Ryan Hokanson

Mount Temple

2011-08-25T06:05:00.020-08:00

I finally got some time off from school, so recently Sam Johnson and I met up in Missoula for a quick trip to the Canadian Rockies. We managed to do one route, the Greenwood/Jones on the north face of Mt. Tempe (V 5.8 A1 ca. 4000'), easily visible from the Lake Louise townsite. I borrowed the photo below from the internet, Parks Canada website I think. It shows our route very well: the sun/shade ridge just left of the pine tree superimposed on the face. We considered the Greenwood/Locke, but 'The Dolphin' was rather melted out (more than in this photo) and subject to copious rockfall in the non-freezing temps. We decided the G/J was the only safe route on the face.
Below is Sam approaching the base of the face, with hundreds of acres of petrified ocean bottom looming above.

Lots of third classing...

Finally roped up, I think we did about 17 belayed pitches.

Still climbing on the bottom of an ancient ocean, Sam traversed to avoid a jellyfish...

Fortunately the rock quality improved as we got higher, the limestone gave way to beautiful quartzite...

We were glad to be on a ridge, safe from rockfall...

You can see the village of Lake Louise carved out of the trees behind Sam

Sam lead the crux pitch just as a thunderstorm was rolling through the valley. Luckily he got through it before the rock was too wet, but not before it got dark. I followed as fast as possible, and we immediately hunkered down on a small ledge until the rain passed. Amazingly, we never got the soaking we expected, despite being surrounded by dark clouds and verga. By that time we were dozing off, so we elected to just spend the night on the ledge and continue at first light. I guess our vacation-style 7am departure from the parking lot caught up with us.

The next day was beautiful and we quickly finished off the 4 remaining pitches. Here we put away the ropes and got out the crampons.
The timing ended up working out well since the snow was nice and firm...
On top...

In other hiking related news, Sam and I also walked in to the N. Face of Mt. Geikie, about a 35 mile round trip, heavy with full alpine climbing equipment. Pouring rain and lightning kept us from getting on the face, but the wildflowers were awesome. The mosquitos, not so much.

A little respite between squalls in the Tonquin valley, but not quite good enough to commit to a 5000' route.

On our way south to Missoula, we decided to check out a rocky ridge I had noticed many years ago in Glacier National Park. Unfortunately it didn't look nearly as good as in my memory, so we ended up carrying all our gear on a single push 25 mile traverse of the park. The highlight was seeing a wolverine, who paused for a photo about 20 feet from us as we were having lunch on Gunsight Pass. I think he wanted a sandwich, but all we had was cheese and crackers so he kept on moving.

This goat showed up and promptly fell asleep in the snow about 30 feet from us as we were taking a break on Lincoln Pass. He's the most friendly goat I've ever met.

Bean Bowers

2011-04-08T10:19:00.004-08:00

I've never written a post like this before, but I want to help spread the word about my friend Bean Bowers. Bean was skiing last December and broke his femur. During his treatment for that, it was discovered that he had advanced stage 4 cancer with metastasis to his brain, kidneys, lungs, and liver. He and his wife Helen are enduring all the worst (best?) cancer treatments imaginable while simultaneously recovering from a femur fracture, and need financial help. Bean isn't a lazy bum who now wants others to pay his hospital bills, but rather he had health insurance, and worked year-round...but this is overwhelming. In fact, Bean is one of the most energetic and motivated people I've met, which is one of the reason's I really want to help him out. Please read his whole story here...and donate.

I first met Bean back in 1996 I think, when we were both new guides for Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. We climbed and hung out over the years, and both moved to Bozeman at about the same time, as I started nursing school. Probably my best trip with Bean was a week of ice climbing in Glacier National Park in 2001 or so, unfortunately before I had a decent camera. The only photos I've got of him came from 2006 when we spent some time together in Patagonia. Below is Bean in typical weather at Paso Superior...

Bean, Greg, Rolo and Hans, on a day of skiing, somewhere south of El Chalten....
If you've ever felt fortunate to enjoy good health, and have the ability, please consider giving a few dollars to Bean and Helen. This could be any one of us...

December in Alaska

2011-03-26T06:03:00.007-08:00

Here are some belated photos from December skiing in AK. Sally and I went up for my Christmas break and had a great time catching up with family and friends. Here's Kellie Okonek dropping in...Sally skinning up on a typical day out...

I finally got to go skiing with Charlie Renfro, after more than a year of trying...
Cortney Kitchen and Tobey Carman, landlocked friends from Wyoming...
Sally at dawn...
And at dusk, just a couple hours later...
Jon Cobb and I spent some time exploring around the Mat valley...
Cobb...

Sam Johnson, Ben Chriswell, Cortney Kitchen and Sally stop for a break on the way up...
Sally coming through the alders...
Sam's dog Jennie spent the night of winter solstice near the top of Clive Peak because she was afraid to go down. We had to go back up the next day to get her, and luckily the skiing was just as good the second time. Jennie didn't seem the least bit phased, but she was certainly hungry!

Tobias Schwoerer and Luc Mehl engaged in the decision making process...

Hayes Range Video

2010-11-21T08:08:00.003-09:00

Inspired by the Copp-Dash award that Sam and I won, Sam single-handedly created this excellent video of our trip to the Hayes Range this past spring. Enjoy!

Hayes 2010 Expedition Video from Samuel Johnson on Vimeo.

Notch Peak

2010-09-24T06:48:00.001-08:00

School has been pretty busy lately, but before that I enjoyed a couple weekends of fun. I did a great route on Notch Peak with my one climbing partner in SLC, Jim Howe, a friend from our days guiding at JHMG.

Notch Peak is an incredible limestone cliff out in the West Desert, about 4 hours from SLC. It's about 4500' in total, but is broken in half by a very large ledge. The lower wall is about 2000' and the uppper 2500' or so, and it's roughly a 20 minute walk between the two. They're not quite directly above/below one another. Some people call this the biggest cliff in the western US, but the catch is that it's not continuous. Mt Siyeh in Glacier National Park is a continuous 3500', so that might win out...check it in Alpinist.

Regardless, we did a route called Western Hardman (IV, 5.11, 12 pitches, ca2000'), which was really superb limestone adventure climbing in an awesome location. I can't wait to do more of the routes here...it's like the big Canadian Rockies limestone routes but with bolted anchors...very civilized and safe.

Notch Peak:Jim on a ledge, 1 pitch below the top:
Above is the view topping out...the West Desert is a very satisfying place for a displaced Alaskan looking for some wilderness.
Above: Jim sending on pitch 11...below on pitch 5.
The weekend before that, Sally and I hiked Kings Peak, the highest mountain in Utah at 13,528'. It was a great day out, and we did the 25 mile, 4000' route in about 9 hours car-car with no running involved. We thought about running, but just ended up enjoying chatting and hiking...not needing to hurry with such nice weather. Below are some photos of Sal up high. Despite the looks of it, there was a nice trail most of the way.
The Henry's Fork tail (our route) comes from the trees in the upper left part of this photo...12 miles distant.

Wind Rivers

2010-08-31T08:31:00.010-08:00

Sally and I departed our beloved Alaska about a month ago and moved down to Salt Lake City so that for the next 2 years, I can attend Westminster University's Master's of Science in Nurse Anesthesia program .

Before school started, Sally and I went off to the Wind River mountains of Wyoming to escape the heat of Salt Lake. I've spent a bunch of time in the Winds back when I worked for Jackson Hole Mountain Guides and lived in Jackson...but was again amazed at their wildness. We did a 55 mile loop through the southern half of the range, spending most of our time above 10,000' and under clear skies.

One of my favorite parts was once again walking below Mt. Hooker. Back in 1998 Kirby Spangler and I completed a new route on the high and shady north face, and I hadn't seen it since then. Sally and I took a side trip to check it out.

Below is a classic Wyoming plains landscape...
Sally on the trail...

a pine martin...
Sally on the Lizard Head plateau, ca 11,600'
Sally pointing to East Temple Peak. We scrambled to the summit earlier that day...
Sally and me on top of East Temple. Behind us is the Cirque of the Towers and the rest of the Wind River Range.

Below is a better view of the two thousand foot N. Face of Mt Hooker, 12,504', with me and Kirby's route The Northwest Passage (VI 5.9 A3) drawn in red. There's a write up in the 1999 American Alpine Journal.

Hayes Range

2010-06-15T19:53:00.013-08:00

Sam Johnson and I just got back from 16 days in the Eastern Alaska Range, enjoying mostly warm, sunny conditions that allowed us to climb two new routes: The Direct West Face of Mount Hayes (V, AI3 R, 6500')...

(Photos and annotations above and below by Sam Johnson)

...and the North East Buttress of Mount Balchen (V, M6, AI4, 3500'):

We first flew in to the Gillam Glacier in late April, and after several days of double carrying large loads, stood at the base of both Mt. Hess and Mt. Deborah. Conditions were quite warm on both objectives, and we realized we were a few weeks late since the 'ice feature' we had been looking to climb on Hess was a waterfall visible from over a mile away up to about 11,000'! It turned out that Fairbanks was setting record high temperatures in the 80s during this time. We called Rob Wing of Wing's Air Service and got transported over to the Hayes Glacier. Below is Sam mourning the conditions and rock quality at the base of Mt. Deborah.
Rivers would appear on the glacier over the course of hours, forcing us to walk and ski through copious slush and water...which turned out to be a significant obstacle to traveling. In the background you can see a classic afternoon thunderstorm, which became a recurring part of our trip.
Rob Wing's excellent flying skills saved us at least a day of heavy load hauling since he was able to land us on the bare glacier ice high on the Hayes Glacier. In my non-pilot mind it was a gutsy place to land, but he nailed it perfectly 3 times in a row. The tundra tires seemed to handle the slush filled holes with ease...

Rob and his plane, below Mt. Balchen...

After moving up in to the basin, and spending a day looking through the spotting scope at objectives, we decided to get on the W. Face of Hayes. After crossing the bergschrund we climbed about 3000' of neve up to 55 degrees or so, to the beginning of the ice at about 10,000'.

The route ended up being easier than we thought it would, and we simulclimbed the 3000' of ice up to about 80 degrees. We crossed through a couple bands of rock, though I wouldn't call it mixed climbing. There were some seracs above us, but they were mostly off to the side and didn't threaten our route too much. Sam leading out...
Sam below...
My foot, and Sam on his way up...
Me leading up towards an interesting ice tower, through some terrible black rock. By this time our calves were wishing the snow stuck to the ice was thick enough to avoid front pointing...but sadly it wasn't. Photo by Sam Johnson...

Sam on his way to the summit ridge...
The summit ridge consisted of about 500' of easy neve climbing, depositing us on the summit. It was an awesome view, as we were in and out of the swirling clouds. We could smell smoke from forest fires (95 of them were burning in the state at the time) and the sun was very orange making for some spectacular ambiance. We descended a slightly different route, to avoid rappelling under any seracs, doing 16 or so rappels and 3500' of down climbing. We spent a total of 21 hours on the route and descent, including a 1 hour break on the way down to melt some snow.
Me on the first rappel with a smoky sky. Photo by Sam Johnson

Our 25 hour (camp to camp) day took it out of us, so we decided to take 3 days of rest to be ready for the next big effort on Balchen. More and more moisture was building every day, and on our climb day it was pouring rain when the alarm went off at 0300. We took another day off, then launched the following morning under partly cloudy skies. Below is Sam leading the first real pitch, 70 degree alpine ice with a bit of snow somehow sticking to it.

Below is me leading through the mixed crux...clouds building...

And me leading up more ice as the storm sets in...

We had been hearing thunder in the distance all day, a not uncommon occurrence on our trip, as every day thunderstorms would build over the flat lands to the north of us. It started snowing heavily, 2-3 inches per hour as we finished the route and began the snow climbing to the summit. As we neared the top, a loud thunder clap much closer than the previous ones occured, and all of our metal objects began aggressively buzzing and hissing. Despite being so close to the top, we decided to begin the descent. We began to take more notice of the 6 inches of new snow that had fallen in the past couple hours, as aggressive spindrift avalanches pounded us during the 14 rappels. After some concerning isothermic downclimbing, we made it back to the skis 17 hours after leaving them. The heavy snow and zero visibility made the crevasse maze difficult to negotiate during the ski back to camp, but we made it back in the wee hours, 22 hours after leaving camp. The whole next day it poured rain as we ate, slept and rested. Finally, it cleared the following morning as we packed up to hike to a gravel air strip 6 miles away.

The trip ended as it began...with 100lb loads...

Billy Mitchell

2010-05-19T09:30:00.012-08:00

My last ski vacation this season ended a few weeks ago in Valdez, where we had some marginal weather but also a few good days. First off, Jason Kwiatkowski, Tory Dugan and I skied from the shoulder of 7601. We should have gone to the top but had spent the first half of the day skiing elsewhere and were kinda tired. Below is Jason dropping in on a measured angle of 52 degrees. Then a bit of stormy weather kept us out of the high peaks, but on the next nice day we went to ski The Shovel, which is the pointy spire in the photo below. The run goes down the bowl from the summit, then out of sight behind the ridge, 3000+ feet to the road below enjoying Super deep powder. It can be seen prominently from 46 mile on the Richardson.
Tory with the valley below...
Jason...
Tobias Schwower below in the yellow jacket

Directly above Toby's head is a northish facing line we skied off a sub peak of Billy Mitchell...
Jason again...
Brian Totten via splitboard....
ssSince word on the street was that Billy Mitchell hadn't been skied from the true summit, Jason, Toby, Brian and I went went and did that the next day, skiing some surprisingly good powder right off the top, and down the NE ridge, about 6000' to the road below.

My skis on the summit...

Toby skiing from the true summit, with the northern rampart of Billy Mitchell and the Tiekel River valley behind.
A decent number of storm days kept us off the peaks, so we kept our sanity by creating a giant stack of firewood next to Tory's cabin:

Read Samuel Johnson's blog to hear about the award we won and our upcoming trip to the Hayes Range.

Mount Thor

2010-04-11T08:53:00.008-08:00

Tory Dugan, Chris Flowers and I spent a week skiing in the Talkeetna and Chugach mountains. Staying in Chickaloon, we'd pack all 3 of us in Chris's Super Cub and head off every morning looking for sun and good snow. We'd most often land at around 7000' and tour all day. Here's a few photos, starting with Tory enjoying some dry powder in the upper Coal Creek drainage.We skied off the summit below in the upper King's River drainage, then lapped it a few more times off the rocky face to the left via a hidden couloir...

Below is Tory skiing off the summit.
Chris enjoying the view down part of the King's River

One particularly sunny day, we decided to try and ski Mt. Thor, the second highest peak in the Chugach. Here we are parked at around 8000' on the upper Sylvester Glacier thanks to Chris's excellent flying skills.
Heading off...

Here we are skinning up the summit ridge after navigating the bottom 4000' of glacier and icefall...the Harvard Glacier and Harvard Arm are in the background...

Booting the final way to the summit. We skied off the 'south summit' which is overlooking the Harvard Gl, is 1/2 mile away, and I'd guess 50' lower than the true summit of Thor. Strangely, the USGS quad shows our summit as being over 12,300', which it clearly isn't. We were briefly tempted to crampon over to the true summit and back, but the the day was getting on and our urge to ski rather than crampon prevailed.
Chris on the way down...
Chris again, throwing up some snow. Amazingly, we enjoyed perfect powder conditions and good stability which is probably rare for the high Chugach.
Another day, this time in the Talkeetnas. Below is Tory with the Chickaloon Glacier in the background...

Then back to the Chugach in upper Coal Creek...

Pioneer Peak

2010-04-06T09:37:00.004-08:00

I'm still working on posting some photos from the past couple weeks of skiing in the Chugach and Talkeetnas, but wanted to report that the North Face of Pioneer Peak is in great ski condition right now. Yesterday I skied it from the notch where the arrow is pointing in the photo below (taken in Feb, 2007...things are just a bit snowier now). It was soft, powdery snow the whole way, except the bottom 2000' which was a bit more wet but still soft and carvable. It's rare that one can ski this face without rappelling, dealing with water ice, mixed climbing or breakable crust...but now is such a time! I was by myself, so there's plenty of snow left for other people. The snowpack was very thick, heavy and well bonded with no facets to be found.
Below is the view at the top of the run...6300 vertical feet, straight fall line to the Knik River below. The best part is that right now you can ski turns down great snow to within about 10' from your car. Travel conditions were excellent, taking me 4 hours 50 minutes to skin/boot up, and about 30 minutes to descend.

Valdez 2010- Part 1

2010-03-23T09:22:00.008-08:00

I spent a week in Valdez with a variety of people, skiing and exploring the area. Good weather for the most part, but even though less than perfect stability kept us off all of our objectives, we managed to ski every day. Here's Jason Kwiatkowski dropping in on an unnamed peak off the Tonsina Glacier...Below is Jed Workman getting ready to drop in to Meteorite...
Jason Kwiatkowski, Tory Dugan and Jed Workman booting up Meteorite. It got to around 55 degrees near the top.
Approaching Meteorite with the above mentioned personnell, plus Brian Totten...
Jon Cobb showing us he's actually a good skier, in addition to being a good climber...
Tory Dugan rides the Summit 800...high speed transport on the Tonsina Glacier...

Shopping for an objective...
The commute home after a good day in the Books...
Back at the roadhead after a day in the Iguanabacks...

Canwell Glacier

2010-03-13T09:56:00.000-09:00

Sam Johnson was heading back to Fairbanks at the end of his spring break, and we decided it would be fun to explore a bit around the eastern Alaska Range. We decided to try for a day of skiing up at the head of the Canwell Glacier, as we heard there was a "snowmachine highway" going up the glacier...below is Sam looking for the highway...
Booting a section above the Gakona Glacier...

We first tried to ski the peak behind Sam's head, but retreated due to questionable snowpack and ended up doing some lower angle touring...
Our self made highway on the ride home...

Kickstep

2010-02-05T10:34:00.006-09:00

Joe and I skied Kickstep Mountain the other day under perfect snow and stability condions, enabling me to take a rather austere entrance to the west face couloir. Photos by Joe Stock as noted. Below is me making my way through some steep rocks...

...in order to ski this...

Below is a photo I took of Joe entering the narrow portion of the lower couloir, just barely over a ski width wide at it's skinniest.

Early Season Skiing

2010-01-04T22:20:00.010-09:00

A few random images from the last couple months. The 3 photos below are from New Year's Day, when Ryan Campbell, Sherry Soltis and I climbed and skied the north couloir on King Mountain. It was cold, about -10F and very windy at the top...

A few days before that, Gabe Lydek and I skied a new couloir on Castle Mountain after booting up the standard Castle Couloir. It was steep and technical with interesting route finding...
A crew on a front range Chugach day...including Tobey Carmen and Courtney visiting from Fairbanks...
Looking out the inlet on a December day...
Sally booting up Peak 3 one afternoon...
Pretty sunset again...
Carl Tobin leading in to the tempest on his favorite route ever, Ptarmagain Peak...

Baird Glacier

2009-09-21T09:23:00.010-08:00

Last week my friend Lance was working some shifts at the hospital in Petersburg, AK, and had a few days off. He came up with the idea to fly in to the Devil's Thumb area for a few days, just to hike around and check it out. Though my finger is healing well, my whole hand is still very weak and so hiking sounded like a perfect trip. These first photos illustrate why it's always important to sit on the left side of any southbound flight out of Anchorage. Below is the Agassiz Glacier from 35,000 feet.

Next was an awesome view up the Malaspina Glacier, which abuts the Agasiz. Together they're about 40 miles across at the toe, at the bottom of this photo. Mount Logan is the sun lit peak in the distance, and Mount St. Elias is cut off on the left.
Next we flew with Wally from Temsco across Thomas Bay and about 10 miles up the Baird Glacier, shown below.
Wally flying, and a view up the North Baird...
Our best view of the Devil's Thumb was right when we were dropped off. The NW face...
Mount Oasis. Zac Hoyt from Petersburg was super nice and gave us lots of information, and helped lots with logistics. He's put up a route on this side of Oasis and reports excellent granite.
One day we hiked over the the Witches Cauldron, but didn't get a good view of the Thumb. In all we covered about 20 miles of terrain like this. The many hours of ice bouldering was good rehab for me...

Dieter Klose volunteered to pick us up at the ocean. He and his friend Ann arrived right on time at high tide. You can see the toe of the Baird Glacier in the distance. Dieter and Ann gave us a great tour of Scenery Cove, Thomas Bay and the Sukoi Islands on the way back across Frederic sound. Their boat, The Fang, seemed perfect for such an area.
Sea Lions on a buoy as we motored in to Petersburg.

Bagley Icefield

2009-05-09T23:24:00.004-08:00

Tory Dugan, Jason Kwiatkowski and I departed Anchorage on April 13, for a month of skiing and kiting on the Bagley Icefield...a huge icecap in the Wrangell St. Elias National Park.
We had amazing weather, pretty much sunny the whole time!
We managed to travel many miles with kites, and got a hand full of great ski descents as well...

We had mostly light winds, although one very strong session ended up working me over pretty good. Below is my kite control bar after a 20 minute battle with my kite. Fortunately I won.
We found mostly very poor snow stability, though we managed to ski one of the couloirs below...
Tory thinking it looks a little rocky...
Below is Tory getting ready to drop in...

We also skied a great peak about 14 miles west of Mount Saint Elias...called peak 9365. It featured 55 degree angles, many large crevasses and very firm snow conditions. Amazingly, it was sunny and calm on the summit, providing awesome views in every direction. Below is Jason on the down...
Skiing over bridges on 9365...
Below is Peak 9365. We skied the line just left of the rocks below the summit, the one just barely catching the sun. A classic steep ski mountaineering objective...
Kites in the air...

Kiting in to the setting sun...
Tory booting up another couloir...

Below is Jason, slogging with a smile as usual...

And Tory being Tory, of course...

Unfortunately, 15 days in to the trip I accidentally cut my right index finger with a pocket knife while modifying a water bottle. The cut was only 1cm long, but managed to cut my radial digital nerve and artery, as well as my flexor pollicus longus tendon. At first it was so swollen, I couldn't assess it properly. 5 days later, after the swelling went down, it was obviously not working. I called Paul Claus for a pickup, which I got 2 days later. I ended up having surgery in Anchorage 48 hours later.

In 20 days, we had traveled 100 miles and made 3 likely first descents, and perhaps the first ascent of Peak 9365. We'll probably never know for sure, and hardly matters. Jason and Tory carried on, got some better wind, making it another 80 miles to the lower Miles Glacier. My right hand is useless for 3 months, so I'm studying for the GRE exam and doing lots of trail running. Thanks to the Mugs Stump Award committee for postponing me and Sam Johnson's award to climb Mt. Logan until next year. Photo below by Sam Johnson: my finger, post-op.

Arrigetch Peaks Slideshow

2009-03-08T19:47:00.005-08:00

I should have put something up sooner, but I've volunteered to provide the 'entertainment' at this month's American Alpine Club Meeting. I'll be showing slides of the trip I did with Sam Johnson last August in to the Arrigetch Peaks of northern Alaska. 6:30 at the BP Energy Center.

Marcus Baker

2009-02-26T12:19:00.014-09:00

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.

Autumn

2009-01-05T22:38:00.008-09:00

I've been pretty lazy about posting photos this fall...but it's been a good one. It's been clear but cold here lately...I don't think it's been above zero for the past week. Below are a collection of photos from the past month...starting with Jason Kwiatkowski skiing in -20 conditions outside Girdwood. Going up 'Supercouloir'...decent skiing but whoever named it that has clearly never heard of Fitzroy.
Tanya Leinicke and Jon Cobb getting ready for the first pitch in Eklutna, with Bold Peak in the backround.
Bill Billmeier testing the strength of his new yurt at Bench Lake.
Me and Sally on the shortest day of the year...Turnagain PassSolars enjoys another day of ski touring.
Sally and Brita celebrate solstice
Jon Cobb clearing trail in the Talkeetnas
Jon and I making the best of 20 below...putting in trail.
More logging...
Target practice

Flight photos

2008-11-03T13:23:00.004-09:00

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

2008-09-01T11:40:00.003-08:00

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

2008-08-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

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

2008-07-15T20:38:00.014-08:00

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

2008-06-20T05:43:00.001-08:00

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.

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 decided to turn back around 100' from the top. 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. Below is me on the way up.And Patrick at a rest stop on the way up the Orient...

Eklutna Traverse

2008-05-14T09:32:00.005-08:00

My girlfriend Sally and I did the Eklutna traverse the other day, in a single push. 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

2008-05-14T08:20:00.015-08:00

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

2008-03-19T10:01:00.005-08:00

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.

Kotzebue

2008-02-07T11:04:00.001-09:00

I spent 3 weeks working in the ER at Maniilaq Health Center...the hospital in Kotzebue, AK. Kotzebue is located about 23 miles north of the Arctic Circle, on the Chukchi sea. It was very cold there, about -35 at 'night'. We got a few hours of sun every day, but it stays pretty low in the sky. It's actually quite dry there, and doesn't get much snow, but when the wind blows it creates very bad ground blizzard conditions that make travel impossible. It was an amazing place and I hope to go back this spring again, and get out hunting with some people I met there. Below is Easter and her little foster son Joe. Easter made a Parkee for me...and I spent a lot of time in her home with her and her husband.I worked 17 twelve hour shifts in 21 days, and that included flying back to Anchorage for 48 hours. I took all the following photos one nice day...my only day off while I was there. It's about -25 out. Below is looking out across the ocean towards the Brooks Range mountains and the Kobuk River Valley.

2 stroke graveyard
After days of intense wind, everything gets a good coating of rime.

Cold Boats

Arizona

2008-01-01T23:50:00.000-09:00

This past holiday season, I went to Arizona to visit my Mom and her husband Rick. It was a great time to get out of AK, and enjoy some warmth. My Alaska friends Skine, Glen and Anna were also down in Arizona visiting family, so we all met up and went rock climbing for a week at Cochise Stronghold. Below is a photo of Baboquivari, which Skine and I soloed an easy route on...up the left skyline.Below is Sheep Head, a formation we did a bunch of routes on. Great sunny, warm climbing.
Glen's Dad and family live nearby, and came out with a bunch of horses one day. I leared a lot and will hopefully get to do more horse riding. It's an interesting way to travel!

Big Chief

2007-11-30T21:48:00.000-09:00

Today we skiied Big Chief, with pretty good snow conditions. We skiied nearly 8000', including a bonus run off Seattle Ridge. Here's Kellie and Hugh on Seattle Ridge, above Turnagain Pass. Big Chief is the pointy peak above and right of Hugh's head. We skied the N. Face, behind the right skyline.Arriving at the summit of Big Chief
Hugh on the way up, with Seattle Creek and Turnagain Arm (the ocean) behind.
Kellie on the way up Seattle Ridge. Our car is below at the pull out, and all the sunlit slopes behind are excellent skiing.
Hugh on Seattle Ridge, getting ready to drop in.

Pakistan 2007

2007-08-22T16:51:00.001-08:00

Just returned last week from a great trip to the Latok group, in the Karakoram of Pakistan. Jermey Frimer, Ken Glover, Sam Johnson and I spent 3 weeks there trying to climb granite mountains. We had pretty bad weather overall, only two high pressure windows of 4 days each, where travel was possible above 5000m or so. Lots of good exploring with the spotting scope, bouldering, scrambling, acclimatizing...but no important summits. Sam and I made two good attempts on an unclimbed line on Latok II. The first one with Ken was an 18 hour push, where we were turned around by rock fall and altitude. A day later Sam and I tried again and ended up climbing about 1000m of ice to a camp at 5900m, and spending 3 days and 2 nights there waiting for good enough weather to go to the summit (7108m)...but too stormy. It was an awesome trip, and the people we met in Pakistan were great, never an ill will. I'd love to go back. Next year Inshallah!

Welcome to Pakistan!

Balti porters, the guy in the blue sweater always looked pissed, but he was still nice.

Rajabazar, which is a huge market in Rawlpindi. We walked around here for hours looking at all the stuff.

This is your standard Pakistani truck, used for transporting anything and everything. Almost all of them are decorated like this.

Here's our basecamp at 4500m, or almost 15,000' elevation. Nice to have grass and running water when you're surrounded by glaciers!

Sammy taking a break on Latok attempt #2. We enjoyed great ice conditions on the way up, and were able to quickly solo up 3000' of this stuff.

Ken got the flu on the 3 day hike in, so Jer and he stayed back to rest...which left Sam and I to acclimatize together. We climbed a couple peaks up near Latok IV, scrambling some nice granite features up to 5.7, and sleeping on the summits in clear weather, at about 5500m. This was our first high pressure window, warm and sunny every day.

Sam up high somewhere. To his left you can see where two glaciers come together, and our basecamp is located right where they merge, right up against the rock butress.

The west face of Latok II.

Our camp at 5900m on Latok II, where we spent 3 days and 2 nights waiting for good weather to go higher.

Cruising around the glaciers on a hot sunny day.

Here's Ken just below our mixed climbing crux on attempt #1. It was pretty spicy, but with good gear. Unfortunately we found a large amount of old fixed static rope and poly cord left by the Huber brothers on their previous trips to the W. Face. Bummer.

Advanced base camp, near the base of Latok II.

Sam at the bottom of our last rappell, after bailing from our 3 days at 5900m. You can see the bad weather, and seracs above! Yikes!

The weather was bad enough we ended up leaving basecamp a couple days early, to make time to visit Husche, the home of our awesome guide Little Karim. Here's Sammy having fun with some school kids.
Here's our legendary guide Little Karim, in front of the peak Jer and Ken named after him. Luckily, those guys actually climbed something while Sam and I were suffering on LII. They ended up climbing the ridge on the right, leading to the highest summit. A link to a write up of that to come soon.
A random friendly guy we met in Husche.

A village near Husche, and the home of Abaas, another friend we made. We had lunch here at his house with the Canadian women't expedition we were traveling with, as Abaas was their guide on the Choktoi.

Buckskin Glacier

2007-05-24T14:12:00.001-08:00

Chris Gibisch and I just spent 3 weeks on the Buckskin Glacier, climbing various things. Above is the S. Face of 8010, where we climbed the right-leaning chimney system that leads directly to the summit. We did 10 pitches of fairly difficult climbing, and got to the top in a raging snow storm. We saw no signs of previous parties, and rapelled the route.
Above is Chris standing at the base of the Couloir between the Mooses Tooth and Bear's Tooth. We climbed this gulley to the ridge at night, then spend the next day trying (unsuccessfully) to summit the Bear's Tooth. We slept and ate in the sun, waiting for it to get cold again so we could begin our descent safely. It looks short, but the route is over 3000' tall!
Above is Chirs leading a pitch on 8010.
This is the Bear's Tooth (left) and the Mooses Tooth (right). We climbed part of a route on the Mooses Tooth that consists of a right-trending chimney system above the biggest snowfield at the bottom. We went up about 3500' before being turned around about 400' below the skyline ridge by warm temps.
Me and Chris after realizing that we had gone through half our whisky supply only 5 days in to the trip. Ooops!

Chris having fun on one of our stormy attempts.

Big League

2007-03-28T22:47:00.001-08:00

Miles and I skiied Big League the other day, which consisted of shin deep light powder snow over a very stable snowpack. The run has some cliffs in it, so it's important not to ski it when there's a possiblity of avalanches. An awesome day, although I had to talk my way out of being arrested when I entered Alyeska Ski Area to get back to my car. Apparently you're not allowed to do that...state law or something.

Left is Miles just after jumping off the initial cornice, with the ocean in the backround. If you look closely you can see our tracks in this photo. The whole face is almost 4000' tall!

Valhalla Peak

2007-03-20T22:47:00.001-08:00

On March 20th, Christian Beckwith, Miles Raney and I drove 3 snowmachines 50 miles up the Nelchina Glacier to Mt. Valhalla. The next day we went to the top and skiied down some very icy, nasty terrain. Some of the worst skiing I've ever done, with a few decent turns thrown in. It was -30 F per thermometer on the top, and blowing a good 40-60mph. Difficult to even stand up on the top. We made it down just fine, except for a little frost nip. The machines had difficulty starting 2 days later when the storm was over and we wanted to leave. Mine ran so poorly that we had to abandon it on the glacier. I've since gone back and retrieved it. An amazing place with a lot of skiing potential.

My face got smashed with a ski but I'm OK now.

Captain's Chair

2007-03-18T22:47:00.001-08:00

We skied Captain's Chair...

Valdez 2007

2007-02-20T21:36:00.001-09:00

These are photos of Kelle, taken over the last 5 days skiing on Thompson Pass, near Valdez AK. We enjoyed (mostly) sunny days and stable snowpack, allowing us to ski a few really good lines. The W. Face couloir (one of them) on Diamond was full of light powder, and skiied really well all the way to the Richardson Highway...a 6500' run! We also skied RFS and Python from the tippie top...all with great snow. The best part was that there were no Helicopters yet!!

Python

2007-02-16T00:50:00.000-09:00

I thought these photos that Kellie took of our run down Python were cool. That's me at the very top.

Chickaloon Ice

2007-02-01T13:03:00.000-09:00

Jon Cobb, Jed Workman and I went ice climbing up the Chickaloon River. Driving the snowmachines up the river was pretty straight forward, but then while hiking up a side creek to some climbs, Jon fell about armpit deep in fast moving ice water. Unfortunately, he lost both of his ice axes under the ice, despite going back in the water (neck deep) twice to look for them. Her perservered though, and ended up doing a couple climbs despite being wet.

Welcome to AK!

2007-01-24T14:09:00.000-09:00

Here's me skiing along the ridge of Tincan. Kellie and I skied the line straight down from the highest summit visible...called Tincan Proper. An excellent 2400' line covered in 80cm of 4% powder...kinda unusual for costal AK.

Campo de Hielo Sur

2006-12-29T02:27:00.001-09:00

Some various phots of our trip to the South Patagonian Icecap. We had a fair amount of bad weather, but only were tentbound for 4 out of 18 days....which is pretty good by Patagonian standards.

Below is Karen kiting in front of Cirque of the Alters. Cerro Torre is in the cloud just behind her kite.

Above is Heather, just cresting Paso Marconi at about 9pm. This day was a long push, and our first on the icecap.

On our way to Lautauro, Heather fell in a crevasse!

Refugio Frey

2006-11-08T07:41:00.000-09:00

Above is a photo of Refugio Frey, where Heather, Jason and I stayed for 4 nights. We skied a bunch of the couloirs in the backround. Two of the nights, different groups of high school students stayed there (in a different building, thankfully) and were fun to talk to. It seems that an iPod transcends culture, and is a great icebreaker. They insisted on a chess match with me, which consisted of all 42 of them packed in a small room watching the game. They all clapped when I came in, and I promptly lost to their gym teacher who seemed quite skilled. We experienced hot, sunny weather...classic spring skiing conditions. Everyone is very nice and Argentina is awesome. I crashed this computer by trying to add 3 photos, so this one is all for now. We are headed to Calafate in 1 hour via bus...30 hours enroute. Lots of time to study spanish. More later....

Mt. Siyeh

2006-09-06T06:50:00.004-08:00

Chris Gibish and I recently completed a new roue on the north face of Mt. Siyeh in Glacier National Park, USA. We climbed a route that topped out left of the summit. Here's some photos of Chris after a rather loose section, one of the N. Face from the approach and once on the summit. We didn't really name our route, it was more of an upward bail off our intended line which we decided we weren't equipped for (hard nailing and such). We also experienced a water container leak, which helped inspire our change in plans and lead to a very thirsty night on route. Fortunately there was a wonderful summit snow field that quenched us the next day. I'd call our route Grade V, 5.9+R 3000'....very chossy adventure climbing.

2009 Update: Kelly Cordes did a little write-up of Siyeh in the Alpinist, issue #27 (Summer 2009). Our roue is marked in the photo.

Mt. Alberta

2006-08-29T16:59:00.001-08:00

Chris Gibish and I climbed the NE ridge of Alberta last week. Climbing the route and decending took 17 hours from the Mt. Alberta hut and back. The route was fairly icy, since it had snowed 20cm 5 days earlier. An excellent route with a wide variety of climbing. Some people who came by on the way to the Japanese route said that we were the first people to reach the summit this year. Fun!Below is Chris starting up the water ice section.

Howse Peak

2006-07-26T11:53:00.001-08:00

Chris Gibbish and I climbed the NE Buttress of Howse Peak last weekend, located in the Canadian Rockies. We spent one night on the route, about 2/3 of the way up, a second night on the decent, and arrived back at the car the morning of the third day. The route covers about 4000 vertical feet and follows the prominent buttress directly below the summit.

Ski Kite Invitational

2006-07-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Last week a group of us spent a few days ski kiting on the Harding Icefield, outside Seward. My friend Jason put it together, the first annual Ski Kite Invitational. Below is Jason cruising back to camp after a day cruising around the icefield. Kellie and I skied 2 very steep lines on the nunatak just above his kite, which is about 3 miles away...but easily accessable with some wind. Below is looking out across the icefield. It's just flat snow to the horizon, and past. The whole Harding is about 30 x 50 miles of snow and ice. HUGE!
Heather flying a 5 meter Ozone Frenzy in high winds
Mountain Anarchy

High Sierra Skiing

2006-05-20T10:03:00.001-08:00

Here are a few photos from my recent trip to the Eastern Sierra. My friend Kellie and I spent about 5 days skiing steep couloirs in the Palisades area. Below are the Underhill Couloirs...short but steep. Below are U-Notch and V-Notch couloirs, both had good firm but carvable snow...

Below is Kellie skiing thunderbolt couloir...A bergschrund with the left Underhill couloir in the backround...
Mount Agassiz...we skied the line from the snowy shoulder left of the summit.
Kellie entering the right Underhill couloir...pretty steep!
Hiking up V-Notch couloir...

Mt. Ascension

2006-04-11T09:50:00.000-08:00

Mt. Ascension...skied the couloir left of the summit.

Placer River

2006-03-30T07:43:00.000-09:00

The Placer river valley is open to snowmachines now, which means that one can drive a snowmachine up the river then up one of several side valleys containing huge mountains and glaciers. Yesterday Ivan and I drove up to the head of this valley and did some awesome skiing. It was my first time using my new (used) Polaris RMK. It worked great, and I got it up to about 65mph going down the glacier.

Valdez Skiing

2006-03-28T10:25:00.000-09:00

Just got back from an awesome bunch of days skiing in Valdez. I met a bunch of great people and enjoyed day after day of clear weather. Above is Kellie skiing a run with Mt. Diamond in the backround. Below is the E. face of Staircase...we skied a bunch of the couloirs shown.

The photo to the left here shows us approaching staircase, and at the bottom is us approaching Promise Land, another awesome area. We skied a bunch of lines on the shady face. Not visible in any of these photos is the 2000' approach from the road, which gets you to the base of the runs. It makes for a big last run of the day. Fun!

Alpenglow

2006-03-17T11:10:00.000-09:00

Here are some photos from the top of Alpenglow the other day. It was the last 12 hours of our 9 day high pressure spell.

I traveled up the obvious sun/shade ridge in the photo below, then skied the shady face below the summit. This photo was taken from a point about half way between the car and top.

Valdez Ice

2006-03-03T10:48:00.001-09:00

I've been slacking on posting lately, but in the beginning of March I went to Valdez with Jon, Tanya and Lynn for some ice climbing. We had great conditions, sunny days and cold temps. To the left is Jon and Tanya on Big Brother, and just below is me on How to Make a Monster. At the very bottom is Wowie Zowie, which was in awesome shape at WI5+...it's usually a 6 I guess. Hopefully Jon will send me his photos of me leading Twisted Sister and I'll post them here.

Twin Peak

2006-02-21T09:52:00.000-09:00

Rachel, Tory and I skied Twin Peak yesterday, near Turnagain pass. Here's a photo or Rachel taken from the summit. We skied the shady face to the left of her...about 3500' of continuous fall line right down the couloir between the two summits.

Chickaloon River

2006-02-14T11:17:00.000-09:00

Here's a few photos from our climbing trip up the Chickaloon River the other day. Fortunately, Jon knows how to ride a snomachine!

Hunter Creek Ice

2006-02-07T23:51:00.001-09:00

Here's a route we did up the L fork of Hunter Creek today. Glen took these photos of me leading. We did the middle line in the photo showing 3 ice formations. We thought it was maybe WI5+, but who knows...only about 100' long.

Salty Nuts

2006-02-03T18:08:00.000-09:00

Here's a couple photos of a route Jon Cobb and I put up the other day, down by the We Need wall in Portage. Below you can see me leading a great (previously climbed) route to the left of our route. The other photo is of me drilling one of the 3 bolts we installed on our route, which goes up pretty much straight above the drill I'm holding above my head. We called it "Salty Nuts" and it's probably somewhere in the M7 range. It's about 80' and we placed a new 2 bolt anchor at the top which can be easily used for the route to the left. Excellent!

Great Beard

2006-01-16T17:43:00.000-09:00

Here's a photo of Great Beard, which Jon 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 going 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.

Caribou Creek

2006-01-09T22:30:00.000-09:00

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!

Crow Pass Skiing

2006-01-06T15:38:00.001-09:00

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.

Eklutna Glacier

2005-12-14T02:19:00.000-09:00

My friend Ivan and I went in to the Eklutna Glacier area to climb for a couple days, but experienced very warm temps, freezing rain and several inches of new snow. We were unable to climb most of the routes but were able to do the route just left of Serinity Falls, several pitches of fun WI 4. I took this photo on the way in, about13 miles via 4-wheeler. We're headed for the deep valley near the center of the picture, this is about 1pm.

Seattle Creek

2005-12-03T12:08:00.000-09:00

Here's a couple photos of the couloir Torry and I skied the other day. It was a beautiful sunny day, but this particular run was north facing and shady. It was a great line with minimal avalanche danger and about 20' wide in spots. Definetly the best run of the year so far.

Snow!

2005-11-28T09:52:00.000-09:00

I returned to Alaska and found blue sky, negative temps and several feet of new snow. Five of us went to Hatcher Pass skiing yesterday, and it was excellent. The avalanche conditions are very bad right now, with many slabs running to the ground. The photo below shows a slide probably triggered by skiers on the ridge above. The snow was collapsing everywhere we went with much noise and shooting cracks. A good time to stay out of the gullies! Fortunately there are some good, safe, low angle runs to do. The six of us tracked this ridge up (in the photo below), then Rachel and I went up and skiied another one to the left. The photo shows the top half of the run, which was about 2200' total. It's still early season and I did hit a few rocks, but fortunately since it's mostly tundra, it's not too bad. Hope for more snow soon!

Ptarmagain Peak

2005-10-30T21:57:00.000-09:00

I climbed the N. Face of Ptarmagain Peak yesterday to look for ice. There are just a few thin smears on the N. Face, but nothing big yet. My route followed the thin gulley to the left...mostly easy WI3 steps with an exciting 100' exit consisting of snow covered slabs, maybe M5...then on to the top via snow covered choss hiking. The view from the top was awesome, although I couldn't get the panoramic stitch I took to load on this site. This peak is about 4 miles from my house, and you can see in the bottom photo (taken from the summit) mountians stretching without a single road or town for 300 miles. This is why I love Alaska.

Moose Hunting

2005-09-22T15:45:00.000-08:00

Last week my friend Kirby Spangler and I did a raft trip down the Matanuska River, to hunt for moose. We saw lots of cows but no bulls, and so didn't get a moose. We had a great time camping on the river, rafting, and sneaking around the woods with guns. Below is the Mat river and the main area we were hunting to the left of the river. I hiked to the top of the canyon wall to take this photo. For perspective, the river bed (the part with no trees) is about 3/4 mile wide. This is another photo of where we hunted the most. You can see it's pretty stormy up the valley.
Here's Kirby rowing the raft. It was pretty much a one person job, so I just kicked back and took photos.

Brooks Range

2005-08-24T13:24:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from the Brooks Range the other week. It was a smoky trip...

My Friend Chad

2005-08-03T01:45:00.000-08:00

My long time friend Chad Brown came to visit. He made me run around the mountains in the rain, then we went and slayed halibut near Homer. 77lbs in the freezer.

AK range 2005

2005-06-02T23:16:00.000-08:00

This was my only trip to the AK range this year. I took Lodewijk DeVink on a 6 day mountaineering course for Alaska Mountaineering School (www.climbalaska.org). It was a great trip, and Lodewijk went on to have a great Denail climb including a summit. Here are some photos from our trip, including AMS intern Jared Brooks wacthing Lodewijk try to get himself out of a crevasse.

Here's a middle school band that flew on to the glacier and played some songs for everyone hanging out in basecamp.

Eklutna Canyon Ice

2005-01-20T23:53:00.000-09:00

These are some routes we did in Eklutna Canyon this past winter. I think the one on the top, and two of the pitches in the bottom photo were FAs. I'm posting them here to see if anyone else out there knows if they've been climbed.

montana flying

2004-04-13T01:33:00.000-08:00

A good day flying off Mt. Jumbo...Missoula, MT

Six Pack to Summit

2004-04-01T21:06:00.000-09:00

Edwards Mtn, Glacier National Park. Climbed this with Chris Gibbish of Missoula at the end of March. Climbed the obvious large ice climb that drains from the big bowl (Six Pack), then traversed up and left to the sunny ridge, then to the summit. Fun and not very committing.

Western Montana Posse

2003-12-30T16:49:00.000-09:00

So much drama in the GNP. Patrick Knoll throwin'up his set after the first ascent of Showerhead, 600' WI4 in Avalanche Lake.

Deprivation

2003-06-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

Evan Howe and I climbed Deprivation on the N. Buttress of Mt. Hunter to the Bibler Exit on the Moonflower. At that point a storm moved in and without bivy gear, we decended 20 rappels through the night. Below is the route from afar. Our route went up the buttress just above the person in the photo, just a hair to the right. The Bibler Exit exits the highest rock band to the triangle-shaped 60 degree ice slope above.

This is me leading one of two crux pitches, vertical unprotectable
snow. Evan lead the pitch after this, which was the other crux pitch. Both were 200' long. His started with ice then went to pure rock climbing with some shoddy protection.

Here's the buttress after we got back to the ground, about 15 hours after leaving. Note all the new snow! That little dot at the bottom, far right is Evan putting his skis on. It's about 3am.

Tetons

2000-01-25T15:34:00.000-09:00

Above is a favorite photo of mine, it's Tom Wuthrich on the Middle Teton, Jan 2000. I'll try to post some of my other favorite Teton photos here soon.