It's never too late

December 24th, latest day of backcountry ever.. but I've had good reasons. Really good ones.

Billy and I drove down to Turnagin an ended up stomping up the Freeway that is the Tincan skin track. I have not been on tincan in like 5 years in favor of all the other goods at the pass so it was fun to see the views again.  15 below in the valley so it was nice to get high and warm.

Down to business. Tincan proper. Droolfest line but are always sketched out by the ave hazard.  Things are quite stable so off we went.

Played tag with a mountain goat on the ridge! (photos by Billy)

 On top or Proper. I checked messages to make sure diaper changes were going smoothly...

Me off the summit. Hummm. reconsidering dropping into the face.

Super fun terrain.

Billy at the bottom. Basically you go right off the top then  bounce around on the small ridges at the bottom.

All the way back up to the ridge to ski Todd's run in the evening glow. It was manky but who cares.

That Thanksgiving rain crust is still out there!

anyway, better late than never. i needed a good mountain day, thanks Billy.

Snow biking with mom.

Introducing Finn

Mr. Finn Fields Parsons came into the world last Friday.
Many, many, adventures to come...

Ode to Near Point

Near point.. Just a bump in the front range, so easy to be overlooked by it's much higher siblings with sweeping alpine ridgelines. Near Point holds such high importance to us east Anchorage folk. Often just a gateway to longer adventures, sometimes a destination on it's own. Seeing it out my window beaconing every day...

When you just need to gain perspective, it's easy, drive 10 minutes, hike 25... or run up from Basher.

Or sometimes it looks like this...

Back to that gateway thing. Sometimes Near point is the stepping stone for extended front rage romps.

Off it's back side you can launch up Wolverine, Tikishla, Temptation, Crow Pass or the Canadian border...

But sometimes. Just Near Point itself is enough.
So thank you Near Point (Near Bump) for the 20 or 30 mountain therapy sessions this year. I've lost count...

Ram to Eklutna

The stars aligned for both the rain to stop and home buying & moving to be out of the way. Headed out to traverse the upper Peter's creek drainage with Billy and Yvonne following the huge ridge lines and bag a few peaks. Spent a night in the little drainage below Bee's Heaven. Met up with Abby and Steve on Sunday which was awesome.

It was the best hike of the summer, and one of the best hikes I've done in the Chugash.
anyway...

Descending towards Peeking Mountain after climbing in the clouds for a few hours.

Dropping down to Peters Creek.. home of the big ones.

Billy near the sick line we skied this spring:

My camera battery died but it came back to life on sunday... traversing to Thunderbird after climbing Bee's  Heaven:

Following goat trails towards Eklutna Lake:

another never ending stretch of alpine ridge? yes please...

just an awesome weekend.

Billy's video: ( I think its the first time Billy chose louder music than I would have..)

Sick...

So the move went well, working on the new shop space now. or.. having handy friends work on it while I sew like mad.

Cameron Lawson sent me this sweet vid just now of buzzing the Lost Coast route. I don't know about you but this just gets the juices flowing and makes me want to buy a super cub.

Flying the Lost Coast of Alaska from cameron lawson on Vimeo.

Other peoples trips

Been doing the vicarious experience thing quite a bit lately. Two trips recently are hitting pangs of nostalgia since I've been through the places before by bike.

First off is Dylan's big adventure. In pure Dylan style he started from Seattle in January on a single speed and has been cranking south purely by bike ever since. He recently passed from Ecuador into Peru via the Eastern mountain route that is barely passable by vehicle. Dylan never posts photos so here are some of mine:

He also followed the same route I did in 06' up from Jaen to Chachapoyas-Cajamarca. Along this route you pass through an area of high archeological significance where Civilizations made hillside fortresses many years ago. Think Machu piccu unearthed.

After that of course is the 9,000' descent and 9,000' climb in and out of the rio Marion Canyon which simply redefines the scale at which I judged "big" climbs on a bicycle. (and that's after riding in Ladakh!)

Follow Dylan along here: (day 231 and counting...)


Next of course is Brett deWoody's and Cameron Lawson's modified repeat (sans Hubbard Gap) on our 2008 trip on the Lost Coast in the Gulf of Alaska. This trip was a big leap foreword it felt like. Expedition summer time fat tire biking with packrafts. We both walked away from this one feeling like we accomplished something pretty amazing. The door to all terrain biking madness was kicked open big time.

Brett and Cam's successful endeavor takes just a weeeeeeeee bit of the specialness out of it on a personal level, but I guess just like climbing big mountains, someone is always going to come up after you. The planet is too small these days to think otherwise. Congrats to Brett and Cam on a successful trip! looking foreword to hearing about it...
Their trip blog here:

The glolden orb has returned!

Lucy was complaining the other day about how few new peaks she's bagged this summer. Always the same old nearby stuff. So we headed off to do the Elliot ridge and peak starting from Stuckagin. We did a part of the ridge last fall in the other direction.

So this was Near Point to Wolverine then the ridge to Elliot. Dropped down to Williwaw lakes (found a sweet goat trail). Then over the pass to Long lake and out the valley up and over near point again. Awesome loop on more trails made by sheep than people.

EDIT!! Lucy had in fact bagged this peak before, you can tell by the way she guided me the entire day and ran me into the ground.

Kachemak Bay

Julie and I had been planning to do a fly-in trip into the Talkeetna mountains all summer. Twice the awful weather kept us home and working with bags packed since we could not fly where we wanted to go. We have a little dude on the way, are trying to buy a house, life is busy as ever and time is ticking, so we finally decided to gas up the truck and drove to Homer. Wait a sec... a little dude?! yep. 7.5 months along... mountain biking & heavy packs get the thumbs down, but packrafting and base camping - yes!

So the four of us started off the 5 hr drive to Homer. Lucy was just thrilled about this, we started laughing at her antics right off the bat and did not stop for 5 days.

Spent the night at Pat and Kathi's then got a water taxi across the Bay to Right beach with Mako. Good guy, great service. Low and behold the sun even came out.

Hiked in the Grewingk glacier trail.

Lucy became acquainted with her new DFD. It was not an instant hit, but she eventually warmed up to it.

there is a bit of a learning curve involved getting her to lie down in the boat. Mostly she just laid down and convulsed like she does all the time since she's scared of everything.

soaking up the Grewingk glacier.

Days just flowed and we rolled with the weather, lounging in the tent during rain and just being unplugged.

One morning we paddled into Halibut Lagoon and hiked up the trail a ways. Riding in the rising tide and later out with the falling tide. The water was just chocked full of life. We had seals and a few groups of porpoises swimming around us amidst big salmon flying out of the water, jelly fish and tons of birds. 

Other days were all about just playing stick and playing in the water...

a little closer view is needed here...

Later dinner views..

Even the gray was pretty in it's own right and made me think back to other long beaches slogging with a mission along under the drone of crashing waves.

Our last day we hiked back to Grewingk Creek and paddled out the glacier fed ripper to the ocean then hiked the spit back to camp. Super fun loop for all four of us.

On Glacier Spit.

back to civilization... thanks Kachemak Bay.