Drydaho and return to Ewok village.

We didn't leave Fairbanks for Hawaii or some other tropical locale this winter. Thus, Molly and I decided that we ought to head back to the lower 48 for a second round of backcountry skiing at the Bench Hut in Idaho's Sawtooth Range, in what is evidently becoming an annual tradition planned by friends and frequent ski partners Casey and Helena.

After dropping off the dog, we took the red-eye out of Fairbanks.  Earth was in the midst of a magnetic storm, and the views of the Aurora out the plane windows was very unusual (more unusual was that they were in the southern sky).  12 hours later, we were in a sunny, snow-free Missoula; the snow line on the mountains was similar to mid-May of the previous year, and temperatures were in the high 60s.  Spring break!

We spent two days in Missoula visiting friends and packing for the trip to the Sawteeth (also climbing in Kootenai) before making the drive to an also snow-free Stanley, where we ate prime rib at the Mountain Village Cafe.

The skin to Bench Hut typically begins with two miles of flat on a closed road between the highway and Redfish Lake.  The morning of, we found that the road had mostly melted out, while remaining technically closed (or so stated the flimsy plastic sign planted in the middle of the ungated, two-lane, paved superhighway.  It would be a long and morale crushing affair to deal with skinning on asphalt at this time of morning, so we (were forced to redact our blog entries).

The remaining journey from Redfish Lake to the hut was straightforward, if a little bare in spots, but we made good time to the hut, reaching it by noon.  With sunny skies, but with a storm forecast for that night, Casey and I left immediately to pursue our primary objective of the trip, Mt. Heyburn, in good stability and weather, setting out from the hut just before 2PM.

Heyburn occupies the head of a large cirque, and has two summits which are split by the iconic north-facing Petzoldt couloir.  Unfortunately, to attain the higher western summit via the couloir involves either aid or a pitch of 5.11 (neither of which I am capable of), both on terrible rock.  Thus, we elected to circumvent this more direct, but less ideal route, in favor of the Stur Chimney on the peak's western flank.

View from belay 2 in the Stur Chimney.

We reached the base of the technical portion of the chimney at around 4.  The chimney itself was bare, but the 4th and low-5th class slabs constituting the approach still held snow in gullies, and after ditching our snowboards, climbed a steep snow gully for a hundred or so feet before it petered out into a sketchy descending traverse along a snowy sloping ledge bisecting steep granite slabs.  After carefully navigating the traverse, we roped up for our first pitch of climbing, a short 5.2 step to reach the base of the Stur Chimney proper, which we climbed in snowboard boots.  Here, we transitioned to climbing shoes for the two pitches to the summit.  The chimney was snow free, but felt somewhat more difficult than the 5.2 advertised in at least one guidebook.  5.5 or 5.6 would probably be more accurate.  In any case, the going was easy, and we soon reached the summit of 10,299' Mt. Heyburn.  As always, we spent little time on the summit.  Having only a 50m rope, we ended up making five rappels off of tat-shrouded bolts, a large chockstone, two aging pitons, a horn, and a small tree, respectively, to reach our snowboards.  The egress back to the hut went quickly, and we arrived just before dark for a hut to hut time of 6 hours.

Summit anchor nest.

Heyburn summit block.

 That night, it snowed 6 inches, leaving pretty nice dust on crust conditions.  The next day, we (being a group of eight at this point) skied a beautiful hanging snowfield on a large fin above the gunbarrel couloir into perfect mellow glades.  The group split, as most folks went to ski the gunbarrel, and Molly and I went to check out the upper reaches of the next glade to the east. 

The wind picked up and the snow intensified into the evening.  By the next morning, there were 18 inches of wind deposited snow on lee slopes, prompting vigorous and spooky sluffs that were just on the verge of being soft slabs.  We skied carefully, and with the snow still coming down, stuck to relatively mellow lines.  Casey and I managed to make a foray up to Fishhook point, Heyburn's lower cirque-mate, but got only marginal views through the storm (though an  excellent descent).

Concerning wind slabs below the Petzoldt Couloir.

By the next day, the wind and snow had abated, but had left behind full-on deep and noisy wind slabs, slamming the door on the possibility of ambitous lines or far-afield tours.  Thus, we climbed Fishhook point once again, admiring the tracks of one seriously hard-assed mountain goat, and generally enjoying the nice views of the high peaks of the Sawtooths.

Fishhook Pt. (Dave Dog Peak) summit ridge.

Billy the goat leaves his mark.

The next day we headed back to Missoula.  I spent another few days climbing at Mill Creek, and went on a nice bowl-bouncing tour up Camas Peak in the central Bitterroots, before flying back to Fairbanks, just in time to catch the tail end of the meltdown.  Where did all the snow go?

Tracks on the unnamed high point behind Camas Peak.

Harscheising back to Camas proper.

      

Spring ski races

Over the last month, I've had the opportunity to take part in two races put on by Endurance North.

The first was the Chena River to Ridge, a 45 mile loop linking the Compeau and Stiles Creek trails, starting at mile 32 on the Chena Hot Springs Road.  The 25 mile Compeau trail is graded very moderately the entire way, and the excellent grooming by the race organizers made it even better.  The Stiles Creek trail is a little bit rougher, with quite a bit more ups and downs on the ridgelines, but was also very well groomed.  I went out moderately, kept a fairly casual pace the whole way, and generally had an uneventful race.  I finished in around eight and a half hours, for second place in the ski division (the field was pretty small).

Overflow on the Compeau Trail from a pre-race scouting trip.

Louie is skeptical of snow machines.

Near the top of the Compeau trail.

Switchbacks near Twin Bears.

Two weeks later, I skied the Tanana River Challenge, which was unfortunately foreshortened from 45 miles to 32, as a result of sub-zero temperatures at river level.  The shortened TRC course followed the Tanana downstream for 6 miles, followed by a really pretty 20 mile loop through the forest, and back up the river to the start.  I had intended to skate this race, but cold temperatures caused me to shy towards classic gear, a choice I somewhat regret; skating on the river, followed by kicker skins in the tighter sections of forest would have been ideal.  As it was, I hardly needed to wax my classic skis, applying only a layer of ironed-on base binder, followed by a layer of ironed-on Toko X-cold.  Any more wax would have been excessive.

I tried to push much harder at the Tanana River Challenge, partly due to the easier course, and partly due to the larger field of skiers.  Throughout the race, I oscillated between third, fourth, and fifth place, but eventually got beat out by the skaters on the final 6 miles back up the river, for a fifth place finish in 5:28, about half an hour behind the winner.  It was a slow day for skiing.  I'm confident that with skate skis and faster conditions, I could decrease that time by well over an hour. Already looking forward to next year.

   

Ode to Sunshine

On Friday, Jenna and I decided to take advantage of the calm winds, sunshine, and 20 degree temperatures to break for the Delta Range.  Our intent was to ski the south aspect from the ridge splitting the Castner Glacier to the north and the Fels Glacier to the south.

A frozen Lower Miller Creek.

We left Fairbanks at 7, negotiating sheet ice plastered on the Richardson by our recent freezing rain storm.  We reached Lower Miller Creek around 10, and were on our way by 10:30.  The big outwash plain of Lower Miller was a bit windy, but firm and fast going.  After a few miles of skinning, we made it to a point where the creek flows out of the mountains into the big Delta valley, and began to climb through a reasonably spacious alder thicket, following a wayward moose who seemed to have a good idea of the most efficient way through the bushes.
 

Engaging the brush.

Escaping the brush.

 The nice thing about interior AK is that the brush peters out quickly, and we were soon skinning up moderate slopes on a supportable wind crust.  Views out to the enormous Mounts Moffit, Shand, and McGuinness were characteristically imposing, and I was reminded of how much I'd like to get back amongst those mountains again.  We made short work of the remaining climb to the ridgeline, and were greeted with views of Silvertip and White Princess among other smaller Delta peaks.

13k+ Mt. Moffit dominates the Hayes Range skyline on the other side of the Deltana.

Lunch spots.

Ridgeline cruising.

Travel on the ridge was fast, and we followed Wolverine tracks for about a thousand more vertical before reaching a point where a fall line run would place us directly at the Fels terminus.  Dropping into the vast glade, we expected to find wind blown, slabby snow or sastrugi like we had been climbing on.  Rather, we found deep and settled powder snow, and took turns trading tracks for over a horizontal mile and 3000 vertical feet.  From the bottom of the run, it was a quick schuss out the bottom of Lower Miller Creek, and we were back to the car with plenty of daylight remaining.

This is not a black and white photo, there just aren't any plants.

See?

Looking back up the egress route.

A first shot at Alaska mountaineering in Panorama Mountain's south couloir.

I haven't done much in the way of posting on this blog since moving to Alaska.  Fall was busy and I managed to blow a knee running the Pinnell Mountain Trail (one of the interior's best) in September, putting a damper on many of my autumn plans.  By the time my knee had satisfactorily recovered it was wintertime, and the days were mostly too short for photographs or for trips out of town.  I went skate skiing alot, and generally tried to maintain fitness for springtime.

Now the days are getting long again, temperatures are moderating, and the snowpack has (actually had, since it's nuking snow this week) stabilized.  On February 15th, I joined Marc, Joanna, Jenna, and Alex for an attempt on the south couloir of Panorama Peak, immediately to the east of the George Parks highway, and a few miles south of Denali's front gate.

Twas the obvious one to the

Alaska has the tendency to be much larger than it looks in distances and elevations, and Panorama exemplifies this trait.  Having looked at a fair share of couloirs I feel as though I can accurately assess their length from below.  I would have pegged this one at around 2000'.  It turned out to be more than 3000', with a sustained pitch of around 40 degrees.  The snow was good for cramponing: occasionally a bit hard, soft, or thin, but generally firm and secure.  It was mostly a bit of windblown powder sitting atop classic interior depth hoar.  The booger sugar is ubiquitous here, I'm coming to learn (which is something to get used to, I guess). 
 

Midway break.

We made consistent progress up.  The weather was breezy and skies overcast.  There were two exposed scree bands, which would have stymied an unbroken ski run.  Otherwise, I was wishing desperately that I had brought snowboard. 

Wine, cheese, wind.

The top of the couloir is not the top of Panorama Mountain, but as we reached the summit ridge, the high winds that we had heretofore been protected from, combined with the late hour conspired to content ourselves with the climb, rather than a new summit.  We drank a little bit of wine, and ate a little bit of good Swiss cheese (thanks Marc), and began the downclimb.  I realized at this point that I had not really downclimbed steep snow before (having always just snowboarded), and it took a minute to find the appropriate rhythm. 

Looking over the south face of Panorama Mountain.

Traversing over some rocks.

After the steep head of the couloir, the descent was easy, and we swiftly and safely reached the bottom, just in time for self-arrest practice and recreational glissading.


 

   

Back on the homefront.

Garnet canyon scenery.

At the beginning of July, I took a final trip home to the Tetons before moving to Alaska.  I did some skiing in the Tetons, hung out in the motor-home with my folks and their dogs, and did a long run through the Gros Ventre Wilderness with my brother.   

Middle Teton Glacier, Teton Range, WY (12mi, 6500', 7h):

The Middle Teton glacier.  

Overlooking the Schrundel.  A few minutes later, a large section of the snowfields on the East Face of the Middle Teton would break off and go careening down the runnel and into the bowels of the glacier.

Middle Teton from the Ellinwood Col.  That's the way you would go to get to the top, if that seemed like a good idea at the time.

GFT.

Shoal Creek to Swift Creek traverse, Granite Creek Basin, WY (19mi, 6000',7h):

There was still a bit of snow in the high country on July 5th.

Will slogs along the divide between the Columbia and Colorado basins, with Battleship Mountain behind.

Taking advantage of the short growing season.  Tetons visible in the distant distance.

Waiting for an opportune moment.

Will's sunglasses are reflecting Antoinette Peak.

Black Mountain

Heading down.

Skiing in summer!

The last two months have been very busy.  I've run the Rogue, finished a grip of papers and projects at work, traveled to Idaho, to Washington D.C., to the Bitterroots, and then moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, from which I am currently typing.  This is too much for a single entry, so I'm going to split it into a few.

I'd like to recap some early summer skiing.  A dry spring combined with ample accumulation over the winter yielded a deep snowpack that lasted well into July.  I partook in three summer skiing days of note, two of which I will discuss here.

First, I was lucky enough to join Brian, Leah, and a respectable cadre of fine Missoulian backcountry enthusiasts for the 7th(?) annual Warren Wallowfest in the Anaconda Range (there is no such thing as a Pintler.  Yer either in the Anacondas or the Flint Creeks).  The Anacondas are a beauty, and Warren Peak, though not the highest summit, is anomalously Teton-esque and offers outstanding views and fine almost steep skiing in its northwest couloir.

Jeffrey and Nick crush some June mush, while a secretive marmot looks on.

The approach to Warren Peak is easy and fun and only a little soggy.  A little far I guess.  But it's worth it.
 

Booting up the northwest couloir.

Brian had been ultra training and Nick is just very fast, and they crushed the bootpack up to the top of the couloir, from which the summit is a quick talus hike.

A fine time to check the E-mail.

 We spent some time on the summit, had a quick glance at the hard lines, which were summarily dismissed, then skied back down to the base.  I got to go first which was really fun and only a little slushy.

Gang from nearby.

Gang from a distance.  Clouds are starting to look ominous.

B. Story descends in good style.  Clouds are starting to look genuinely concerning.

As soon as we all made it to the bottom of the couloir, the skies opened up, and in came the most epic thunderstorm I've ever been in.  Frequent lightning nearby had us scrambling for cover under large granite boulders that offered only scant protection from the torrential rainfall.  I though I was going to stay dry, but then the rivulets started creeping around the lip of my hidey-hole, and I learned that my windshell is not water-proof in any meaningful way.  I've never seen hail flow out of a couloir and off a cliff.  It's neat.  It also quashed enthusiasm for another lap.  Thus, we bolted for the exit couloir, and bailed.  The storm did not let up.

A week or so later, I embarked on what I though would be my last ski day of the year.  Casey and I, having been rained out of an ascent of the No Sweat Arete in Mill Creek, decided that we ought to camp and subsequently dawn patrol the incomparable Trapper Peak zone in the southern Bitterroots.  We camped next to the big boulder at the last switchback, and got to skinning at sunrise.  We detoured around the north end of Baker Lake to scramble around on some sunny granite slabs, before reaching Gem Lake, switching from running shoes to skis, and ascending the still frozen sun cups to the Trapper peak ridge.  From there it was a straightforward skin and talus hop to to summit of the highest point in the Bitterroots. 

Harscheisen attack on the Trapper Peak.

The standard entrance to the northeast face was corniced, steep, and scary, so I took a more moderate line in from skier's right.  The snow was very good, as it typically is here. 

Northeast face shredding.

We had intended to climb the Olbu face, but sketchy and tenuous snow fields in all the wrong places dissuaded us.  We decided to ski the Gem Lake couloir instead, which turned out to be steep and engaging.  I forgot to get out my ice axe before the steep bit at the top, and it was sort of scary with just a whippet.  I also got to transition from crampons to snowboard while stemming above a man-eating moat above a 50 degree snowfield, which was a good test of practical acrobatics.  The ski down was very good.  The day was hot and the drive long, but I made it back to Missoula in time for a few hours of work.
 

Gem Lake Couloir, near the end.