We have hiked four miles; two through a thick maze of alders and pine, and two along the river (gently shuffling our snowshoes across ice that creaks and groans beneath our weight). Now we must cross the river to reach the drainage that cascades down the north face of the mountain before us.

Mike Litzo, a biologist and veteran Alaskan climber from Fairbanks, scans the river until he finds a "reasonably safe" patch of ice. He crosses quickly and I follow, shuffling my snowshoes softly across while looking down in-between my legs at clear ice that is a window to the rushing water. But the ice is thick, and after calming our nerves we start the bushwhack through a maze of alders, devils club, and waist deep snow. Finally, around 1:30, we arrive at the base of "3 Ring Circus", a 900 foot waterfall that drips down the mountain in a series of steps connected by low angle snow ramps.   [Read More... ]

On Saturday July 7th Yvonne, Steve Gruhn and I hiked in to try Mt. Rumble in Chugach State Park. We knew it could potentially be a very very long day so we hauled bivy sacks and some extra clothes. We were at the trailhead at 7:30 and started hiking. 3 hours, 2500' and 5 miles later we reached the top of Bombardment Pass. We then had to descend 2500' and after 4 hours reached a beautiful tarn (small alpine lake) where we cached our bivy sacks, some extra food, dry socks and extra layers. From the tarn we could see the south face of Mt. Rumble (7,530') - our objective.

After leaving the tarn we continued down, traversing a slope via a well used sheep trail. At the head of the valley loomed the Raisin Glacier with Transcendence Peak (the bump in the middle) looking down on us.  [Read More... ]

On Sunday we hiked in to try Korohusk from Eagle River. The initial trail up through the brush was good - but we soon lost it and had a good bush whack session before re-finding the trail somewhere around 2000'.  We reached the hanging valley after 4 hours of hiking and we rewarded with a glimpse of the peak. The route takes the obvious series of gullies that go right up to the summit. We started with the lower right gully, traversed left and then connected a series of scree and snow gullies to reach the upper snowfields.

The lower couloir was around 35 degrees but near the top we climbed through a tight section that steepened to around 50. We came up this way but I was not comfortable with the deep snow runnels which would make self arrest difficult - so on the descent we traversed far to skiers right and descended scree slopes.  [Read More... ]

This summer we opted to explore the peaks that lie on the tract of land between Eagle River and Peter's Creek. Most of these are after work and day hikes for Eagle River residents; however since we live in Anchorage I rarely make it out to Eagle River thus I had yet to make it up any of these peaks.

The big plus with these peaks is they are all dog friendly summits; even old dog friendly which is what Pharaoh has become. So over the course of 2 weekends we went out with various friends and climbed Baldy, Blacktail Rocks, Significant and Roundtop.

Significant we climbed from the trailhead for Ram Valley. We hiked up the south face and then ambled along the broad south ridge to the summit. Baldy, Blacktail Rocks, and Roundtop we climbed in an afternoon from the trailhead just above downtown Eagle River. We went up Baldy, then traversed the craggy Blacktail Rocks over the Roundtop. It was a fun rainy day and we had 4 people and 3 dogs cavorting in all directions!   [Read More... ]

Thursday was Yvonne's birthday so we had a party; a bunch of people came over and we cooked up a bunch of salmon and made halibut tacos. As usual halfway through the night talk turned to where to go for the weekend. The weather looked good and we were itching to go out so Yvonne bailed on work for Friday. Later in the evening Eric stopped by and casually mentioned that J.T. and Tony were headed up Polar Bear for the weekend. J.T. is in the top 3 on my 'who to call for conditions and beta in the Chugach' list (along with Wayne and Steve who were both at our party) so our ears pricked up. Polar Bear? It's high on the list and if J.T. and Tony are heading up there then conditions are probably good. Besides, I figured, if our timing is right then we should be able to jump right into their tracks and boot up to the summit. Wayne and Steve concurred that it would be a good time to try it and Steve opted to join us so we planned to pack up in the morning and hike in Friday afternoon.

The next day we packed up and by 2 pm Yvonne, Steve and I were hiking up the Eagle River trail. Our packs were obscenely heavy for an overnight trip. Yvonne and I both had our winter (-20) bags plus we hauled a stove, pan, tent, bivy sacks, ice axe, ice tools, crampons, snowshoes, pickets, ice screws, rock and glacier gear, a 60 m rope, tennis shoes (to cross the river in) and leather mountaineering boots. Despite the load we made good time and within 2 hours we shed our pants and donned tennis shoes for the Eagle River crossing.  [Read More... ]

JT passed along info that Korohusk was in good shape, so on Saturday Yvonne, Bryce, Charlie and I headed up Eagle River to give it a try. The initial four miles went by in no time and soon we had reached the turn off point and were headed uphill. As usual the start required a little bush whacking; but it was still early enough in the season to where travel was easy. After about an hour of hiking bear and moose trails we finally found the trail and after 4 hours of travel were sitting at the base of the route.

The route was totally filled in with snow, which made travel fairly easy; however the snow was shin to knee deep so we all took a turn kicking steps. The waterfall pitch was easily climbed via a snow ramp and soon we were kicking steps up the final snow slopes.

Yvonne and I had been up Korohusk once before but had been turned around by a thunderstorm on the summit ridge. This time the clouds were thick but there was no precipitation so we quickly booted up the final snow slope and were soon scrambling across the final summit ridge. We reached the top at 3:30pm - 7 hours after starting.

On the top the clouds parted to give us magnificent views in all directions and we lounged around enjoying the views for about 30 minutes. We then packed up and headed down; reaching the bottom of the route in 1 1/2 hours after a spectacular glissade down!

We then tromped out, reaching the car by 8:30 pm - a nice solid 12 hour day and a perfect start to summer climbing!  [Read More... ]

The forecast called for clouds and isolated showers; not ideal conditions given that isolated showers usually have a way of finding me, but I wanted to get out so I studied the maps and my photos. I finally decided to give the North Face of Eagle Peak a try. My reasoning was that 2 weeks ago north facing slopes were still powder and south facing slopes were isothermal - whereas a week ago south facing slopes had turned rotten. I was hoping for isothermal conditions on north facing aspects - but I knew we couldn't go if the sun was shining due to avalanche hazards. After much thought I figured the clouds would shade the route giving us the rare opportunity to ascend the route in spring conditions.

So I rounded up a team who all bit on the first cast: Dan, Eric, Bryce and Yvonne and at 5:30am on Saturday we met and were soon driving. We dropped off a car at the South Fork of Eagle river (thinking we might have to traverse the peak to avoid late afternoon avalanche conditions) and then drove to the Eagle River Nature Center and were hiking by 7am.

The North Face of Eagle Peak towers 6500' above the nature center with a prominent gash straight up the North face. There's a little viewfinder sitting right outside the center and we trained it on the route and checked it out while trying not to think about how steep it looked...then started down the trail.

We followed the regular Crow Pass trail to Echo Bend, then changed out of our long pants and began wading across Eagle River. The water was only thigh deep and soon we were across and thrashing through dense devil's club in search of game trails that might take us up to the hanging valley between Eagle and Hurdy Gurdy.  [Read More... ]

Spring… it means something different for everyone.  For my mother in Virginia it means peas and corn sprouting after a short winter; for grumpy Anchorites unwilling to venture higher than 1500' it means mud and muck and 22 trips to the car wash to keep that shine.  For me it means the annual Chugach migration into valleys and up couloirs I’ve never climbed or skied.

After a long overcast spell a sunny April day appeared and Eric rallied Dan, Pat, Todd and I to Ram Valley where we ventured up and into Falling Water Creek to try Raina’s North Couloir.  The beautiful North face of Rainia has 3 striking lines that  range in difficultly from (climbers) left to right.  The far left (NE) couloir is a long moderately difficult couloir that drops right from the ridge where you top out when climbing the normal route up the South slopes.  The middle (N) couloir is a striking direct line that splits the face in two.  On the right side of the face is a beautiful thin couloir that is more of a climb then ski and would require a couple roped pitches and some screws / pins (at least for me).  [Read More... ]

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