Pakistan 2007

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, plus I pretty much felt like garbage. It was an awesome trip, and the people we met in Pakistan were great, never an ill will except in the towns along the Karakoram highway where we had to keep down below the windows, and the time in Islamabad where we got caught in a riot and our driver just about had to run over some people to get us out of there before they realized we were Americans, and the hostage situation at the Red Mosque which was about 1km from our hotel.  We heard the automatic weapons and rocket fire in the middle of the night on that one. 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.

We flew on a 737 at 30,000' between Islamabad and Skardu.  For some reason we got invited to the cockpit to view the 8000m peaks that were eye level with us as we flew up the valley.

Latok IV

Little Karim in his kitchen at home.

A random mom and son walking along the road in Husche

Buckskin Glacier

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.

Happy to be on the Buckskin

Attempt on Moose's tooth line

 

Brewing up at the col between Moose's Tooth and Bear Tooth

Beginning the descent

Big League

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 significant 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.

Valhalla Peak

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, and also a little incident I had...my first ever fall in no-fall terrain.  Miles and I were descending from the summit with haste in declining light and conditions, and I was trying to keep up with him.  That was a huge mistake, as he's a much better skier.  If I'd have just skied at my own pace I'd have had no problem.  Both skis came off and followed me down as I slid and tumbled around 200'. I managed to self arrest, then a second later my ski hit me in the face as it was sliding fast down the fall line. Too bad I didn't have ski brakes. I'm proud that I was able to hang on to it despite nearly being KO'd. The other ski went in to a filled in crevasse and was easily retrieved with a belay, just downslope.  

 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

We skied Captain's Chair...

Valdez 2007

These are photos 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!!

Chickaloon Ice

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!

Here's me skiing along the ridge of Tincan on my way to ski 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

Jason Kwiatkowski, Heather Thamm, Karen Hilton and I departed on a trip to do some skiing and kiting on the South Patagonian Icecap.  We got dropped off at the Rio Electrico bridge and began the approach.  A couple days later we finally put on our skis.  We based out of the hut at Paso Marconi, which was great.  We had some great days kiting and skiing around, but didn't get on anything big.  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.

Some various phots of our trip to the South Patagonian Icecap. 

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 on Thanksgiving day.

At Paso Marconi is a hut, just inside Chile called Refugio E. Garcia Soto.  It's an abandoned science research station where climbers and skier stay.  The guides and locals seems to keep it up pretty well.  It's a great place to spend the frequent storm days.

Argentine boot dryer.

Camp at Cirque of the Alters, Cerro Torre in the background

Ready to Lauch

Jason with a heavy load on the way out.