All Kinds of Trail Rated

These are just a few shots of my Jeep in action. I was most proud when she had three pairs of skis and a bike for the most recent ski trip. Pretty sweet to see.

Hauling gear for a backpacking trip. Trail Rated.

Plowing through creeks. Trail Rated.

Hauling gear for a multi-adventure trip. Trail Rated.

Jeep. All kinds of Trail Rated.

Skiing in June?

Skiing in June? Why, yes. Alyeska got a huge amount of snowfall and ended up staying open until the weekend of June 3rd. So Jeff, Margaret, Chris, and I threw out any plans we may have made and headed south, young people. Sam came along for a day to do a hike near Denali.

We drove down to Denali Friday night and set up camp near the town. Our goal was to climb around on Bison Gulch. That day, though, it was in the 40s and as we climbed we began to experience winds approaching 50 and 60 mph. Here's us climbing. Tell me that Sam doesn't look like the Snow G.I. Joe.

After turning back, Jeff was dismayed to see that The Palace had blown over.

And of course, as we were leaving the ridge we'd wanted to climb became beautiful and sunny.

We woke up Sunday morning in Girdwood, where we proceeded to schralp the spring gnar. Here's a look at the North Face coming up the tram. Not too much left here.

Chris and I on the lift. The temps were awesome, but there was a little wind so we all ended up skiing in long sleeves the whole time.

The view down the lift.

The shades? $10 at the Hub of Alaska. Nice.

Here's Chris schralping the gnar, looking like a pro.

Nice work, Chris.

The bowl was still open, so that was cool. After our last run, we loaded back into the Jeep, loaded up on Qdoba, and made the Fairbanks run. I pulled into my apartment around 2:30 in the morning. Totally worth it.

Himalayas of North America

The weekend after Denali was a 4 day weekend for Memorial Day. Jeff, Stephen, and I went south to do this 24 mile loop in the Wrangell-St. Elias. I think I've heard that park called the Himalayas of North America. I've never been in the Himalayas, but I can tell you that these mountains were absolutely gorgeous.

The loop we were doing was in the eastern part of the park, which turned out to be a long drive. Here's me enjoying the view at a rest break.

The trail started (and ended) following a stream for a while. This is Trail Creek, and we came back on Lost Creek.

Hippies Smell Like Poop. At least, that's what Jeff's shirt says.

There were some stream crossings involved. Stephen gets airborne here.

I'm not sure that this picture turned out as sweet as it actually looked (shocker), but where glacial-fed streams bled into Trail Creek there was this cool dual-color effect.

One we left the main trail, we started a pretty intense uphill.

Here's Jeff and Stephen powering up to the pass we were trying to reach. Most of this valley was formed by a glacier, the moraine of which we were to climb over to get to the pass.

Jeff stopping to take a break.

There were (despite the ranger's assurances) some significant snow fields. Here Stephen's in up to his waist.

As we got closer to the moraine we were funneled down into what turned out to be a stream bed. Lots of snow, bad footing, and eventually I plunged through into the creek up to my knee. Stephen and Jeff scrambled up onto a loaf formed by the moraine.

The snow was at that point pretty demoralizing, so we stopped to cook dinner.

Stephen the Chef.

After dinner, things started to clear, and the sun came out (as seen here). After much in-decision, we decided to press on over the pass.

Starting the push up to the pass, we moved deep into this ampitheater of mountains more beautiful than any I'd seen in a while. I felt like I was in a cathedral.

The hike over the pass was intense...a 40 degree slope on loose scree and snow. It took a bit longer than we thought, but we made it, and the way down was fast.

We camped out that night just below the pass, turning in about 12:30 AM. About 12 hours of hiking in nearly 24-hour daylight...Alaska rules.

The next day validated our decision to make the pass the night. It rained quite a bit. We were able to follow Lost Creek off down the valley for a while before running into this canyon. At that point, we had to climb back up onto the side of the mountains, but after an hour were able to head back down to the creek.

We headed from the Wrangells to Anchorage, where Jeff and I were to mountain bike and Stephen get ready to head to Philmont. Our intent was to camp by the side of the road, but we forgot that Anchorage is a real city, and you can't just pull off to the side of the road. So we had to bend the rules.

Mountain biking the next day was pretty nice. There are approximately a butt-ton of trails right near the suburbs, I guess in the Flattop Mountain area.

The trails were super-muddy, though. I endo'd a couple of times, and we both got stuck in mud up to our chains, but I can't complain. It was an awesome trip.

Denali

My first trip after the knee injury was a pretty righteous welcome back. My brother Stephen came up to see the AK for himself and we spent four days in Denali National Park, hiking west from the Teklanika to the East fork of the Toklat, over to the Polychromes, and then ended up heading down the west fork of Toklat to catch a bus. As is apparently typical, Stephen's first day in the tundra was kind of rough, but he soon re-found his love for backpacking.

As we pulled into camp on our first day, it had started to rain. We went to sleep thinking that we might wake up with wet tents. Turns out it snowed the whole night, and there were 2 inches of fresh snow on the ground, a trend that continued throughout the day. Here's Stephen rocking it on a ridge we decided to climb.

Here's me on the same ridge. Our temps went from these sub-freezing to 70s by the end of the day. Only in Alaska can you experience all 4 seasons in one trip.

I discovered while we were out there that I had forgotten my spoon. Fortunately, you can use cardboard as an exceptional spoon for almost any backpacking food.

At the end of the second day, we hiked the East Fork of the Toklat into camp. It was pretty sweet, because at this point in the season there was still a lot of what is known as overflow ice, which meant we were walking the whole time either on ice or on gravel. Our feet were quite drier than when I was in Denali last year.

Nice little moose rack on the Toklat.

Our camp at a creek coming off of the Toklat.

Bear print in the ice. I still have yet to see a bear on foot in Alaska...I think all these bears supposedly in Alaska are a myth. They only live and come out within 1 mile of the Denali Park Road.

Stephen shooting some caribou. He brought some heavy camera gear, and was cursing it on the first day, but I think he was glad to have it here.

Our camp on the third day. We'd climbed partway up a ridge hoping to push over the Polychromes the next day, but the weather wasn't looking so good.

When we woke up the next day, though, the clouds had lifted to a beautiful Alaskan day.

Here are some of the mountains surrounding our ridge.

We started to climb up to go over the Polychromes, one of those addictive high alpine get-your-blood-pumping it's good to be alive climbs. Awesome.

When we reached the top, though, there were some significant snow difficulties on fairly ridges, so we ended heading back down.

We ended up hiking out on a wide valley through a canyon-y stream to the West Fork of the Toklat and taking the river the last three miles in.

Here's a picture taken from the bus ride back.

And another. Which just goes to show why even the bus ride is an incredible treat.

The Van is Awesome!

So there was this contractor leaving Alaska for warmer climes in Arkansas, and he had way too much stuff to be able to sell or ship. As a result, Jared got two 1980s era snowmachines, and I got...a 1985 Ford Econoline 150 van. It's awesome. Here are some pictures of my new baby.

Here's the van from the front. Mark (the contractor) did all of the arctic camo painting himself. Eventually I will replace, but for now it stands.

He also drew this pentagram to get his neighbors to leave him alone. I have no problem with my neighbors (and am not much for the anti-Christ), so he painted over it for me before I left. Now there's just some more arctic camo back there.

Me driving the van. It took a little sweet loving to get her going, but now she runs (mostly) great.

The van and its proud new owner.

With more suitable eye protection.