Great Beard

Here's a photo of Great Beard, just outside Seward, which Jon Cobb 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 falling 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.  This marks my first lead fall ever on water ice.  It's my first day ever out with Jon...hope he doesn't get the wrong idea about me.

The gear that held.  I can't believe it.  

Also of note is the outstanding conditions of the road cut climbing area on the Seward highway, just a few miles outside Anchorage.  I had a couple good leads there...

Caribou Creek

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, which is new for me!

Crow Pass Skiing

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

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.

The route left of the glacier is Miter Mite, a classic

We found an old rusty crampon that would make a good coat hook.

Seattle Creek

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!

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). 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

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.