Warning: You’re going to want to sit the fuck down for this one. Skiing the Archangel took me many years to finally get onto, it took a long time to actually climb and ski once there, now it’s taken me way too long to write about it. Good luck getting through my longest blog post ever!

Start here, continued from Part 1 West Kahiltna Peak, South Ridge

After arriving back at camp, we rested up for two days and sorted gear. Adam Fabrikant joined us on the glacier after a really short stint back in Talkeetna. He’d just finished guiding clients all the way up to 17,000 feet on Denali and camping there for a week waiting for good weather that never came! He was fired up as always and well acclimated.

Team Photo- left to right; Billy Haas, Adam Fabrikant, Ben Peters, myself. The 4 non-blondes.

Team stoke was high for the Archangel Ridge on the north slope of Mount Foraker. Why? There aren’t many direct unbroken 11,000 foot runs with a continuous average slope angle of around 40 degrees, so when I first saw the Archangel Ridge on Mount Foraker I was dumbfounded by its length and pitch and location and I couldn’t stop staring at images of it on Google Earth. At that time there wasn’t really any other way to stare at it because I couldn’t find many photos, it hadn’t been skied, had only been climbed once and it was tough to get a good view of the full route due to the remote location on the far side of the mountain. This type of daydreaming is how I spend too much of my time.

Andrew McLean first introduced me to the line when he attempted it and reported back about it around 2006. It was too icy upon his inspection so he and his crew bailed on it. Dylan Freed and I found it icy as well in when we attempted it in 2009. We pulled the plug after eyeing it up from the top of Mount Crosson. As luck would have it, as soon as Dylan and I left, it snowed hard for several weeks and Marcus Waring and Ryan Bougie, two low key crushers from Canada swooped in and skied it. They did it in top down style completing the first descent of the Achangel Ridge with huge packs and a scary fall when Marcus hit some ice and slid out of control for some distance! (Interview HERE, video HERE.)

This was a little heartbreaking for me after having committed so much time and energy and money into hoping to snag the first descent. Wounded ego aside, the desire to ski it still remained and in 2016 Ben Peters and I laid siege to Mount Foraker for a week after skiing the Moose’s Tooth hoping to get on the Archangel and were denied due to stormy weather. We camped for nine days while it snowed almost every one of those days. We did get to ski Mount Crosson in boot top powder as a consolation prize.

The great white whale of ski lines, the central rib, as seen from our flight in!

Two honest attempts and two times denied hard! She was playing hard to get. Hoping the old “third time is a charm” adage might be true, the Archangel got bumped back to the top of my list after Adam Fabrikant and I skied Mount Hunter in 2018. We both really wanted to get onto Mount Foraker, which would complete our Triple Crown of skiing Denali/Hunter/Foraker. We decided to make our attempt in spring 2019. The deck was stacked in our favor when we added Ben Peters and Billy Haas to the team compiling a very experienced and capable crew with over 60 years of backcountry experience between the four of us. I was proud to be the weakest link in the strongest group I’ve ever been with in the mountains, but also a little nervous being ten years the eldest. Since we’d be roped together, they would have to “wait” for me, so that put me at ease.

A little route overview, skiing the Archangel is a complex endeavor because you have to climb Mount Crosson and then traverse the Sultana Ridge just to get to the descent. Then after skiing the 11,000 feet you have to climb back up 6,000 feet to Mount Crosson and descend 6,000 feet back to the airstrip. Make sense? Well of course it doesn’t, but we were going to try it anyway.

Marked in red is the first move from the airstrip to our camp on top of Mount Crosson. Almost 6K of vert.

Next up is the Sultana Ridge to the summit of Mount Foraker, 4 miles with over 7,000 feet of climbing.

Then we get the big old ski run down onto the Foraker Glacier.

And back up again to our camp on Mount Crosson and a final ski descent retracing our tracks to the airstrip.

The nice thing about this route is you just need a few good days of weather and you can hang in basecamp to wait for it.

The photo below shows Mount Crosson on the right with the long Sultana Ridge connecting to Mount Foraker on the left.

Luckily we didn’t have to wait long. The weather forecast was for some clouds, but pretty stable weather for the coming week-good enough to give it a try. That night, just before we were ready to head out, the pilots from Talkeetna Air Taxi flew in and threw a concert right there on the glacier. We joined in the festivities for a minute because when do you get the chance to hear Nirvana covers being played in the heart of Nirvana?

At around 10 p.m. on June 11th we crossed the Kahiltna glacier to climb the low elevation south facing slopes of Mount Crosson. We each carried 35lb packs with enough food, tents and fuel to spend two nights and three days getting it done.

The snow up Crosson was punchy and deep and much more work than we had hoped. We stuck to the dry ridge in sections, but this was loose shale and only a slightly better version of bad.

If felt good to be moving towards this mighty mountain again with what seemed like a fighting chance to really attempt it.

It never gets truly dark in Alaska this time of year, and the long sunrises and the sunsets blend together in a way that truly warps the minds sense of time and reality. This makes hiking through the night just feel like a strange dream.

Billy Haas at 2 a.m. on the move with Foraker seeing first light in the background.

Mount Hunter just across the way.

When the mountains are windy and snowy they are hell, when it’s calm and clear it feels like heaven.

The rope trick was working……Ben waited for me and even taking really nice photos.

Stopping to take a break high on the ridge looking down the Kahiltna Glacier and the kingdom of the gods.

We topped out on Mount Crosson around 8 or 9 am after moving slowly all through the night. We slide down just past the summit, poked around for crevasses and set up a simple camp on the ridge. I was quite concerned because the almost 10 hours of uphill had taken more out of me than I thought they would. This was just supposed to be the warm-up, not the main event and I was already pretty tired.

We had until the evening to eat, drink, and try to rest. The sun was out in full force and beat down though our tents and clothes. With no wind there was nowhere to hide from the heat and even being at almost 12,000 feet we were roasting.

My body may have rested some, but my mind was whirling with excitement and anticipation. The next part of the plan was to simply set out for the Archangel Ridge, hiking and skiing through exposed, crevassed technical terrain which we estimated would take about thirty hours if everything went smooth. It’s easy to fantasize, dream big and talk shit about what you’re “going” to do from the comfort of home. But, then shit gets real on the mountains! I’d never done thirty straight hours of anything before and I started doubting myself and getting concerned. I considered and even became resigned to just staying at camp while the guys went and skied one of the coolest lines on the planet. Maybe I’m getting too old for this, maybe it’s just normal fear. Thanks to some breath work and mind clearing I made peace with the fact that I didn’t in fact “need” to do this, despite the fact that we’d come all this way.

The clouds moved in that evening as we started gearing up and getting ready to launch.

Billy melts snow to top off our water bottles.

Then for some reason, as the team was getting ready to launch, my mind cleared at the last minute and we walked off into the unknown. The fear was gone and I couldn’t find a reason not to join in the fun.

Ben Peters takes in the first real view of the north side of Foraker from Peak 12,740.

The sun was setting as we dropped into the clouds onto the Sultana Ridge.

We skied down through some broken glacier and onto a super cool knife edge ridge. It was probably a good thing we couldn’t see the exposure around us.

Then it was a mix of skiing and skinning up and down. We followed the tracks left by a party of German climbers from a few days before. We skinned past several small holes where they had fallen into crevasses, a great reminder of the efficiency and safety of traveling on skis. They had mentioned having to do a Tyrollean traverse over a short crevassed section so that sat in the back of our minds as we moved through our second night.

The first time our line came into full view!

We traveled mostly in silence for hours through the dream we were awake in and sharing.

We found the large gap in the ridge where the Germans had used a rope to traverse it, it came in a section where we were skiing, skins off. I pulled up to Ben and he turned back to me and said keep your speed up, then he pointed his skis and jumped over the chasm. It was late and dark, it may have been 3 feet or 5 feet wide, I don’t recall, but there was no other way around it, without analyzing it I went for it and it wasn’t until much later that we all talked about how exposed and fucked up that move really was.

After several hours of up and down and all arounds we were off the ridge and at the base of the face.

Feeling good!

We had brought two stoves and a few canisters of fuel and it seemed like a good spot to stop to melt snow and brew up some soup. We hadn’t used much energy getting here and everyone was feeling good having managed the first leg without incident.

From here the steeper and seemingly endless 5,000 foot trudge to the summit began. It became clear who the stronger partners were as Adam and Ben took turns breaking trail for Billy and me. Billy was 4 months post open heart surgery to repair a hole in his heart that had gone undetected his whole life until now. As for my excuse…………..I’m just old.

Not sure Billy’s doctors orders included doing 30 hours of strenuous activity at altitude, but what better way to test it out!?

We weren’t doing much talking just heavy breathing, but Billy was still smiling…..so I guessed that was a good sign.

We were right within our projected time-frame, so no need to hurry, just keep moving, but that was becoming harder and harder. The altitude started slowing us down and by us I mean mostly me. The final thousand feet was really difficult, I was down to taking 20 steps and then stopping for 20 breaths. Not a fast way to get up a large mountain. Ben was super encouraging and continued to wait and prod me along. The breathing exercises and tapping into the old stubborn will pulled me through.

Snack break………anybody got any air?

By the time I joined the team on the summit they had hot beverages. We ate some food and a I took a dose of Dexamethasone for our summit picnic. We figured it couldn’t hurt and it didn’t hurt, it really helped.

Summits are supposed to be climactic, I mean they are the very pinnacle of the outing, but this one wasn’t. It was too early to celebrate, there was still too much possible danger ahead. However, high fives were shared, hugs were exchanged and the dramatic views were taken in because that’s all that surrounded us in every direction. A windless and warm day on the summit of Mount Foraker is very rare indeed and reason to smile a little.

I love getting new perspectives from up high in an area where I’ve spent so much time. This was a special peak for Adam and me, as we became the 7th and 8th persons to climb and ski the “Triple Crown” of the Central Alaska Range: Denali, Begguya (Mt Hunter) and Sultana (Mount Foraker).

Adam and me cheesing for the camera with Denali and Begguya looking small in the background.

There’s something about clicking into bindings that releases stress and makes me feel more comfortable. Clicking in means it’s time to go down and even in potentially rough conditions the down is much more fun than the up. We had a long way down to go. The upper 1,000 feet was firm, wind stripped and quite bad. This is what we were expecting-standard ski mountaineering conditions in the high peaks-we were just happy it was edge-able and not icy. This would be slow going, but we could get down this type of snow safely so that felt good.

Ben Peters testing the choppy frozen waters. 

What wasn’t in any of our expectations is what happened next……………powder. You know, that soft and friendly, easy turning type of snow. The snow turned to fluffy boot-top to knee-deep powder.

Old man Howell not quite believing what he’s skiing (photo Ben Peters)

We smiled at each other and started to open it up and move much more quickly and freely into the clouds.

I’m not kidding, we skied over 8,000 feet of great snow while whooping and hollering and hoping not to fall into crevasses. The soft snow was sitting on ice, which we could feel underfoot on occasion if we turned too hard, or hit a thin spot.

This couldn’t be real! It felt like we were back at home in the Wasatch, minus the easy access and crowds.

A quick video snippet of the group ski!

It started snowing hard when we were about halfway down. The flakes were huge and coming down fast enough that we couldn’t see well. Navigating blind seemed like a bad idea so we tucked in by a rock pile and hunkered down. It wasn’t long before my mind crept into my pack and it’s minimal contents. I started taking inventory on how much clothing, food and stove fuel we had and how uncomfortable a night out would probably be.

But soon the clouds blew through, and we moved on, skiing even deeper powder.

Billy looking on, not too disappointed about getting sloppy seconds. 

All good things must come to an end they say, eventually we stopped skiing powder on our dream line, not because we wanted to, but it just run out.

Then came the crux of this route, where the broad ridge pinches tight and juts up into a steep spine with crevasses on the skiers left and a huge cliff face falling off to the right.

We approached with caution working whichever side of the ridge had the best snow and least exposure. Our ice axes were in hand and we ended up using them in several icy sections. Luckily our edges could bite into the ice just enough and we side-stepped slowly down.

A great moody capture from Ben, looking back up at us inching along.

Sometimes moving pictures tell the story best. 

Yours truly trying to stay attached to the mountain. (photo- Adam Fabrikant)

These scary exposed moments are when the many years of doing dumb things in the mountains comes into play and the mind is able to take a backseat while the whole body achieves focus and becomes the skier. Thanks for not falling body!

Quite the opposite of care-free powder skiing. 

Adam grabbing hold of the sharp end of the spear and slowly seeing how far he could thrust it in.

The ice forced us off the rib proper and into an east facing chute. The other fellas worked slowly through it and then hollered up that they highly recommended I down-climb, not ski because it was really icy. I was a little torn and didn’t want to take the skis off, but I listened to my partners. I transitioned to crampons and climbed down an icy narrow shortcut for 200 feet with two tools swinging. I wish I hadn’t because I think it took longer to transition than it would have to ski, but I trusted their suggestion and it worked out.

Referencing aerial recon photos helped a great deal in the top down navigation. 

Billy checking Instagram-or maybe the route images- while Adam patiently badgers him. 

The lower we got on the ridge the more we could see our uphill route out of the valley. The clouds obscured the final part of our exit route, but it was nice to have what appeared to be a clear and clean way back up and off the Foraker Glacier.

Our best guess, marked in red.

We leap frogged through some more steep, icy open sections, but they were much less steep and much less icy than the previous sections, so that was nice. Then the slopes broadened and we could see the clean finish to the glacier! The skis celebrated being off of ice and onto perfect corn by doing what they know how to do best, carving big open turns (not side-stepping).

Adam looks on while Billy transitions from powder to corn. 

Finally, we reached the bottom of the ski run, that was it, we had skied the Archangel. Not so big and scary as it had been in my dreams, but enough spice to keep the average IKON pass-holder away. At this point we had been on the move for around 19hrs and the original plan was to take a big rest at this low elevation on the glacier. We could eat, drink a bunch, and take a nap. We exploded our packs and got to work on the food and beverage part.

A much more light-hearted mood was shared during our picnic! I believe it would have even been ecstatic if we’d had the energy.

Still not time to celebrate though, but Billy couldn’t help smile that his heart hadn’t exploded and at how well things were going. 

The temps were nice and the sun was out, so we dried gear, melted snow and rested for an hour while a new plan unfolded. A few hours of unrestful rest wasn’t actually sounding as good as we’d thought it would. When the clouds moved in enough to cool us off, it was a sign that we should just getting moving again and get back to camp.

One final 6,000 foot push! The terrain was easy going and our pace was far from fast. It was really hot when the sun came out and cold when it went away. It kept doing both.

The dry exposed glacier was mesmerizing.

Our route back up was a small (by Alaskan standards) glaciated valley that from afar had looked like there was enough snow and bridges to get us through the crevasses. But the higher we got the more questionable it became.

Ben pushing on with fingers crossed

Fortunately, we found passage across the huge wall-to-wall crevasse in one narrow spot where we could jump down and over the opening.

Energy was running low and it was a real relief that we didn’t have to down-climb or rappel into and then climb back out of this crevasse.

The Archangel came back into view as we climbed, but it didn’t look like the same mountain. It wasn’t the same mountain, we knew it intimately now, in the biblical sense if you know what I’m saying.

Adam’s overboots were unzipped and he kinda looked like a swashbuckling pirate, like in the image below. I remember we all thought it was really funny and we teased him hard. He didn’t like it at all, or think it was funny. Looking back at it now, it’s not that funny. We must have been getting slap happy, but I’m still glad we teased him.

Ben and I were roped together and Billy and Adam were sharing a line. I was slowing down and the uphill battle became a real struggle as night set in and we walked up into the clouds.

Ben took over the GPS aided navigation through the white-out conditions and crushed it, he linking us right into our track that we had laid down almost a day ago, but what seemed like days before. There was still a lot of terrain to cover and the lack of sleep was causing mental fatigue and hallucinations. The snow under my skis was alive and morphing into tiny cartoon characters and unknown symbols. It was similar to things I’ve seen with the help of psilocybin. It wasn’t concerning and there was nothing to do about it anyway, so I kept enjoying the free show and moving along.

The “short” section back to camp felt really long. It got cold and we stopped to put on our puffy pants. I remember this took like 15 minutes and seemed to be some kind of difficult puzzle. I pulled out my axe for the steep rib because I didn’t trust myself completely on the steeper exposed terrain that would have normally been casual. Billy popped waist deep into a hole, Adam held him and we helped pull him out.

I was pleasantly surprised to see  two roped teams way ahead of us on the ridge, nearing our camp. I thought to myself, “Oh good, they can start a stove and have some hot water for us when we arrive.” But then my mind popped back into the picture and reminded me that NOBODY else was out here. Just more imaginary visions in the hills! We all traveled in silence, but when we later discussed things, it turns out Ben had forgotten my name completely and Billy was hearing singing, so we were all in a similar far out place as we finally rolled safe and somewhat un-sound into camp after 28 hours on the move.

It was 2 a.m. when we arrived at camp and we discussed our next move with the conclusion being that despite our fatigue, we could only sleep for 4 hours, then we had to get up if we wanted to descend Mount Crosson in corn snow, not mank. Otherwise we would have had to spend the day and wait until later that evening. The thought of being back at basecamp with bacon and bagels sounded better than sleeping in and skimping by for another day on freeze dried food.

I slid into my sleeping bag and slept in my ski clothes for four of the deepest hours of slumber that I don’t remember. Somehow, we did make it up and out of our warm sleeping bags, packed up our tents and got rolling right on time.

Strangely, I kinda felt good! I was very relieved I had ended up deciding to go on that odyyski instead of staying behind. I felt even better when we discovered our timing on the Mount Crosson descent had been perfect.

Adam with his classic “ready for anything” ski stance (and his overboots zipped tightly up). 

That’s me skiing away from Mount Foraker down Mount Crosson for the fourth and final time with my hunched over, “Please don’t fall” stance. (photo Ben Peters)

Ben Peters skiing down with his “I’m about to fuck this mountain up” stance.

Part of me (my feet) was very ready to take my boots off and really relax…….and part of me (everything above the feet) didn’t want this to ever end.

We group skied 6,000 feet of glorious corn until we ran out of mountain. To ski that much wild Alaskan terrain in as good of conditions as we had over the past two days, was a fucking miracle. Thank you ski Jesus wherever you are!

When we began skinning and skating across the wide glacial valley towards basecamp, a great relief set in. We finally allowed ourselves a celebration. The lack of sleep over the past three days helped increase the deliriously wonderful moment. It can’t be captured, but I did pull out the camera and try.

My ass was dragging on the final climb to camp, but the gang waited for me and we rolled in together. There were a few hello’s from Denali climbers prepping for their climb and tending their camps.

We feasted and napped and enjoyed the comforts of basecamp for two days. I had developed a slight cough, but it seemed to go away with rest and recovery at this lower altitude. We were only 9 days into our three week outing, we had skied a first descent on West Kahiltna Peak and the second descent of one of the coolest lines around. We were kicking ass as a team, well acclimated and in our minds we could ski anything and everything we wanted! Stoke was in high froth mode! Maybe too high…………!

Stay tuned for Alaska 2019 Part 3

12 Comments
16903