Little Swiss

Humm.. what the weather can do. dont feel like writting much so here are some photos...

10 days in the range change to 7 after a long wait in Talkeetna.
Finally heading in:





First night in we ran up the middle Troll, the classic 5.8 line out of base camp.





After that we mulled around in the fog and rain then tried the Throne a big peak with another 5.8 line on the south east face.



it rained and snowed so we bailed


The next day was better, still snowed on us but we made it up despite a challenging summit ridge.










Back down!

Spent the rest of the time trying to get up stuff in the rain and mulling about eating pesto..





Nick and Sam our new friends provided us with the most kick ass pancakes our last morning on the pika before Danielle picked us up.





Can't wait to go back!

Diomede Island

Wow, where to start?
Left for a 5 day trip which turned into a 10 day trip.

First was 4 days of downtime in Nome.. Luckly there was a 9-piece latin band from Juneau in town for the midnight sun fest so the nights were really fun. who would think... salsa in nome? Met some really great people which made for an awesome weekend.


And the polar bear swim, compliments of another camera.. I was underwater already...



you see some pretty random things in Nome...



After a big boondoggle involving government vehicles and sledgehammers we finally were underway. A flight to Wales on the tip of the Seward Peninsula and a Zodiac pickup on the beach

The beach in Wales:

after 3 hrs in the bering sea aboard the landing craft Perigrine, a good view of Little Diomede:


Diomede is an amazing place, people have been living here for thousands of years.. and it shows:



Got to do some nice hiking around the island, one thing was constant, the wind, and the birds, the biologists were estimating over a million and a half on the island..



The water treatment plant, where I spent alot of my time, was also the armory, guns everywhere, including this explosive harpoon, a solid brass 8 ga whaling shot gun and other heavy arctic ballistics... away from the kids I guess!


on the last night there I Hiked to the top of the island in lots of heavy fog... it was a nice hike though.
best "work" trip I've been on!

Hatchers Climbing

Fun weekend up Arch-Angel road
Dan and I drove up Friday night after work and jumped on the bottom of Toto roping up at 9:30pm... it was a good start to the weekend! Light till past mid-night made it hard to go to sleep!
Saturday hit the monolith, then webfoot area for an awesome lead up Aurora Slab while dodging lightning and rain...

Got some cool pictures of Joe and Cathy climbing the harder upper section of Toto. You can barely make out Joe in the upper center of the photo.
They are dots on the top of the ridgeline in the other two.








Dan and the Aurora Slab... fun climb in the corner on the left of the slab.



Walked out back to the car in the pouring rain to a fun evening of cooking and fresh clams.

Hit the snowbird area on sunday, here is Cathy bring the photo slave..

More peaks

Hiked & climbed Granite peak in the Mat Valley this weekend with Dan, Billy and Yvonne.

We had a total blast and made it despite not-so ideal snow conditions.

anyway, the knee cycle is back at it again, must increase self-control on these weekend jaunts. It felt good the whole day but has been sore till today. So frusterating.

I'm starting a real attempt at going to yoga twice a week and really taking more time to strech.

I'm also writting off doing any serious winter biking in the near future by selling pugsley. The thing just collects dust and I feel guilty even owning it.

on a happy note I won the video contest woo hooo!

not much else to write, the GDR starts Friday, its one of those things that I know I could do well in if my body and knee let me. Touring has taught me alot about what that race would be like.

anyway bla bla bla.

Lots of mountains!

Been Busy lately.
I'm recovering from a combo of Forsyth's wedding, Climbing Mt. Rainier and getting serious altitude sickness. after a week of 4hrs or so sleep a night it has caught up to me. The trip was a much needed break and it was super fun doing a trip with Brook.
Anyway 2 weeks ago the N. Face of Pioneer:

An awesome day with 6,000' of climbing to a steepish 60 degree couloir at the top. It was sweet. Until the 4 hr bushwack to get back to the highway, yep we should have descended a different way...







Then Rainier... four days of crazyness, the full story I spewed forth here. Liberty Ridge was a fun climb, but the brush with life-threatening altitude sickness on the descent is what I took away from the trip however... HAPE sucks!







anyway..

It looks like I won the photo contest, so if anyone wants to buy a 50" plasma HDTV drop me a line, thanks for voting! Since I used Dan B's music in Colorado it seemed fitting to offer him a flight up to alaska with the procedes to go into Little switzerland... the training begins. Team Stupid united at last! its been since India and hanging in colorado.

Aside from all this hoopla my knee is still sore as ever and I'm looking at getting a wetsuit for alpine lake swimming. I hope that by focusing on rock climbing for the next month will give it some rest now that my mountaineering bug has been itched, it never ends.

80%

So I'm still on the mend. My mind is willing my body foreward to do stuff I probably shouldent. But its summer damn it and its time to snap out of it. Have to weigh the benefits of mental health after a while of not getting out.

So I was pretty worn out after Eagle, but then went on a big slog this past weekend up the Burns Glacier near portage to try to climb baird peak. Intresting group dynamics, slushy snow and

Portage weather made for a long day. Tired, a coughing me again...










So what else is going on... I finally finished my pants. Gore-tex XCR, water proof zippers, seam taped and all. I figure they ran me about $70 in materials to make and they came out totally sweet. Here is my model shot...





and another .. oh yeah pure fabric goodness... eat your heart out arc-teryx





In two weeks from now Brook and I are heading to do Liberty ridge on My Rainier after Eric & Tracy's wedding http://www.tracy-eric.com/ Looking foreward to it!


So here is Liberty Ridge, its a classic Alpine climb of the Cascades. I'm Psyched for it but nervous about my health. Its odd when that is the thing to be worried about when planning a climb like this but its true, The actual climbing should be straight foreward, I can deal with weather, whiteouts and cravasses better than lung clogging phlem balls and sore knees.






Enough for now. if anyone has a vacciene for monster phlem balls let me know.

The Comeback is here

Its a good tired. A tired I havent felt in a long time. The tired you get when you have to draw on some reserves.

Yesterday two friends and I headed out south Fork to climb Eagle peak. The weather was horriable, light misting snow and fog. Snow conditions to ski were also awful.. Undetered we made it out past eagle lake and camped up high in the first step below the flute glacier.

The fog was so thick we couldent really see what was what, spent the day going up the wrong gullies and sking on the flute glacier... jump ahead, alarm off at 5:00am, the morning is crisp and cold, the snow frozen with a good crust, it's going to be a good day.

We head up the east gully on Eagle peak. I feel quite good having not done any vertical orientated exersise in about 2 months. nice way to ease back into it... ha ha

I feel great and we are re-warded to the clouds clearing at the summit for literally only the 30 mintues we spent.

The photos should say it all.

Feels great to be back, Tired from the day, but re-enrgized by a weekend with friends in the big mountains. The knee felt ok, and I had a good amount of energy.

Stupid Human Tricks

So just in case I needed a bit more things to recover from I added another to the list last night.
Playing living room olympics I managed to the the couch, foot rest, chair dive but missed the chair a bit and slammed my knee right into the arm rest. ouch. its exactally exactally where I didnt need to hit it, right smack dab to the left of my right knee cap, right where I have all my knee problems. So whats a bit more blunt trauma to the ole' knee right? Ice and bandaids. I really wanted to bike to work today too.
Sometimes I have to remember I'm not 15 anymore..
stupid.

Echo'ed

Got an echo cardiogram today,
it was by far the coolest medical related thing I have ever experienced! Watching your heart beating on a screen in realtime, seeing the valves flap and flap away. Listening to it, getting all different views just from the friendly technician move a transducer around on your chest. Wow, now I know what pregnant women feel like after getting theur first ultrasound...

I got it as a pre-caution and just to have more information rather than guessing if i should be concerned or not. We'll see, overall the tech said to not be anxious over it, so thats good.
Its almost time to go climbing again.