Chris Flowers and I both had last Sunday free, and decided to go skiing. It was clear that morning, so we took off in his Super Cub. Looking around the Chugach, we noticed Marcus Baker was clear so we had a look. It's hard to pass up the highest peak in the Chugach on a nice day, so we ended up landing around 9000' on a side glacier.
Above is pictured our route. We cramponed up hard old blue ice on the summit pyramid following the sun/shade line in the above photo...left of the prominent rib facing the camera.
Very firm neve transitioned to old, cold, hard blue ice. We were wishing we had brought some ice axes.
Below is Chris on top...we were in the Chugach Mountains, but could see peaks in the Wrangells, Alaska Range, and Aleutians
We've recently had some significant wind events, so not surprisingly the top few hundred feet was like concrete, but low enough angle to ski. Below that came the steep blue ice so we belayed each other skiing for 2 pitches, then did 2 rappels on our skis.
We got back to the plane after dark, but Chris didn't hesitate to launch. It was my first time flying off a glacier through the mountains in the dark, but everything worked out great as Chris had a good plan to turn off all the outside lights and fly above all the mountains straight back to Anchorage. Here we are, encroaching on Merril Field's airspace...back in the ANC.
Chris Flowers and I both had last Sunday free, and decided to go skiing. It was clear that morning, so we took off in his Super Cub. Looking around the Chugach, we noticed Marcus Baker was clear so we had a look. It's hard to pass up the highest peak in the Chugach on a nice day, so we ended up landing around 9000' on a side glacier.
Above is pictured our route. We cramponed up hard old blue ice on the summit pyramid following the sun/shade line in the above photo...left of the prominent rib facing the camera. 
Very firm neve transitioned to old, cold, hard blue ice. We were wishing we had brought some ice axes.
Below is Chris on top...we were in the Chugach Mountains, but could see peaks in the Wrangells, Alaska Range, and Aleutians
We've recently had some significant wind events, so not surprisingly the top few hundred feet was like concrete, but low enough angle to ski. Below that came the steep blue ice so we belayed each other skiing for 2 pitches, then did 2 rappels on our skis.
We got back to the plane after dark, but Chris didn't hesitate to launch. It was my first time flying off a glacier through the mountains in the dark, but everything worked out great as Chris had a good plan to turn off all the outside lights and fly above all the mountains straight back to Anchorage. Here we are, encroaching on Merril Field's airspace...back in the ANC.
