First Mountaineering Patrol

I'm back at Wrangell-St Elias for another season as a backcountry ranger. This year we started off with a mountaineering patrol out into the Granite Range, south of McCarthy. The patrol went really well. The weather cooperated for most of the time that we were out there and we managed to climb eight peaks in eight days. None of the peaks were really high by Alaskan standards but we had a great time and did a lot of team building and planning for this season.

I'm excited about the potential for the backcountry program here. It was incredible to stand on top of these peaks and see mountains stretch away as far as we could see. If you were to go west from where we were the mountains stretch for hundreds of miles. It's a hard place to really wrap your head around, its just so massive.

Our camp on the glacier.

Looking out towards the Jeffries Glacier and Bagley Icefield.

Mt St Elias

It can't all be hard work.

Mt St Elias on the horizon, our tracks to the pass are also visible.

Steep snow climbing.

More steep snow climbing.

You can see our tracks on the upper ridge of what's called Tokyo Peak.

Pictures from Joshua Tree and Nicaragua

OK, OK So its been a really long time since I've posted anything and yes I know I'm way behind on this thing buts I'm trying to get it up to date.

Angela and I had a great trip through the desert southwest and then down to Nicaragua. I'll post some of those pics first, even though the trip ended all the way back in March.

Angela leading a climb in Joshua Tree.

A Joshua Tree at sunset. This was our first trip to J-Tree and we'll be back...

Sunset in Joshua Tree.

We went on a canyon trip in Nicaragua. We swam and hiked through the Canon de Somoto up near the border with Honduras. The canyon was incredible, the walls went up hundreds of feet.

Sunset at Jiquilillo, my favorite place in the country.

The folks from Rancho Espreanza enjoying the sunset on the beach at Jiquillio.

Me and Angela with Telica Volcano behind us. The cloud is actually gas escaping from the crater. We hiked right up to the crater's edge.