Pyramid Peak (Ski)

 Pyramid’s massive west face beckons to every skier who drives down Turnagain Arm. It stares straight at you as you’re heading toward Turnagain, and seems to loom higher over tidewater as you pass by Girdwood. The face is textbook avalanche terrain, with a whose slope angle in the mid to upper thirties. Moisture-laden winds funneled through Turnagain Pass dump snow and rain on Pyramid, and build the massive cornices that typically cap the west face. Once avalanches have swept down it, as they do every winter, snow reaches from Pyramid’s summit to Seattle Creek below, and generally crushes the alders on the lower mountain.

 From the summit, the devastation below is mesmerizing. Avalanche debris fills the valley, with remnant chunks left on lower elevations of the face. Pyramid’s west face is 3,500 feet tall, longer than most continuous faces or chutes that we get to ski. As a result, the scale is disorienting as massive debris piles look like snaking lines of white gravel neatly arranged by backcountry bulldozers along Seattle Creek. Only during the descent does it become evident how large both the debris piles and the chunks of snow are.

 Since Pyramid’s west face is such perfect avalanche terrain, many groups will aim to ski it after it has avalanched. As a result, the snow surface may be chalky or firm. It’d be an amazing line to ski in deep powder for those who have the avalanche forecasting skills to do it safely, but the debris piles below are a stark warning about the consequences of getting it wrong. Even a high speed descent seems to go on for a long time, with legs burning even before reaching the first chunks of avy debris that are left behind on the slope. For the lower 1,500 feet or so, better quality snow may be just to the side of the face in the trees, and off the chunder.

Few skiers and snowmachiners venture out past Seattle Creek in the vicinity of Pyramid. As a result, the end of a run on Pyramid’s west face puts skiers in a wild and remote place, looking downstream over the mouth of the creek. In the summer, this drainage is packed with brown bears. Fortunately, the skin back up to Seattle Ridge is easy and direct, following a mellow creek valley nearly due east. It is possible to climb back up this valley staying almost completely out of avalanche terrain. The entire west side of Turnagain Pass, including Pyramid, is open to snowmachines. Typically, snowmachiners do ride up the ridge to Pyramid’s summit, and rally around in the south bowl, but the area feels far less crowded than the well-used uptrack near the Seattle Ridge parking area.

Credit: Mike Records

The approach to Pyramid’s summit is not quite as straightforward as the return from Seattle Creek. Park at the first lot on the west side of Seward Highway as it climbs away from Turnagain Arm. This is the second parking lot beyond the arm, after the one that is adjacent to the large, decorative Kenai Peninsula sign. From this second parking lot, there is a break in the cliffs on the west side of the road, at a powerline cut. Follow the powerlines gently uphill for several hundred yards. In years with sufficient snow, this area will have numerous snowmachine tracks, some of which follow a corridor north toward Turnagain Arm, and most of which seem to head south toward Turnagain Pass. Skiers aiming for Pyramid will split the difference, heading more or less west through a band of spruce trees, toward the meadows of Pyramid’s east face. With the exception of a few densely forested areas, passage through the trees is not too difficult. From the meadows, it is an easy skin up toward Seattle Ridge, which connects to Pyramid--at least when the visibility is good.

Pyramid is situated to the west of Seattle Ridge, and accessing its summit means skinning along the ridgeline that connects them, or dropping down into the low angle bowl adjacent to it. From the car, it takes about three hours to navigate the trees, meadows, alpine slopes, and ridgeline to Pyramid’s summit. Plan on taking the same amount of time, or a little more, to return from Seattle Creek. It isn’t hard to get lost on the way back, and inadvertently follow a small drainage north as it parallels the Seward Highway toward Turnagain Arm.

Pyramid’s west face is one of many possible ski descents off the mountain. The gentle south bowl is another option, as is the steeper northeast bowl that funnels into an avalanche chute before meeting Turnagain Arm. Panoramic views of Wolverine, Kern and Peterson Creeks, 20 Mile, and the high peaks above Portage make a journey to Pyramid’s summit worth it regardless of the descent route. However, days are long, and the west face beckons. In spring, Pyramid can be a relatively leisurely trip. When avalanches have already swept down its west face, it’s time to ski on of the iconic descents along Turnagain Arm.