Eklutna Traverse: Day Three

Pitchler's Perch is cozy, I slept great up in the loft, far away from the mosquitos below in the valley. Another beautiful morning greated us, and after a leisurely breakfast we got back on the glacier.

Will and Andy Skiing Toward the Glacier

 

Distance is a little tricky to estimate on the glacier what looks like 10 minutes away can take an hour to get too.

Tracks Toward White Out Pass

 

Looking back Toward White Out Pass

 

Animal Tracks Crossing the Glacier

 

Andy Enjoying the Sun

 

Pretty Picture

 

View From the Han's Hut

 

Me Self Portrait Style!

 

Eklutna Traverse: Day Two

After a restless night in the hut due to it being a mosquito breeding ground, I popped out of bed at 7am, ready to start the day. Fresh eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns eased my irritated, sleepless night woes, and I was excited to begin my day.

Early Morning Rock Hopping

 

It is a surprising distance to the glacier from the Serenity Falls Hut. I was told that GPS measurements from 1997 to 2007 showed the toe of the glacier had retreated 1 mile.

Will and Andy

 

Beautiful Glacially Carved Valley

 

The Toe of the Eklutna Glacier

 

The toe of the glacier kind of has a rampy forlorn look to it. Instead of the gaping maws with brilliant blue ice, it was dirt streaked white, with baby blue accents. As far as ease of glacier travel, I definitely prefer this tamed down version....We put our skins on our skis straight from the gravel bar onto the glacier. Skinning is so much better than walking.

Will and Andy Skinning Up



Andy with a Big Chugach Peak



Pitchler's Perch is a fantastic Hut that sits up off the side of the Eklutna Glacier. The views from the Hut are gorgeous.

Pitchlers Perch with Peril Peak in the Background




Another Fantastic View from the Hut

Eklutna Traverse: Day One

I have a bit of history with the Eklutna traverse....this is the first trip Ryan and I did together, way back in 2002, and if you ask him, this is where he fell in love with me. We foolishly decided to multi sport it, trying to combine the traverse with ice climbing....READ: HEAVY, HEAVY, metal gear, and glacier slogging. Although we did not sink one ice screw the whole trip, we carried a full rack, with 2 ropes, tools, and crampons up and over the traverse....BRUTAL!!! This is the trip that I learned a valuable lesson in trying to combine activities, when I learned that "more" is really synonymous with "heavier". Still both being in the "honeymoon" phase of our relationship I was impressed with Ryan's manly sled towing capabilities while he was enamoured by my general lack of complaining as we slogged with HEAVY loads and ended up going down the wrong gully and double carrying our load back up that 1,000 foot gully ....because he was 99% sure... Oh the memories!

When Matt asked me if I would be interested in doing this trip, I was immediately all about it. This time I swore my pack would be lighter, I wouldn't tow a sled of climbing gear and I definitely wasn't going down the wrong gully again!

From the get go ET: 2008, started out much differently. A four wheeler assisted our heavy packs with skis and boots around the Eklutna lake, while we leisurely walked with our day packs.

Bold Peak (top ten favorite peaks)

 

The Gorgeous Eklutna Lake

 

After about a four hour walk we ended up at the Serenity Falls hut, probably the most beautiful hut in the whole park. Will and Andy decided that a fire was in order for the evening, and set out collecting and chopping wood with gusto.

Will the Wood Chopper

 

I Love Pack Rafting

I had a really cool opportunity last week to float the Matanuska River from Glacier Park to King Mountain Lodge with some friends. I was really psyched to go because they were using two big rafts and a kayak, so I figured there was plenty of people out and about to rescue me when I flipped my boat...have I mentioned what a novice pack rafter I am!

Me and the Big Boats

 

What I love about packrafting is the smile that is glued to my face because of how absurd it feels to float about in something that looks like a pool toy....but they totally work! I wish I could have taken pictures of some of the bigger waves I went through, but I was pretty focused on staying in my boat!

Me and My Pool Toy

 

I defintitely could not have done this trip without a drysuit, so a special thanks to Kellie for hooking me up!! I am so not into suffering, especially hypothermia, and I pretty much sat in glacier water all day as my little raft continuously took on more water, then I would dump in out and it would all start over!

The View from My Boat

 

We totally lucked out with the weather as well. It felt like the rain storm was following us the whole way down the river, but the most we got was a few sprinkles.

A Look Up River

 

I now feel totally inspired to do more packrafting. It is a pretty amazing way to travel, and the potential for new areas of exploration are huge!

The Matanuska Glacier

I have to say that I have a pretty cool job working for The Ascending Path. I've been wanting to check out the Matanuska glacier for a while now, and so I was pretty psyched to be able to take clients climbing up there. It has changed SO much since the last time I was out there. The lateral morraines are sqeezing the white out of the glacier. There is a rock band that I had never seen before, and the lake that has been in front of the first ice fall for years is gone. I love glaciers, I find them incredibly fascinating, so it was a treat to be able to have fun at work!

Standard Self Portrait

 

Clients with the Ice Fall in the Background

 

I also have to say what I love about The Ascending Path is the small groups. Its just such a more personal day when I only have 3 clients. I get to know all of them, get to talk in a normal voice instead of trying to project to a big audience, and it also gives me and them more flexibility with the day.

A Huge Group...glad that wasn't me!

 

A Beautiful Spring Tour

Yesterday morning I went and did the Dew Mound loop in Eagle River with Lynn. It felt like summer. I was hot, wore a tank top, and almost lost my shoe in the mud. Afterward I went to work for a few hours and when I got off it was just too beautiful to sit inside...so I went to my favorite local ski area, Arctic Valley.

I set off with grand ambitions, but those dissipated as the snow around me became more isothermic than it had been the day before, and I realized that maybe my body was tired from running even if my head wasn't satisfied.

I ended up settling for a trip up to Rendevous Peak. The views from there were worth the hour cimb. This is a good look down a valley that I would like to spend a lot more time in this summer.

South Fork of Eagle River



What can I say...its mid May, great time to make snow men!



The Lovely Sleeping Lady

Tenderfoot Area

When I woke up on Saturday it was gorgeous in Anchorage...I even put on sun screen before I left the house in anticipation of the sun burn I would get. Every time I drive from sunny Anchorage down around the corner of Turnagain Arm I am amazed at how two areas that are so close can have a completely different weather system. Gone was the sun, clouds dominated the skies, grey, low, and stormy.

Kellie and I

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The Ultimate Multisport Day

Despite deep uncertainties about how this day was going to play out, I have to say that I was rewarded for my optimistic thinking. Its the transition time between winter, spring and summer. In anchorage its almost summer, the foothills feel like spring, but the tops of the mountains are still full on winter.

So Lynn and I decided to multisport it. She skinned on her splitboard using mountaineering boots, and I toured in my ski boots with my fat skis. We wanted to have a back up plan in case there wasn't any ice, and also thought that we could use a new learning experience, combining skiing with climbing.
So we set off across powerline pass and skinned up to the football field.

The First Hill



Skinning on the Football Field



Once we crossed the football field we dropped into a gulley, that didn't quite have enough snow to ski, then put the skis back on at the bottom and without the skins it was fast and cruiser side hilling to the climb.

Down the Gulley



Perfect Grey Day



I have to say that no matter how bright my optimism can be, never in my wildest fantasies did I picture a HUGE, FAT, BlUE piece of ice...I was really imagining it to be a white, unprotectable snow cone, with water pouring out in places. I was so happy when I realized we really were going to go ice climbing.

Ultimate Fantasy Realized



Although I do have to say that I was kinda apprehensive about ice climbing in my ski boots with my skis above my head on my pack. Since I had never done it, I could only imagine what to expect. For instance I never would have guessed that I could strap my skis on in such a way as to not be able to swing my left tool without banging my ski....but my right tool was free and clear.

The Fun Continues






The First Belay



I have to say that climbing ice with skis on my back and wearing ski boots, made this climb a lot more entertaining. It just seemed so silly, that I just couldn't stop smiling at Lynn and I's antics..

Lynn Leading it Up



Lynn Leading the Second Pitch



We ended up doing 3 pitches of fantastic ice. When we topped out we put our skis back on and continued up the snow slopes around us.

Top of the Route



We finally came to a point where we could see the ridge leading up to O'Malley peak. We took the most obvious looking gulley up, and up, and what seemed like forever up. It was close to 2,000 feet of entertaining breakable crust, hard pack, and windblown pillows.

The Super Hill



Top of O'Malley



I have to say that I was feeling a bit worked by the time we got to the top of O'Malley. So I was super PSYCHED that I had brought my fat skis and if nothing else wasn't going to have to walk down.

The Run Down



I felt so lucky when i got to the bottom of the run and looked back at all the other places we could have come down, but ours was by far the best run left on the mountain. Although it wasn't powder it was smooth, carve able hard pack, and getting down was fast and easy.

Car to Car in 13:50!



I'm so psyched to have gotten one more climbing day in this year.

I"m Ready for Summer!

I have literally thousands upon thousands of beautiful pictures stored in little digits on my computer. Every once in a while I scroll through and look at what I was doing last year, or two years before, and some moments really stand out to me.

So on maybe one of the funnest days of summer I took this sequence of my friend attempting for the first time the dicey ski-pole-vault push of rock in the river manuever. I love how my camera managed to capture the sequence of unbalancing moments....

And most of all it reminds me of how happy I am to have a break from school and be able to once again walk in the sun around beautiful mountains all while wearing a tank top and shorts.

UH OH...