Friday, January 01, 2010

Coolest parade ever!

One of the things I've wanted to do since I got to Alaska is attend the New Years Eve Torchlight Parade at the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood. Girdwood is only a 45 minute drive from Anchorage and every New Years hundreds of skiers and snowboarders volunteer to ski down the mountain while holding torches. Afterwards, they have a huge fireworks display. They do it at around 8PM, so everyone comes to this before going to their official New Years Eve celebration. It's a completely amazing sight...they turn off all the lights, and the further back you stand, you can see lights all the way from the very top of the mountain streaming down. I stood a little closer, so that I could actually see them skiing by at the bottom. Here are my pics, although it's really hard without a tripod to accurately capture the coolness of this! The top pic I found at a website describing the event as one of the top 10 New Years destinations. It gives a better sense of the big picture. I had no idea how many people would be there, as you can see there were plenty of crazy Alaskans up for it!

6 Comments:

Blogger julie g. said...

That is very, very cool.

1:36 PM

 
Blogger Duane and Jean Mathes said...

That had to be a beautiful sight. I never even knew they did that at Alyeska. Awesome!

12:25 PM

 
Blogger Beq said...

It looks amazing!!

I thought it was lava!

2:20 PM

 
Blogger laura said...

Thanks, yeah, it was so neat! Beq, the you tube video is pretty amazing, and totally reminded me of lava! (link on blog entry above this one!) Jean, you guys would love it!

5:29 PM

 
Anonymous Mom said...

I remember a Persian friend saying they'd done this somewhere in Switzerland...don't remember if it was just for New Year's Eve, or regularly. The ski guides and anyone who cared to join them. Makes me want to strap on skis again!

9:10 AM

 
Blogger laura said...

Yes, me, too! I'm going to go skiing my birthday weekend!

11:56 AM

 

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