Drove South to Homer (5 hours) for some halibut fishing this weekend. We went with our friend Becky who has a house and boat down there. Left friday night and by 11ish saturday morning we were uploading the skiff into Kachemak Bay.

Weather was kind of iffy at the put in -- foggy, a slight breeze and seas around 2 feet. By the we motored out of the harbor and into the bay we were questioning our decision. Of course once you've started you can turn around without at least a peek -- so on we continued. And as we motored west the weather improved and soon it was partly sunny with steady seas around 1-2 feet. We were in a 21' skiff; open in the back with a plastic cover in front -- and we were relatively comfortable. Anyway's - we motored for about an hour and about 20 miles out. Our first stop was about 1/2 mile off shore; we dropped in anchor in 50' of water and within a few minutes we were pulling up Irish Lords -- a blood red fish that grows to about a foot long and is covered with spines. Apparently the spines have a mild poison in them so we were very careful as we removed them and tossed them back. After about 45 minutes of fishing all we had caught were 7 Irish Lords and no halibut so we pulled anchor and headed further out.  [Read More... ]

On Saturday Todd and I went in and skied Graddaddys.  We weren't able to ski the North couloir (which we were hoping for) due to a huge crown and icey slopes... but it was a beautiful day! 

Todd had skied Pastoral a couple weeks ago with Yvonne.  His video is after the jump.  [Read More... ]

We had the worst avalanche report of the season - multiple weak layers, 6 plus feet of new snow, warming temperatures - and to top it off, the threat of a rumbling Mt. Redoubt 130 miles to the west. But we couldn't stay home; the forecast was calling for a blizzard warning that evening. We had one day to give it a go before going back to the wait game.

So the Friday afternoon discussions began; where to go what to do who wants to go. I cast big in the hopes of netting some trailbreakers and got 1 yes and 4 definite maybes. Saturday morning we called around and again more reports of indecision filtered in. Eventually we set up a meeting time and at 9:30 we all gathered. First there were 2, then three - until finally 7 people showed up. 7 people is 4 too many for my comfort level, so we chose a spot with low angle trees, jumped in the car and drove south.

We chose to head into Wolverine via the circuitous route through the woods which I had eventually unlocked after 6 times of wandering about in circles in the dense woods between the highway and the peaks. Technically I wasn't lost during those forays - but some had taken to referring to these forays as "getting lost" - a semantic blunder that I always countered. I don't get lost. Lost is when you wander about in circles with no direction... sort of like that TV show where they shoot polar bears in Hawaii and struggle with inner demons. I might, at one time, have wandered about in circles - but I always had a clear direction: to unlock the secret route from the highway to Wolverine. As the cliche goes, Not all who wander are lost.

Tolkien and pop-culture references aside, there is some basis to the notion that people get lost in the Turnagain-equivalent of the Bermuda triangle that exists North of Eddies and South of the highway. On my first foray into the area I tromped into the woods with Dan in the hopes of skiing "Sharksfin" - a fin-like projection North of Eddies on a sunny spring day some years ago. We set out in the morning eager for turns... only to end up at the base of Eddies looking up a slope that we ski fairly regularly. We then set about wandering up and down a canyon before finally figuring out that we needed to ski down a hidden drainage and approach it from another direction. We had fun that day touring to the back of the ridge and skiing some fun runs and returned the next day with some more friends to ski immaculate tree runs in dense powder. However... upon leaving Wolverine we opted for a direct route back to the highway and ended up wandering in circles in the dark.   [Read More... ]

A bomber snowpack and high pressure gave us all the itch to get out. Both Eric and I had caught the spring climbing bug after ascending Ptarmigan the previous weekend, and Dan was itching for some steeper runs - so after dozens of ideas tossed back and forth via email, we met at 8am on Saturday and headed south.

Unfortunately our high pressure was forecast to end by early afternoon. The winds were already picking up and NOAA was calling for 12 inches by midnight. However - everything still looked good from the parking lot, so we headed up to give Pastoral a try.

In front of us was another usual Turnagain crew who we caught up with at Taylor Pass where we chatted for a while and then set off once again towards Pastoral. We reached Pastoral Pass at noon; the north couloir looked to be in excellent shape so Dan headed up. Eric and I threw our skis / snowboard on our back and followed behind him. The boot up was fun Kenai range climbing - nice solid snow and a tiny firm snow step to give it some spice. I sunk my trusty whippet into the solid crust and pulled through grinning widely!

Soon we were on the top looking all around and talking about what lines to ski. North, south, east, west - everywhere we looked there was something inviting! Eric and I continued to gawk - but Couloir Dan put us all in place and forced us to focus. We scouted the north couloir - and then Dan dropped in. The first few turns were dust on crust and pretty mellow. Dan stopped at a notch that dropped us down into the north couloir proper - and Eric and I followed down to his stance. He then took the next pitch - traversing out across to the top of the run where he assessed the snowpack. The entrance to the couloir proper had an obvious pillow on it - so he continued traversing skiers right - not willing to risk an avalanche at the top of the run. He skied about 150 feet skiers right and then pulled off in a safe zone to spot Eric and I as we dropped down to his stance.   [Read More... ]

The dreary days of November, December, January and February have ended.   While many of my friends embrace the cold deep powder of Alaskan winters, I never seem to totally enjoy the days where we are slogging through deep powder to ski the same runs again and again up and down.  Thus when the sun finally comes out and avalanche conditions improve, I seem to wake up from hibernation and start beating myself into shape. 

Suddenly old clients who ask for jobs that will force me to work on the weekends  are no longer even considered (whereas I'll happily work every weekend from October - January) and new clients who need something done right away are pushed off to other developers.  From now through July I pledge to only work a 9-5 job!

With all that in mind, on March 7th I headed down to Turnagain with Dan, Bryce and Todd.   The sun was shining brightly and avalanche conditions pretty solid, so we headed up Magnum and skied 4 runs in PMS bowl.  We were able to ski off the nose twice for some 40 degree turns on the infamous "glazed donut crust".  I hucked off the cornice a couple times... only to eat it pretty hard each time.  (I must learn to learn forward.)

In short - a beautiful day with good friends in good snow.  And a wake up call to end my winter hibernation!

Pictures after the jump.   [Read More... ]

High pressure pushed over Southcentral Alaska so I rounded up a group and on Saturday we headed down to Turnagain Pass for yet another day of powder skiing. We started out with a large group - 6 in total - and headed up and over Taylor Pass. However at the pass Eric the Viking's hip started bugging him so Dan (once again fresh from surgery) and Eric bailed and skied a run off Gold Pan instead of heading down to Pastoral.

Yvonne, Eric (Parsons), Bryce and I continued up towards Pastoral - eyeing the tracked up North face and the untracked West face. However once we reached the col, Santa Claus chute beckoned. I dropped my pack, lead out and broke trail up to the high point to scope the route with Eric right behind me. The descent down to the col looked steep and exposed but doable so we turned around, consulted with the others, then grabbed our gear and started across.

The traverse was steep and exposed - but Sketchy Snow Eric plowed a nice path and spotted me while I downclimbed the crux. Yvonne and Bryce followed and I spotted them in a couple spots - the crux being a rock step in a no fall zone with snow pits for handholds. It took a while but soon we were across the ridge and down to the col.   [Read More... ]

On Saturday Todd, Dan, Yvonne and I climbed Pyramid Peak (3378'). Unlike my last ascent this was a mellow ski ascent without any epic and no bushwhacking. I was disappointed; after all my tough talk to Yvonne about what a burly peak this was to climb we waltzed up the entire thing in less than 3 hours.

Down low the snow was a hard crust over rotten snow which was nice in that it kept the snow machiners from getting up high. One actually got stuck in the snow just behind us while we were booting up; we waved and kept going! The hard snow continued for a while so Todd and I slapped on our ski crampons and skinned right up the hard snow but Yvonne and Dan had to boot pack for a while until the angle eased off and the snow got softer.

Once above treeline we skinned up to the ridge and soon were skinning up the final summit ridge where we were treated to a spectacular summit view. Up high the wind was howling so we wasted no time ripping the skins and skiing over to the west face where we scoped out the descent.

The West face was not in - the entrance was steep and crusted and the actual run had avalanche runnels down it so we backed off and skied over to scope the north face. The north face was steep and gnarly so we backed off and scoped the south face. The south face looked good - but it had tracks on it and we hate tracks. (We didn't skin up 3000' to ski someone else's tracks!) So after consulting for a while we dropped the East face.   [Read More... ]

It's finally winter here! We received about 7 inches of snow over the corse of Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday Yvonne actually had a day off (first time in weeks).  We considered driving south but the roads were scary and the avalanche danger high so we headed up to Flattop (5 minute drive) and XC skied about 5 miles around the base of O'Malley Peak.  The snow was dumping hard all day!

Saturday night we received a good snow report so on Sunday I headed out with my usual ski crew... we drove south 2 hours to Summit Lake and then skied 6 runs for a total of 7 miles and 6000'... I was HURTING!!!!!  Skiing 6000' on your first day out is not recommended!

Conditions were bomber on south facing aspects.  We skied two fairly steep runs where the top averages 40+ degrees.  On the north side we skied one steep run but 3 people (out of 6) in our group kicked off sizable surface sluff avalanches so we backed off the angle after that.

We skied till dark and were treated to a spectacular sunset.   [Read More... ]

3 suns; three whole days of sunshine! That's what the weather report said and after a solid month of rain we were psyched. Work was out of the question with such a forecast so I emailed Eric a tantalizing note and topo file showing a proposed route up Byron, down the east face and across to the Northwest face of Carpathian. He took the bait hook, line and sinker, stopped by to sort gear and on Friday morning at 5:45 I stumbled into his house with an absurdly heavy pack and we jumped in the truck and skipped town at 6 am. . Our packs were gigantic and unwieldy; we carried a full alpine rack (6 screw, 4 pickets, 3 cams, 3 nuts, 4 pins) glacier gear, two tools, stove, pot, dinner, bivy sacks and bivy clothes (puffy pants and puffy jacket). But we had grand plans and thus could not think of anything we could leave behind to lighten our load.

We reached the parking lot, sorted through gear once again and by 7:30 were hiking down the trail making light of the Forest Service signs that alerted us to impending doom on the glacier above. By 8am we had reached the ice and were staring up at the route. Initially we had planned to take the normal route - which is the west ridge. However the glacier looked good so we decided we'd head up the ice and gain the summit via the North glacier.

We strapped on the crampons, pulled out the ice tools and started up; meandering up the low angle ice and then steering up and right (south) aiming for a tongue of ice that was mostly crevasse free. At 9am we reached the base of the ice fall and promptly front pointed up 200' of 60 degree blue ice to a shelf where we encountered snow and opted to rope up. Almost immediately the route began to get exciting. I traversed a snow bench and encountered a tongue of snow that snaked its way up beside a network of gaping crevasses which I protected with a couple pickets. Eric followed, peering down into the deep blue chasms below.   [Read More... ]

On Saturday, July 21st, Yvonne, Dan Boccia and I climbed the North Ridge of Bard Peak. We drove to Whittier, hiked up Whittier Creek where we forded it near the campground. We then chose a tiny stream that is about 300' downstream from the main fork of Whittier Creek. We picked our way up the stream, wading through it and jumping back and forth across the creek for about 10 minutes until we reached a clearing. We were then able to move left and ascend meadows for around 300' till we reached a series of rocks that border the creek. In total we only bush whacked for maybe 15 minutes!

We then picked up way up hill piecing together the rocks and within an hour we were at the toe of Whittier glacier. We stopped for a snack and then hiked up the glacier staying to the far right side to avoid crevasses. An hour later we reached the scree / snow slopes that head up to the col between Bard Peak and Shakespeare Shoulder.   [Read More... ]