Alyeska New Year's
As I've written before, there's just no place like Alyeska for New Year's. The highlights include the torchlight parade and the fireworks display.
Torchlight Parade: Give up your poles and replace them with a flaming torch. Head up the mountain in the dark and wait with the others to snow plow (or snowboard, semi-slowly and in a line... even harder) down "intermediate" slopes. I've participated and been a spectator and, either way, it's a great way to bring in the light of a New Year. Uploading on the chair will probably start around 7:30 PM (I will confirm within the hour) at the base of Chair 4. The actual parade will begin at 8:00 PM with the fireworks immediately following at 8:30 PM. This is an hour earlier than they used to have the event. It will be nice for the younger kids to be able to see the spectacle. This is our "4th of July" moment as fireworks in the summer in Alaska just don't have any impact. You can't see them because it is still too light to really see them (until August). So, hurrah for fireworks on New Year's Eve!
Before and after the parade and fireworks, there are several parties and dinner options to chose from in Girdwood. The Pond Cafe (inside the hotel) has a buffet open until 9:00 PM, the Sitzmark Bar and Grill (at the base of the mountain & Chair 3) is sold out with the popular, local band Photonz playing starting at 10:00 PM, and the Seven Glaciers (at the top of the tram, and the most "glitzy" of choices) may still have tables available for seating which take reservations through 10:00 PM for their prix fixe meal with paired wines and excellent service.
Other Girdwood options include the Double Musky (they do not take reservations, just cross your fingers and show up), Jack Sprat (way YUM), Chair Five (which will be packed, but many locals will be hanging out there), and Maxine's. Grab a Girdwood map at almost any business there and you will find a few other places.
With youg kiddo's, I am long past the days of the wild Girdwood after 10:00 PM New Year's bashes. We will go to Coast Pizza (at the entrance to Alyeska Highway) and grab some yummy gooey cheesy goodness and hunker down at a friends house until it's time for the parade and fireworks. It is in the negative temperatures, -3F in Girdwood, which is 10 degrees warmer than Anchorage right now, so I do not expect that we'll hang out much longer than it takes for those two events. We will then get a good night's sleep with the intention of taking our guys snowboarding and skiing with the help of the "magic carpet" the next morning. Watch for pictures in this blog in the next couple of days.
