Great Beard

Here's a photo of Great Beard, just outside Seward, which Jon Cobb and I climbed the other day. As you can see, the ice isn't fully fomed up so I led up the rock to the climber's left of the hanging pillar. After tediously installing numerous pieces of protection in the rock, I climbed out on the ice which was very steep and technical. At that point I was wishing I had been using my leashes since I got very pumped and was unable to hang on to my tools. I ended up falling about 20' while my tools stayed where I left them. We climbed an easy route nearby and rapelled in to get my stranded gear, and of couse climbed it without too much trouble on TR. This is probably the best piece of WI in South Central AK that I've seen this year.  This marks my first lead fall ever on water ice.  It's my first day ever out with Jon...hope he doesn't get the wrong idea about me.

The gear that held.  I can't believe it.  

Also of note is the outstanding conditions of the road cut climbing area on the Seward highway, just a few miles outside Anchorage.  I had a couple good leads there...

Caribou Creek

Here's a couple photos of a route I did today with my friend Britta. It's about half way between the parking lot and West End Creek (kids corner or whatever) up Caribou Ck, on the right side as you go up. I've never seen it form before, and there were no signs of cleaning or slings at the top. I'd call it hard M6 or maybe easy M7, about 90'. Super sweet...and leashless, which is new for me!

Crow Pass Skiing

Just today I got back from a couple days of skiing near Crow Pass. My friend Tory and I slept up there on the pass for a couple nights, and had a great time skiing. The first day we skied up there, dropped off our sleeping gear, then skied a 3000' line off of Magpie Peak, the top portion of which is pictured below.

The photo below is of Tory skinning up near the top of Magpie. If you zoom in you can see the Crow Pass Hut in the sun, straight right of his head. The leftmost peak on the skyline is Rook Peak, which we skied yesterday along with South Raven Pk, just to the right of it. More photos below of that. Below is a photo taken yesterday am, on our way from the pass over to ski Rook ( on the left) and S. Raven (on the right). We boot packed up a couloir on the rocky face visible in the photo, then skied it. Then we skied across the Raven Glacier and up the back side (out of view) of S. Raven, then skied a couloir on the visble rocky side of S. Raven. Got back to the pass just as it was getting dark at around 5pm. Two awesome peaks in one day!!Below is Tory skiing the very top our line on Rook Pk. It's a beautiful couloir that starts right at the summit and splits the whole face and is visible from Turnagain pass, about 15 miles away. The bottom photo is him a little lower, in the couloir proper. Our approach tracks are visible on the glacier below.