Awesome Alaskan April
Jeff and I headed down to the Deltas for a pre-Easter jaunt. Our goal was Institute Peak, which has thwarted me twice thus far. We had heard that the snow was still pretty sweet down there, and our hearing was good. It ended up snowing a bunch more on our ski in, which made for some tough trail-breaking, but some solid skiing.
The way in was pretty cloudy, with snow falling and little depth perception. This photo is actually in pretty good light - we ended up climbing on an old moraine to the right of this valley for no good reason, which made for some interesting poking around.
Jeff fell on the way in. It is infrequent enough that it must be documented. Incidentally, this is the only one of these photos that I took.
The next morning the weather was still pretty cloudy, so we took a leisurely breakfast in Jeff's new tent.
It did clear up late morning, though. Excited for the day.
At the base of the climb up Institute. Neither of us had approached from this aspect before, and we had a tough time finding a good route up, particularly considering the avy danger from all the new snowfall. In the end, we didn't make the top.
We didn't make the summit, but we did do some schralping. The break in the tracks a third of the way down is from me sliding a good 20 feet or so.
The McCallum Glacier/Creek area has some sweet bowls and snow fields. It would be awesome to have a few days back in here after snowfall like this.
Pretty awesome spot to pitch a tent.
Yet another amazing ridge in the Deltas. The areas back off the roads are so much bigger than you ever realize when you're driving by, even though they're only a 5 or 6 mile ski in. It can be overwhelming just standing among such size, drinking it in. It was great to be back in the mountains.
The way in was pretty cloudy, with snow falling and little depth perception. This photo is actually in pretty good light - we ended up climbing on an old moraine to the right of this valley for no good reason, which made for some interesting poking around.
Jeff fell on the way in. It is infrequent enough that it must be documented. Incidentally, this is the only one of these photos that I took.
The next morning the weather was still pretty cloudy, so we took a leisurely breakfast in Jeff's new tent.
It did clear up late morning, though. Excited for the day.
At the base of the climb up Institute. Neither of us had approached from this aspect before, and we had a tough time finding a good route up, particularly considering the avy danger from all the new snowfall. In the end, we didn't make the top.
We didn't make the summit, but we did do some schralping. The break in the tracks a third of the way down is from me sliding a good 20 feet or so.
The McCallum Glacier/Creek area has some sweet bowls and snow fields. It would be awesome to have a few days back in here after snowfall like this.
Pretty awesome spot to pitch a tent.
Yet another amazing ridge in the Deltas. The areas back off the roads are so much bigger than you ever realize when you're driving by, even though they're only a 5 or 6 mile ski in. It can be overwhelming just standing among such size, drinking it in. It was great to be back in the mountains.
posted by Slim at
10:26 PM
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