When Ian Seward picked up a hitchhiker on Mud Bay Road more than a year ago, the conversation drifted toward skiing.
Graham Kraft, who was bumming a ride into town from a piece of property he had purchased out Mud Bay, had been skiing all his life. Kraft had also fashioned his own makeshift ski press while attending school in Anchorage.
Seward, also an avid backcountry skier, had an 1,080-square-foot woodworking shop.
By the time…