Last trip of the year...

I am back in Anchorage for the winter. My last trip in the Wrangells for the season was with Alonzo from Denali's backcountry crew. We flew into the toe of the Copper Glacier where we landed on the smooth river bar. We spent a few days exploring near the glacier. We hiked up a canyon with tall steep walls. At one point I could touch both walls of the canyon at the same time. The walls soared more than a hundred feet straight up. After exploring we floated down the Copper River in packrafts all the way back to the ranger station in Slana. Most of the float was pretty straight forward. It took two days of floating to reach Slana with only a couple of pretty rough sections, maybe class II+ or III.

I finished my season in Slana and now I'm back in Anchorage. I'm working until the end of November and Angela and I are planning a trip to Las Vegas for New Years with a week of rock climbing in Red Rock Canyon and a week in Joshua Tree. Then its back to Vegas and a flight down to Nicaragua. We will be in Nicaragua for a little over three weeks. We're planning to spend some time on the beach and maybe climb a volcano or two as well.

Here are a few photos from my trip with Alonzo.

The dropoff point near the Copper Glacier.

This is the canyon we explored.

The inside of the canyon. It was really hard to get a decent photo of the canyon.

Alonzo on the Copper Glacier.

Alonzo and I getting ready to put in on our first day of floating.

Looking south at Mt Wrangell and the Copper Glacier from our put in.

Nice view while floating down the river.

Floating the Copper River.

Gratuitous hero shot!

Purkey Pile to Wonder Lake

I was able to return to Denali to do a patrol with a couple of rangers that I worked with for many years. I joined them for a patrol from Purkey Pile (on Boulder Creek at the far western edge of Denali Park) all the way back to Wonder Lake. We drove out to Kantishna and then flew out to Purkey Pile. We started hiking almost immediately and continued hiking for eight days. We crossed big rivers, hiked across broad tundra plateaus and suffered through dense brush. One night the bugs were so bad we used headnets and then a few days later we got snowed on. We got a little bit of everything on this trip. The weather wasn't great but it always seemed to be just good enough. We did get incredible views of the mountains on a couple of days but it was usually only for a few minutes and then the clouds would move back in. The trip took us eight days and I think it was about eighty miles long. I was really lucky to be able to go back to Denali to do one of the trips I've always wanted to do.

Mt Foraker from the west.

Alonzo packrafting across the Swift Fork of the Kuskokwim River.

A brief break from the brush.

Hiking along through the brush and rain.

Mt Foraker with our tent.

Alonzo with Denali in the background.

The weather did not always cooperate. I used a compass on this trip more than I ever have before.

Alonzo, Jess and myself above Iron Creek with fresh snow behind us.

Denali from the McKinley River Bar, near the end of the trip.

Another great trip!

Summer is starting to wind down up here in Alaska. Fall has officially arrived with the start of hunting season and the colors are changing. I really wish that I was getting ready to jet out of here to some exotic locale with cheap food and incredible climbing, but its not to be this year. I'm staying put for a few months and trying to save money for our trip to Egypt in January. I'm not a very big fan of fall in Alaska, its cold and rainy but not usually cold enough to build a good snowpack in the mountains. Even worse I'm actually looking for a job this fall to help fund our Egyptian adventure. It'll be worth it though to sit on the beach in January.

I've done two more trips since my last post. The first one was a week long trip in Wrangell St Elias from Chisana to Solo Creek. This was a great trip that I did with Mike and Matt. Matt is a ranger in Kennecott. We took our time and even spent a day climbing one of the peaks along the way. We had pretty good weather but it was smoky at times.

Beaver Pk is the one on the left.

Heading up the glacier on Beaver Pk.

Matt high on the summit ridge of Beaver Pk.

Cruising along the trail on high alpine tundra.

The airstrip at Solo Creek where we were picked up.

On my last post I wrote about a river that Nate and I were unable to cross. This is an aerial photo of that river. We flew over it on our way to Chisana. Its about two miles wide and we made it MAYBE a 1/4 of the way across. We'll get it next time!

Lakes and Rivers

I just got back from a patrol with Nate Porter. He came over to volunteer on a week long trip that was supposed to go from Nabesna to Chisana. We were not able to cross the Nabesna River because of really high water. It was by far the biggest river I had ever messed with and the river won quite handily. We changed our plan and instead hiked out to Soda Lake.

Before the trip with Nate I did a fly in trip with a couple of other rangers to Sheep Lake and Grizzly Lake. This area of the park doesn't see much use until hunting season starts but we were disappointed to find garbage and a lot of human impact in the area. The mountains and valleys near these two lakes are just incredible. I'd really like to return to this area at some point.

Final approach onto Sheep Lake.

Looking north across Sheep Lake.

Mount Blackburn in the distance.

This is actually on a small island in the middle of the river, we still had a very long way to go.

Soda Lake

A closer look at Soda Lake, I'm standing on the landslide that formed the lake.

Nate decides volunteering is stupid and his partner is an idiot.

THE BEST JOB

I just got back from my first backcountry patrol in Wrangell-St Elias National Park. Brian VonTersch joined me for a week long trip into the Mentasta Mountains. We had planned to try to climb Noyes Mountain and some of the smaller peaks nearby. This plan did not work out so well because the weather was so warm that it completely destroyed the snow pack. The good climbing out there is in the gullies and couloirs but because of the warm weather these were extremely unstable with a lot of wet slides.

We climbed a long ridge with extremely rotten rock until a large rock outcropping stopped us late in the day. We kicked down a few sloughs to clean out a gully of any unstable snow and then down climbed through the gully back down to the glacier. It was a good day with great weather and I'd really like to return to this area under more stable conditions.

The rest of the patrol we spent doing dayhikes and monitoring the boundary of the park. We had some really great views and unbelievable weather. I've added some photos down below of the trip.

Looking north at one of the peaks we tried.

Brian feeling the hate.

I downclimbed this mess, Brian is in the rocks left of center looking for a better way.

Cruising down the tundra above Lost Creek.

A beautiful side canyon we explored.

Enjoying the fine weather!

The Next Step

I have finally figured out what I plan to do with myself for the summer of 2009. I have accepted a backcountry ranger position with Wrangell-St Elias National Park. I will be based on the north side of the park in Slana. I should be spending most of my time in the backcountry instead of at a desk. There are possibilities for rafting patrols, backpacking patrols, and mountaineering as well.

Wrangell St Elias National Park is about 13.2 million acres making it the largest National Park in the US, by comparison the country of Switzerland is about 10.2 million acres. I have been out to Wrangell St Elias several times including one Search and Rescue assignment. I'm really excited about this new opportunity and I can't wait to get out there.

I've added a few pictures of the search I worked in Skolai Pass a couple of years ago.

Mexican Dreaming

I should be writing about what an incredible trip Angela and I had to Mexico but I can't. The airline gods once again conspired against me and foiled our plot to flee to warmer climates. A large winter storm shut down the Seattle airport the day that we were supposed to be flying and the airlines were not able to rebook us for at least a week. We decided to cancel our Mexico trip because we would not have had very much time down there, especially considering how much the tickets cost us. We still managed to get out to Virginia to see my folks and Angela's sister, so it wasn't a total loss, but Virginia is not Mexico.

The holidays were really nice in Anchorage. We took advantage of our time here and caught up with friends that I hadn't been able to see since I left for Nepal. The weather cooperated for a few days and we were both able to get out and do a little climbing and skiing. I even talked Angela into skiing up Eagle River to try an ice climb on a bitter cold day when the mercury never rose above zero. It's fair to say that Angela was a tad less psyched about our little outing than I was. She was A LOT less psyched when she broke through the ice. Luckily she did not go all the way in and just her feet got really wet. We made a mad dash for the car before she got too cold.

Thats pretty much what I've been up to lately. I'm living the wonderful life of the unemployed at the moment and trying to spend as much of my free time as possible outside.