is proper mountain terrain, and that means that if you want to ski here you have to take the rough with the smooth.
Early in the season, that can add up to long spells without a hint of sunlight or blue skies. But it also means a lot of snow. On our first day on the mountain, it is snowing hard and visibility is difficult. The groomed runs are also under 10-plus inches of fresh snow.
So it goes all week, alternating between better weather and heavy dumps of fresh powder, until finally the weather comes good for a forecast five days, something locals tell me is nothing short of miraculous. This is not a place to come for long, sunny lunches on the slopes. The mountain's terrain matches up to the promise of the snow, a central bowl contoured by ridges and shallow gullies falling from a ridge. To left and right of this bowl is the most challenging skiing, the steep and wide North Face, which can be accessed either by traversing from the side or via three increasingly improbable long couloirs , and to the right the headwalls of High Traverse and Max's.
If this is the best skiing, its style also typifies Alyeska. This is not really a beginner's resort. Even on the easier runs the skiing is far from straightforward, steep and often off the fall line.
One day I take a tumble traversing along the highest line into the North Face. My ski catches on a hidden rock and flips me down the steepest part of the face. I land in soft snow on my skis and am surprised to see that I have fallen almost 100 feet in three big somersaults. It is a cautionary lesson. Indeed, as you enter the cordoned-off gates for the 'outside' areas such as the North Face and the High Traverse, warning signs advise that you ski with a partner for safety and carry an avalanche transceiver, probes and shovel.
This reasoning becomes clear the day we ski in Christmas Chute, one of the couloir entries to the North Face. A sheer, round-shouldered gully, at its steepest and narrowest it rears up to more than 30 degrees and only the deep, soft snow that cushions each jump turn makes it feel do-able at all. After a couple of turns, I was glad to be skiing with other people.
It is also worth pointing out that Alaskan law regarding skiing makes you very much responsible for yourself and for any damage you cause to yourself or others. This means if you get smashed up, make sure you are properly insured and don't go crying to anyone.
So to the resort. The main hotel, the Alyeska Prince , suffers slightly from a lack of obvious competition to keep it on its toes. It bills itself as a five-star hotel in the same mould as the Banff Springs or Chateau Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies, and it is beautifully situated. The cable car runs from outside the door, and you really can ski home if you choose.
In the evening, the lift will run you up the hill to the Chair Five restaurant, a suitably fabulous place for a beer and nibbles, though go well wrapped up. It also has an impressively well-equipped spa, however, the food and eating spaces - Chair Five aside - are only just OK. But that is America, and it has always baffled me why it is easier to get a great meal in the equivalent of a working man's caff on some grotty highway than in 'nice' resort hotels.
Girdwood, the local town, is also a pretty small place and judging by Max's bar-restaurant, the local pizza place, also no great shakes for dinner, although its does have table football and pool tables which makes up for its deficient food.
If you want a good night out, you need to take the 45-minute shuttle bus trip into Anchorage, which has lively bars and even better restaurants. Among them is the Glacier Brewhouse which makes its own beer on the premises and serves stunning seafood. Otherwise, Anchorage is what you would expect: a rufty-tufty town full of oil workers and other members of the plaid-shirted professions and all that implies.
Well, hey! What did you expect? This ain't no wussy European skiing. And for that, thank goodness.
Factfile
Peter Beaumont travelled with Inghams and stayed at the Alyeska Prince in Alyeska. Prices start from £571 for seven nights on a room-only basis. Flights with Northwest Airlines from London Gatwick to Anchorage and transfers are included. Free connecting flights are also available from regional airports.
Contact Inghams on 020 8780 4433.
