Monday, March 30, 2009

Moved

Done moving, spent the day setting up the sewing shop once again. What a pain in the ass. Thank god for Uhaul. Hopefully I wont get evicted in 6 weeks like the last go-around.

Moving on, fresh snow is on the ground and spring is in the air. Time for a fresh coat of warm wax on the skate skis...

getting back to Mt. Redoubt though. Here is a time lapse that Hig took from Seldovia:

Redoubt Eruption March 27 2009 from Bretwood Higman on Vimeo.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

epic schwag

Thanks Dan



let the moving begin!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

K2 Tragedy

Tonight is the premiere of the documentary that details the events that lead to one of the greatest mountaineering disasters in recent history. I'm not going to go into details, but through certain events 11 climbers died high on K2 last August. Gerard McDonnell (Ger) the Irishmen & Alaskan was one of them.

Last November my friend Matt Szundy's climbing guide company, The Ascending Path LLC was hired by Discovery channel film makers to produce the climbing re-enactment scenes. It was tremendously bittersweet, while amazing work, most of us involved personally knew Ger through the mountain community. I was cast with the role of Ger, mostly due to the beard. The experience was pretty heady to say the least - going through the motions on camera that eventually lead the death of someone that I knew.

Its on the Discovery channel tonight, 9:00 pm Alaska time.
I have not seen any of the footage yet so will be looking foreword to it. The film makers made extensive efforts to get the facts right and tell the story rather than create the sensationalism that is so typical on TV these days.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Tis "The Season"

A week of sewing during a bluebird high pressure spell - torture! With a weather front moving in, today was deemed play day this week!
Thoughts of getting up early and climbing Carpathian were squashed by the weather forecast. When we drove by portage valley and the car thermometer read 15 below we were kinda relieved...


To Pastoral it was. Nice skin up between Sunburst & Magnum over Taylor pass.


The view from Taylor pass.


The peak looked great so we went up there. Getting windy... Billy's whippet came in handy as usual





Topping out with the Spencer Glacier in the back. On the other side of those peaks is Prince William Sound.




Our fearless Couloir leader Dan gives it some juice.


Spotting the Red Fox - Photo by Billy:




Billy incoming:


Good Stuff, all the way down off the glacier, then back up again for round 2. The front was moving in fast and we had flat light for part 2. Then headed up Sunburst and had a funky final run out. Great day, lots of vertical with the swallowtail, over 7,000'yeah!



Happy Vernal Equinox!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Spring skiing - almost...

Blowing at Turnagin, its March, time to hit the front range!
Awesome day on Ptarmagin peak with Billy, Todd, Dan & Pat.
Still windy & cold, but we saturated ourselves in sun all day!
20 minute drive & viola!
(Correction voila...)



After the skinning turned to concrete / ice, we decided to boot up the west face. The "skiers" were not as thrilled...





mmm that's some Chugash out there.



Todd with Anchorage in the back.


First run was pretty boney, the south gully devoid of its usual snow pack. oh well.




The 173 was the tool of the day, photo by Billy.




With the summit & bony run complete we went back up 2 more times and got some better turns in on different slopes.

lots of laughs.. it is almost "The Season"

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tour of Anchorage

ahh the Tour.
Broke the 3 hr mark in the 50k with a time of 2:55. I was pretty psyched though secretly hoping to break 2:50. My time got me an overall place in the Men's of 90th something, yee ha! pretty humbling to think you can go all out and then there are the Elite dudes that can finish almost 45 minutes faster. Its cool in that sense because you basically can stack up against the best Nordic skiers in Alaska or the country. The top men and women are at the world champion level and are Past (present / future) Olympians) The Tour is such a community / city wide event. Looking foreword to next year's suffering already.

I was dreading Spencer's loop but it turned into a rally fest of high speed passing on the downhill turns. It was as close to mountain bike racing as you can get on skate ski's I think. Super fun.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Tour of Anchorage today.. woo hoo, first actual race in a long time. The new snow should make for great conditions.

Threw together this quick clip last night of Mike's start:

Mike Curiak leaves Knik 2009 from Eric Parsons on Vimeo.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Mike's big trip

Everything that's done is done.
Time to Ride.
Good luck Mike.





Follow his progress here: