Sports

Eaglecrest Ski Area in Juneau is in the finals of a Powder Magazine poll of favorite North American ski areas.

Called the Ski Town Throwdown, the contest is run on Powder Magazine’s Facebook page, where people from all over Canada and the U.S. have been casting votes.

The contest ends  at 4 p.m. on Friday.

So what does it mean to win the Throwdown?

“I think so much of it is just kind of this inherent, organic buzz,” says managing editor John Davies.

Last year Powder Magazine editors were looking for a way to rank North American ski areas.  Davis says a brain storming session turned hot,  “so we thought we kind of stumbled upon something because people are so passionate about the ski areas they love.”

They came up with a March Madness basketball-style championship with six rounds, where people could vote for their favorite mountain on social media.

Sixty-four towns in four geographic regions were included this year.  While Davis says selection was based on snow fall, skiable acres and the number of people that ski there, “we wanted the places that have the most powder. Like the best chance of skiing powder.”

In Alaska, Girdwood’s Mount Alyeska and Eaglecrest made it into the contest in the Great White North region.

Alyeska didn’t survive the first round. Eaglecrest, with four lifts, 640 skiable acres, and a summit elevation of 2,600 feet, knocked out Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia, the largest ski resort in North America.

The Throwdown is a measure of passion, and Davies says the passion displayed for Eaglecrest epitomizes the contest.

“It’s a way for communities to really rally behind their ski areas and their towns and show their support, and it’s been a lot of fun to watch.”

It’s “the little mountain that could,” Davies wrote in Powder Magazine online.

Eaglecrest easily got more votes than three other well-known Canadian resorts, beat the favorite of the Far East region, and is now against Crested Butte, Colorado.

“Just being recognized as a Ski Town Throwdown finalist by Powder Magazine readers is quite the honor,” Davies says, “and so with that will come lots of recognition through Powder as well as other media channels.

Eaglecrest general manager Matt Lillard says it will be tough to convert that recognition into actual buying trips to a  small city-owned ski area on an island in Southeast Alaska.

“We certainly don’t have a marketing budget that allows us to get out there like the big resorts do and promote in far away places, but it’s always a good start,” he says.

He plans to use the momentum to work with local businesses to create ski packages for anyone who might want to come to Juneau to ski.

“Maybe one day to come up and check it out will be on their bucket list of things to do.”

That would be Powder Magazine’s John Davies.  Since the Throwdown started in October, he’s received a lot of invitations to ski Eaglecrest, and says he expects he will someday, but so far, he hasn’t committed to a date.

The polls are still open in the Ski Town Throwdown contest between Eaglecrest and Crested Butte Mountain Resort.

Juneau’s small city-owned ski area has lagged behind the large Colorado resort most of the week, but you can vote once every 24 hours until 4 p.m. Alaska time on Friday.

The Powder Magazine contest started with 64 North American areas in four geographic regions.

Managing Editor John Davies describes the final round as a “dog fight.”

“Both Crested Butte and Eaglecrest have shown that they’re in this to win it,” he says. “My bet is that it’s going to come down to the wire.  I think we’re going to be glued to the Facebook ticker, watching the votes come in until late Friday night, when this thing ends.”

And that’s how you vote – on the Powder Magazine Facebook page.

The Juneau Douglas High School hockey team returned to Treadwell Ice Arena for a two-game series versus North Pole last weekend. The Patriots took two from the Crimson Bears, 4-1 on Friday night and 4-2 on Saturday.

All photos by Steve Quinn.

Juneau’s Eaglecrest is poised to be the most popular ski area in North America – at least according to the thousands of people who have voted in Powder Magazine’s Ski Town Throwdown.

Now the small city-owned area is up against the destination resort of Crested Butte, Colorado.  This is the final round in the contest, which started in October.

Beginning today, you can vote once every 24 hours through Friday on Powder Magazine’s Facebook page.  Voting ends at 4 p.m. Alaska time on Friday.

To quote Powder Magazine editors, Juneau’s Eaglecrest is definitely the “little mountain that could.”

The city-owned ski area has made it to the final round of the Ski Town Throwdown, knocking out Michigan’s Mount Bohemia.

Voting ended at 8 o’clock last night (Tuesday), with Eaglecrest garnering 4,569 votes to Mount Bohemia’s 1,811.

Mount Bohemia is a small ski area in the Upper Peninsula, and like Eaglecrest, it was not expected to get to the Final 4 of the magazine’s March Madness-style popularity contest.

The magazine started with 64 ski areas in four regions.  Eaglecrest – in the magazine’s words – is a Cinderella story.

It became the Great White North champion after getting more votes than the British Columbia ski resorts of Whistler/Blackcomb, Mount Washington, Red Mountain, Kicking Horse and Revelstoke, then beat the Far East champion, Mount Bohemia.

And in the words of the magazine, “the hearty Alaskan crew has its eyes on the finals and a shot at Ski Town immortality.”

Eaglecrest Ski Area will open for the season on Saturday.

It will be a limited opening with only the Porcupine chair spinning, but a chance to put gear in lockers, get season pass photos taken, and make a few shake-down turns.

The rental shop, grill, and Mountain Lift Coffee will be open, but the Snow Bus will not be running.

Snowsports School Director Jeffra Clough says a lot more snow is needed on the rest of the mountain.

“Staff has been up monitoring it, but Mother Nature just hasn’t given us quite enough yet. We’re able to make a little bit more snow on the bottom of Ptarmigan but we just need Mother Nature to help us fill in.  There’s a lot of gullies and open areas and rocks and it’s just not a safe environment yet, but we’re excited to have the porcupine chair open,” Clough says.

There’s plenty of precedent for a so-called soft opening, including last year when the city-owned ski area opened only the Porcupine area on the first Saturday of December.  That’s the day planned in the city budget.

Porcupine Lift will operate on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Meanwhile, voting is still underway in the Final 4 round of the Ski Town Throwdown.

Eaglecrest is paired against Mount Bohemia, a small ski area in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Both mountains got more votes in their respective regions in Powder Magazine’s March Madness-style popularity contest.

You can vote Tuesday until 8 p.m. Alaska time on Powder Magazine’s Facebook page.