Whiskey Gulch Fishing

Sally and I went down to Whiskey Gulch, near Homer, to go fishing with her Dad for a couple days this past weekend. We went out 2 days, and got 11 halibut and 3 king salmon...which amounted to 80lbs of king salmon and 90lbs of halibut between the 3 of us. We'll be eating lots of wild Alaska fish this winter. Below is Barry's boat, with our kings in it.

Sally and her 55lb king salmon
Whiskey gulch beach scene...

Sally and Barry with Barry's king...

Denali 2008

This June my friend Patrick Knoll from Missoula came for a visit, and we spent 17 days skiing on Denali. Although the conditions were not particularly conducive to skiing, we had a great trip and did find some good snow. Below is the Talkeetna Air Taxi otter at base camp.
A pilot's eye view of base camp on the Kahiltna.On an acclamation day, we got to the 17K' camp and Patrick was feeling the altitude. He stayed there and helped the NPS rangers do some work, while I couldn't resist climbing and skiing the North Summit via the Black Rock Couloir. Below is a photo Patrick took of me climbing up.My view from the top of the North Summit...pretty much a perfect day.

A self portrait just before skiing the Black Rock.

Looking down the Black Rock with my tracks. Notice also Mt. Foraker in the distance and the 17K' camp below.

Our summit day dawned stormy at 14K' camp, but we decided to go out for a ski, and check out conditions on the Orient Express. There was a lot of blue ice everywhere, but less in the Orient. Thinking we'd 'just go up a little further', Patrick left his skis at around 16,000' at some blue ice. When we got to about 18K', we popped out of the clouds and in to the sun. We couldn't help but want to go tag the top. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the summit ridge, we were in full storm conditions. Unable to see even our feet, and clinging to the ridge in over 60mph winds, we decided to turn back around 100' from the top. Since I had brought my skis all the way up there, I decided to ski from the Football Field, at around 19,500'. The Orient was very firm neve snow with a little blue ice, but still skiable. Below is me on the way up.And Patrick at a rest stop on the way up the Orient...

Eklutna Traverse

My girlfriend Sally and I did the Eklutna traverse the other day, in a single push. The weather was tolerable, but certainly not clear. We had a great time, and moved fast. Here she is late at night, on the Whiteout Glacier.

Chamonix

A couple weeks ago I returned from skiing in Chamonix. It was great, though quite stormy with about 2 meters of new snow during the 18 days I was there. I only spent a couple nights down in town, opting instead to camp out up in the Valle Blanche, Alaska style. I met up with Greg Collins, who had been there awhile already.

Below is Greg skiing the Jeager couloir on the E. Face of Mt. Tacul after about a meter of new snow. 100kph wind and continuous spindrift preveted us from going to the tippie top. Great skiing though, about 55 degrees in one section but mostly less.Below is Greg rappelling in to the Cosmiques Couloir on our second good day. This is a very popular run, and sees hundreds of people per day since it's easily accessed from the Aiguille du Midi. Again, it had snowed another couple feet the night before, and we were the first ones in it that day. Unfortunately, Greg took a hard fall and a tumble while skiing, pulling a calf muscle...so he was done skiing for the trip. Greg skiing out the Glacier after the Cosmiques.The East face of Mt. Tacul. I focused my energy on some of these couloirs. The Jeager is the furthest right couloir , and looks like it doesn't top out on the ridge (but it does). I ended up skiing the Diablo Couloir, just below the sun .Greg had left so I took to taking photos of my stuff in various places. Finally it got nice and I skied the Giravasutti Couloir on Tour Ronde on a perfect sunny and windless day. The next day was overcast and very windy, but I managed to ski the Macho Couloir from Col du Diablo. It was very steep and rocky, and the snow was pretty crusty and bad. A lot of work for crappy skiing. The next day was sunny, but again windy. I climbed the Diablo Couloir on Tacul, which required climbing a couple water ice steps down low, then rappelling them on the way down. This photo is taken from the top, looking down about 1000m of 55 degree pencil hard snow.

Finally my last day and it's again tolerable weather. I'm tired, but I force myself out of the tent late and take off to ski Mt. Blanc. I end up doing the Mt. Blanc Traverse, which involves climbing Tacul, then Maudit, then Blanc. This photo is taken from the top of Mt. Tacul, with Madit in the foreground and the big Blanc behind. The line up Maudit is right up the sun/shade line, and ended up being really good skiing on the way back. It was a long day which made for an awesome end to my trip!

Valdez 08

I had a few really great days skiing around Thompson Pass this past week, an area just outside Valdez. My friend Dayton and I drove around on several different glaciers, looking for fun stuff to ski...and a couple of the days Skine came too. We did a lot of exploring and route finding, and end up traveling to many areas that not even the heli skiers go very often. Most of the places we went were about 20-30 miles from the road, in the heart of the Chugach Mountains. Here are some photos:

This is me on top of one peak we skied. We came up the Tonsina glacier, which is below and left of my elbow. My Mom made the water bottle insuator!
We skied the peak just above and left of Dayton.
On the Tsaina Glacier...trying to decide what looks best.
Classic couloirs high on the Deserted Glacier

Party on the Heiden Glacier...Derek, Eli and some other folks from 19 and 46 mile.

Kotzebue

I spent 3 weeks working in the ER at Maniilaq Health Center...the hospital in Kotzebue, AK. Kotzebue is located about 23 miles north of the Arctic Circle, on the Chukchi sea. It was very cold there, about -35 at 'night'. We got a few hours of sun every day, but it stays pretty low in the sky. It's actually quite dry there, and doesn't get much snow, but when the wind blows it creates very bad ground blizzard conditions that make travel impossible. It was an amazing place and I hope to go back this spring again, and get out hunting with some people I met there. Below is Easter and her little foster son Joe. Easter made a Parkee for me...and I spent a lot of time in her home with her and her husband.I worked 17 twelve hour shifts in 21 days, and that included flying back to Anchorage for 48 hours. I took all the following photos one nice day...my only day off while I was there. It's about -25 out. Below is looking out across the ocean towards the Brooks Range mountains and the Kobuk River Valley.

2 stroke graveyard
After days of intense wind, everything gets a good coating of rime.

Cold Boats

Arizona

This past holiday season, I went to Arizona to visit my Mom and her husband Rick. It was a great time to get out of AK, and enjoy some warmth. My Alaska friends Skine, Glen and Anna were also down in Arizona visiting family, so we all met up and went rock climbing for a week at Cochise Stronghold. Below is a photo of Baboquivari, which Skine and I soloed an easy route on...up the left skyline.Below is Sheep Head, a formation we did a bunch of routes on. Great sunny, warm climbing.
Glen's Dad and family live nearby, and came out with a bunch of horses one day. I leared a lot and will hopefully get to do more horse riding. It's an interesting way to travel!

Big Chief

Today we skiied Big Chief, with pretty good snow conditions. We skiied nearly 8000', including a bonus run off Seattle Ridge. Here's Kellie and Hugh on Seattle Ridge, above Turnagain Pass. Big Chief is the pointy peak above and right of Hugh's head. We skied the N. Face, behind the right skyline.Arriving at the summit of Big Chief
Hugh on the way up, with Seattle Creek and Turnagain Arm (the ocean) behind.
Kellie on the way up Seattle Ridge. Our car is below at the pull out, and all the sunlit slopes behind are excellent skiing.
Hugh on Seattle Ridge, getting ready to drop in.

Cabin

I've been spending most of my free time this fall building a cabin. It's been a good learning experience for me, and fortunately I've had a lot of friends to help me since I'm not at all a builder. Here's Glen helping with the foundation. Below Jed and Glen are doing some custom chainsaw work. In fact, the whole place is very 'custom'. I'm lucky that my friend Jed owns a nice chainsaw mill. He milled 5 beams for me to use, which came from right nearby. Below Jon Cobb and I are working on the ridge pole, which is a nice spruce beam that Jed milled for me. Working on the roof required the use of a climbing rope and grigri for safety, since it's about 30 feet off the ground at the ridge. I ended up puting the plywood and steel on the roof alone, which would have been impossible without the use of a Grigri. (photo Jack McKenna)

Below is the most recent photo I have. It was very cold out there this day, around zero F, and I'm glad to be at the point where I can hook up the wood stove! Time to get the windows in!! Extra challenge and fun is added by the fact that the road is now snowed in for the year...snowmachine access only until May! (photo by Kite Messiah, Jason Kwaitkowski)

Latoks 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. It was an awesome trip, and the people we met in Pakistan were great, never an ill will. 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.