Ptarmagain Peak

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

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

I had some time off with no plans and decided to make the drive to the Arctic.  Drove to Atigun Pass on the Haul Road and did a solo hiking trip, mostly looking for ridges to walk.  Feels lonely out there, but it's important to do solo trips.  A couple smoky days from fires somewhere.

My Friend Chad

My long time friend Chad Brown came to visit. We ran around the mountains in the rain, then we went and slayed halibut on a charter out of Homer. 77lbs in the freezer.

AK range 2005

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

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

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

Six Pack to Summit

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.  We spent one night on a beautiful ledge 2/3 up the route.  

Western Montana Posse

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

Deprivation

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

Above is a favorite photo of mine, it's Tom Wuthrich on the Middle Teton, Jan 2000. Below is me with the Grand Teton in the background.  Tom was an early adopter of digital technology, and this is the first time I'd ever seen a digital camera.