alaska 2016- part 3, kahiltna glacier

Ben and I requested a fly over of the Archangel Ridge on Mount Foraker. We wanted to have a good look at our intended line and snap some recon photos for closer inspection. The pilot called in to HQ for approval. They gave him the go ahead and he was maybe too excited to take the plane up near it’s flight ceiling, which I don’t think he had done before. Apparently the Beaver planes were designed as a puddle jumpers for altitudes of 50-100 feet, but they have been modified to become workhorses for the glacial landing outfits. They can reach heights of around 12,000 feet which is exactly how high the pass was that we needed to hit (or not hit I guess).

Archangel is the prominent central rib. Check out this great report from the first descent by Ryan Bougie and Marcus Waring

Things looked pretty good from our quick, but limited fly-by. We landed at the Kahiltna base-camp where masses of climbers were amassing for their assault on Denali.

Base camp is a stunning place to be! Mount Hunter looms right above and Mount Foraker sits there just waiting to be skied! It’s only a few miles away as the crow flies, but as the human plods up the Sultana Ridge it’s 11,000 feet of elevation gain and twenty miles!

We loaded up our sleds and completed the short man-haul to the base of Mount Crosson. Our plan was to set up a heavy camp, acclimate on Crosson and when we got a weather window we’d go light with a single tent and a few days of food and fuel.

Home sweet home all dug in with the background decorated by Denali.

The next day was low vis so we followed the well wanded route up the Denali highway just to move the legs and get some acclimatization in. I got a bad blister from heat and the flats and we bailed around 10, 500 feet and skied back to our camp at near 7,000 feet. The clouds thickened and with no vis we took a weather day.

This photo reveals all the required items for properly getting through “down days”: Eating, drinking (some alcohol for pleasure, some water for hydration), drying out gear (and feet) , doing dishes, reading and writing.

Each night the National Park Service issues a weather report at 8 p.m. Our evenings were planned around this broadcast that served as entertainment as much as information. We were in need of a high pressure that would last 2-3 days, but the reports were always for bits of clouds and snow. And everyday we had bits of clouds of a significant kind.

Hiding from the snow in our nifty high-tech enclosures.

Even days that started out blue ended up stormy. We didn’t dare commit to Foraker without a being certain of a weather window. On this clear day we decided to shoot for 14,000 feet on Denali to get some movement and acclimatization on a well established route.

Hiding from the sun.

Ben leaving camp on approach to the big one.

It was fun blowing by all the heavily burdened Denali summiteers with just our daypacks and a rope. Notice the incoming clouds.

The blistering heat soaked the socks and boot liners resulting in the loss of flesh.

Skin wax and scrappers came in handy.

Clouds filled in around us at Motorcycle Hill and snow followed shortly after at Windy Corner. We strolled into the tidy well kept tent village at 14,000 feet just as it was getting dark. Then the snow started in earnest. After a quick check in with the rangers we ripped skins and skied back down the 7,000 feet in just over an hour. It would have been much faster except for the long flat section of the lower Kahiltna we had to pole and skate across.

Poor weather continued and more down days started getting us down. We still had plenty of good food, good books to read and motivation, but we were watching them all dwindle.

Speaking of journaling, Ben allowed me to access to one of his daily entries for a closer look at glacial life.

Dear Diary,

“My first trip to Alaska is going swell! I dragged Noah’s slow ass up the Moose’s Tooth and now we’re staging for Mount Foraker. The mountains are as majestic as fuck and the potential for me to get rad is only limited by snow conditions and my aging ski partner. In fact, if it weren’t for Noah I’d be having the time of my life. He’s a walking cocktail of stank. A strange ammalgamation of sweaty feet, ripe armpits and a fermenting of the genital region. Even worse is he won’t stop with the endless stories about himself “skiing this” and “skiing that”. We’re stuck in the tent with bad weather and there’s noway to escape it! He’s always taking pictures of me too and it kind of creeps me out. In fact, he’s got the camera pointed at me right now. I mean really, can’t a guy take off his down booties, drink fireball and compile his innermost thought in privacy?! And I know for certain as soon as we get home he’s going to be spraying this shit all over his lame ass blog. It’s 2016 who the hell even blogs anymore?! Oh well, he is easy on the eyes and also one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. As long as he keeps the booze flowing and doesn’t over cook the bacon we may survive this time trapped together in our nylon prison!”

We woke up to another fine day, but a pretty solid storm was predicted to come in that evening. Our plan was to head up Mount Crosson for some elevation gain and what we figured would be a good ski since it had snowed a foot or more in the past few days. Ben is an animal! He took off for 6,000 feet of breaking trail and didn’t stop till the summit. Granted, some places we were on rock and shallow snow, but some places were thigh deep. Impressive effort. The weather was holding, but we were cold and tired on the summit so we transitioned quickly got into the fun part of skiing – the down.

Ben near the summit of Crosson.

The snow was incredible and the pitch was perfect.

Nearly 6,000 feet of boot deep snow at or around 40 degrees in pitch.

About mid way we ran into some climbers using our tracks on the ascent. I recognized Colin Haley and said hello. I knew he was on the mountain and it was fun to run into one of my alpine hero’s in the big mountains undertaking a brilliant project. If you like true adventure and inspiration go check out his report from Alaska HERE.

Our “goal” and single-minded focus of skiing the “big” peaks and huge lines almost overshadowed the fact that we were having one of the best runs of our lives on a pretty big mountain. In fact, if you dumped this little sub-peak off in the Wasatch Range it would be the tallest. It’s all relative I guess.

However, this run would be as close as we’d come to skiing Mount Foraker.

If you can’t have steep and icy then I guess soft and bouncy is a fine consolation prize.

Broken weather continued and with our time running out we notched back our plans for Archangel and just prayed for a two day window for a climb and descent of the Sultana Ridge. Our ski trip morphed into reading camp for the next few days with clouds and snow preventing any walking about. Then bad news came with three days left on our trip, a large definitive storm system was coming in. Heavy winds and more new snow. This would prevent us from getting up high for at least 4-5 days we imagined. We had held out hope, acclimated pretty well and adjusted our plans accordingly, but sometimes you just don’t have enough time. We hadn’t even finished our books.  Just like that the trip changed direction and our focus changed from hiking up peaks to flying off glaciers. There was a small weather window forecast for the next day that we could possibly escape in. We opted to break camp and pull the plug.

The bar is open. That’s not Snapple……

The friendly base-camp manager lent us some camp chairs to wait for our flight in the shitty weather. Some guys had a keg flown in and we helped them lighten their load before they dragged it up to 11,000 feet. There was a long line of folks exiting and we were low on the list.

Another night was spent camping in the snow. The skies opened up for a bit the next morning and we managed to fly out on one of the later departures.

“Hurry up and wait” is the official Alaskan motto.

Looking back on this trip as a whole it was extremely successful in all aspects. We took a swing and struck out on Foraker, but knocked it out of the park on the Moose’s Tooth. As important for me is that we were able to be in the mountains and approach these high places in heightened awareness as well as ski some big lines in great snow.

Ben was the perfect partner to get shit done! He was able to turn things off and just chill when that’s what is called for. This can be one of the hardest challenges for youthful and highly motivated mountaineers. If I bring deodorant and wet wipes he said he may go on another ski camping trip with me.

After spending two weeks in a world of almost all white the transition to green is always startling.

After a shower, and a few days in town……… we were ready to go back out.

I’m more motivated than ever to return to the Central Alaska Range with more fitness, a bigger window of operating time and another long list of objectives.