Flight photos

I have been working since August for Guardian Flight, a Medevac service here in Alaska. We've had some awesome days in the air, flying over various random parts of the state. Here are some photos I've taken out the window. Below is the Prince William Sound with the Sargent Icefield above and left of the fuel tank.This is on a flight going from Fairbanks to Skagway. I think one of those peaks is Mt. Logan and the other is either Fairweather or St. Elias.

Looking down at Inner Lake George , on the climb out from Anchorage heading east...
More Chugach mountains...
Below is a photo of Anchorage with the Chugach Mtns in the distance, taken from somewhere over the Susitna Flats...

Chickaloon logging operations with Jon Cobb...

Arrigetch Climbing

Sam Johnson and I spent the second half of August in the Arrigetch Peaks. After some rain the first couple days, it was perfectly sunny and warm for the remaining 10 days. We flew in from Bettles via a vintage Beaver on floats, landing on Circle Lake pictured below. It's actualy more J-shaped. Our pilot Scotty from Brooks Range Aviation nailed the landing. Below is Sam on one of our reconnisance hikes. We climbed the striking sun/shade ridge in the backround, to the left of Sam. The formation is known as West Maiden, and the ridge is the North Ridge (5.9, ca.3000', grade V) first climbed by Bob Dugan and John Markel in 1982.

Camp 1, on the hike in...

Below the North side of the Maidens...the route being the prominent sun/shade ridge...After warming up on the N. Maiden, we turned our sights to Caliban, picured below. We were intrigued by the East ridge, which makes up the right skyline in the photo below. Our route was previously unclimbed, and involved 16 pitches and 4 rappels.

Below is Sam, starting up the 4th pitch of our route. We were forced to engineer our way around 2 of the towers in the backround, and climbed up and over the other two. It was a great route, and has excellent position as Caliban is the highest peak in the Arrigetch. Amazing granite, too!
We ended up calling our route Pillar Arete 5.10, grade V, 16 pitches and 4 rappels on route.

Anaktuvuk Pass to the Detrich River

Sally and I did a trip in early August, hiking from Anaktuvuk Pass to the Dalton Highway, in the Brooks Range. It was awesome...we covered about 60 miles in 6 relatively casual days, then hitch hiked down down the Dalton to Fairbanks. Below are some photos:

Below is the village of Anaktuvuk Pass, where we started. It's a subsistence community of about 300 people, mostly Alaska Natives. It's located on the continental divide, about 110 miles north of the arctic circle and is fortunate to have daily air service from Fairbanks.
Peregrine Pass and Grizzly Creek

Whiskey Gulch Fishing

Sally and I went down to Whiskey Gulch, near Homer, to go fishing with her Dad for a couple days this past weekend. We went out 2 days, and got 11 halibut and 3 king salmon...which amounted to 80lbs of king salmon and 90lbs of halibut between the 3 of us. We'll be eating lots of wild Alaska fish this winter. Below is Barry's boat, with our kings in it.

Sally and her 55lb king salmon
Whiskey gulch beach scene...

Sally and Barry with Barry's king...

Denali Skiing

This June my friend Patrick Knoll from Missoula came for a visit, and we spent 17 days skiing on Denali. Although the conditions were not particularly conducive to skiing, we had a great trip and did find some good snow. Below is the Talkeetna Air Taxi otter at base camp.
A pilot's eye view of base camp on the Kahiltna.On an acclamation day, we got to the 17K' camp and Patrick was feeling the altitude. He stayed there and helped the NPS rangers do some work, while I couldn't resist climbing and skiing the North Summit via the Black Rock Couloir. Below is a photo Patrick took of me climbing up.My view from the top of the North Summit...pretty much a perfect day.

A self portrait just before skiing the Black Rock.  After that I skied the Rescue Gully down to camp.

Looking down the Black Rock with my tracks. Notice also Mt. Foraker in the distance and the 17K' camp below.

Our summit day dawned stormy at 14K' camp, but we decided to go out for a ski, and check out conditions on the Orient Express. There was a lot of blue ice everywhere, but less in the Orient. Thinking we'd 'just go up a little further', Patrick left his skis at around 16,000' at some blue ice. When we got to about 18K', we popped out of the clouds and in to the sun. We couldn't help but want to go tag the top. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the summit ridge, we were in full storm conditions. Unable to see even our feet, and clinging to the ridge in over 60mph winds, we went as far as we could, then turned around....probably 400 or 500 linear feet out the summit ridge.  We may have been on the summit, but could only see a few feet, so we'll never know.  It was kinda disappointing in a way, but clearly a good decision since any error there would have been very dire.  I was glad I way-pointed our topout spot on the Orient with the GPS, route finding back across the football field in the poor visibility would have been tough and things were beginning to feel serious...but it all worked out. Since I had brought my skis all the way up there, I decided to ski from the Football Field, at around 19,500'. The Orient was very firm neve snow with a little blue ice, but still skiable...barely.  Below is me on the way up.And Patrick at a rest stop on the way up the Orient.  Thanks to Patrick, Alaska Mountaineering School and the NPS for the great trip.

Eklutna Traverse

My girlfriend Sally and I did the Eklutna traverse the other day, in a single 18 hour push from Crow Creek to Eklutna. The weather was tolerable, but certainly not clear. We had a great time, and moved fast. Here she is late at night, on the Whiteout Glacier.

Chamonix

A couple weeks ago I returned from skiing in Chamonix. It was great, though quite stormy with about 2 meters of new snow during the 18 days I was there. I only spent a couple nights down in town, opting instead to camp out up in the Valle Blanche, Alaska style. I met up with Greg Collins, who had been there awhile already.

Below is Greg skiing the Jeager couloir on the E. Face of Mt. Tacul after about a meter of new snow. 100kph wind and continuous spindrift preveted us from going to the tippie top. Great skiing though, about 55 degrees in one section but mostly less.Below is Greg rappelling in to the Cosmiques Couloir on our second good day. This is a very popular run, and sees hundreds of people per day since it's easily accessed from the Aiguille du Midi. Again, it had snowed another couple feet the night before, and we were the first ones in it that day. Unfortunately, Greg took a hard fall and a tumble while skiing, pulling a calf muscle...so he was done skiing for the trip. Greg skiing out the Glacier after the Cosmiques.The East face of Mt. Tacul. I focused my energy on some of these couloirs. The Jeager is the furthest right couloir , and looks like it doesn't top out on the ridge (but it does). I ended up skiing the Diablo Couloir, just below the sun .Greg had left so I took to taking photos of my stuff in various places. Finally it got nice and I skied the Giravasutti Couloir on Tour Ronde on a perfect sunny and windless day. The next day was overcast and very windy, but I managed to ski the Macho Couloir from Col du Diablo. It was very steep and rocky, and the snow was pretty crusty and bad. A lot of work for crappy skiing. The next day was sunny, but again windy. I climbed the Diablo Couloir on Tacul, which required climbing a couple water ice steps down low, then rappelling them on the way down. This photo is taken from the top, looking down about 1000m of 55 degree pencil hard snow.

Finally my last day and it's again tolerable weather. I'm tired, but I force myself out of the tent late and take off to ski Mt. Blanc. I end up doing the Mt. Blanc Traverse, which involves climbing Tacul, then Maudit, then Blanc. This photo is taken from the top of Mt. Tacul, with Madit in the foreground and the big Blanc behind. The line up Maudit is right up the sun/shade line, and ended up being really good skiing on the way back. It was a long day which made for an awesome end to my trip!

Valdez 2008

I had a few really great days skiing around Thompson Pass this past week, an area just outside Valdez. My friend Dayton and I drove around on several different glaciers, looking for fun stuff to ski...and a couple of the days Skine came too. We did a lot of exploring and route finding, and end up traveling to many areas that not even the heli skiers go very often. Most of the places we went were about 20-30 miles from the road, in the heart of the Chugach Mountains. Here are some photos:

This is me on top of one peak we skied. We came up the Tonsina glacier, which is below and left of my elbow. My Mom made the water bottle insuator!
We skied the peak just above and left of Dayton.
On the Tsaina Glacier...trying to decide what looks best.
Classic couloirs high on the Deserted Glacier

Party on the Heiden Glacier...Derek, Eli and some other folks from 19 and 46 mile.