Eklutna Slogfest (er, Traverse) 2013

To get ready for multiple attempts on Denali this climbing season, a bunch of us from work went out to do the Eklutna Traverse - 25 miles from Eklutna Lake to Crow Pass.  It's a decent traverse in its own right, but to make it the best training possible, we were hauling all the sleds and gear we would need on Denali rather than staying in the huts along the way and keeping our bags light.  Between the weight of our gear and the 2 to 4 feet of fresh snow we were greeted with, it turned into a pretty tough 3 days.

 The approach to the glacier.  As you can tell from the photo, some sleds were better balanced than others.

 The toe of the Eklutna Glacier.  Getting up on the glacier was quite an event, with some steep climbing with crampons while dragging our sleds behind us.  It's a beautiful glacier, though.

The team headed up glacier on day 1.  You can see how far the sleds have sunk into the snow - lots of friction to fight against.

I didn't discover until we were already out on the trip that someone had snuck an old helmet into my backpack.

Taking a break during day 2.  The snow was tough to sled through, but the scenery was never less than spectacular.

 Headed up to the Raven Headwall on our last day.  We had finished the day before skiing down the glacier across the valley then climbing 1,000 feet up to a hut.  We woke up that morning at 6 and got in to the hut around 10:30.

Our tracks coming down the Raven Headwall.  With 60 pounds on our backs, it was truly survival skiing.

Completing the traverse took three awesomely tough days.  I think it will be great preparation for Denali, though, and it was certainly beautiful.

Flattop with Friends

Priya managed to score a temporary job in Seward working with SCA and the Park Service, so she flew into and out of Anchorage and we got to hang out.  One of our hang-out days was spent climbing Flattop, a cool climb right in the Anchorage bowl.

Heading up the final part of the climb.  We put crampons on...perhaps not necessary, but there's a reason why there are a few rescues on Flattop every year.

It can get pretty steep.

Jess and Priya are in my right eye's reflection.

Jess, Priya, and I at the top.

Alaska is big.  Flattop Peaks 2 and 3 are the next mountains in our view - Jeff and I had skied Peak 3 the week before.
 

Priya took all of these photos...hence, there is a shot of some interesting fauna.

Cool angle on the way down.

On the way back down, Jess and I had a competition sliding down a mellow part of the slope on our jackets.  You can get going pretty quick if you launch yourself.

It was great having Priya in town for a little while, and that she was able to refresh herself with a little taste of the Alaska outdoors once again.

AK Powdery Snowy Goodness

After getting very little snow in January and February, the Anchorage area got hit with not only some good snow fall, but also some awesome sunny days.  This just happened to coincide with my buddy Jeff's visit down here for training, and for skiing.  In an 11-day stretch, I ended up skiing 8 of those days.  What follows is the confluence of amazing weather, snow, and people...not all of which was captured photographically.  As usual, Jeff is a much better photographer than I am and took all the pictures.

 Our first schralp was up Flattop's Peak Three.  I'd never climbed it, but it's a well-known post-work ski for people living up here in Anchorage.  Our climb just happened to coincide perfectly with sunset.

The snow wasn't spectacular, but was good in spots.  I was stoked just to have gone from working to 30 minutes later climbing and skiing in spectacular mountains.

We hit up Hatcher's Pass over the weekend.  The snow was pretty sun-baked - we had one run in some pretty tough conditions.  The weather was gorgeous, though, and the mountains amazing.

We met up with this little guy while eating lunch up on Hatcher's.  Not sure what he is exactly, but he digs buffalo parmesan sandwiches.

More Hatcher views.

After Hatcher's we hit up the Turnagain Pass area with a guy I'd met when I was deployed to Saudi Arabia, where we mutually longed for snow and skiing.  This is us hiking up Sunburst, once again in bluebird conditions.

Headed down on our first run.  The terrain down at Turnagain is big.

Really big.

And I was loving it.

I think these are our tracks, but it's hard to say.  The snow this day wasn't super-deep, but its consistency was totally unexpected - 4 to 6 inches of powder on a smooth base that you could just rip down.

Ski train!  Jess, Jeff, and I got tickets on a train that goes for one day from Anchorage up to the abandoned mining town of Curry, stops for four hours to let people ski, then heads back.  Calling it a ski train is a bit of a misnomer - it's more like an 8-hour rolling tailgate interrupted by 4 hours of skiing.

Jeff and I brought our downhill skis for the ski train, which turned out to be a mistake.  There wasn't much downhill to be had.  What was out there, though, was deep.

The only day that could be said to have less than superb weather conditions was our second trip out to Turnagain.  There was some fresh snow down there, though, so we stuck to the trees for a low-vis schralp session.

A shot of our route down through the trees.  Top-to-bottom, Turnagain has lots to offer.

As I mentioned earlier, there were several other days of awesome skiing not recorded.  All in all, a phenomenal two weeks of skiing to make up for what had been a subpar winter thus far.