Byron and Carpathian ..sorta

Billy and I set out to climb Carpethian peak near portage. Its a much sought after peak because it looks bad-ass and you can see it from all around. It also gets some of the worst weather imaginable so we jumped on the sunny sunnnyyy forecast and I took friday off of work.
The plan was to summit Byron peak and traverse over. Some rock gear, lots of ice screws, bivy sacks and a tiny stove...



There is a normal route up byron that avoids most of the glacier, but we wanted to get the rope and stuff off our backs so we decided to try a more intresting glacier route which involved up to 60 degree ice climbing in spots.



once through the first icefall we saw this..
the line shows the route we took, we didnt know till we were there weather it would go or not.





Views of whittier and Prince william sound came out...


on the summit of Byron with our objective a long ways away!




It was a bueatiful day, and once we figured out we couldent do it, things got more relaxed and we soaked up the sun a bit..


Heading down, Skookum and placer valleys in the background



The highlight was a tourist family who thought Billy was trying to attack them when Billy tried to give them his ice tool to take photos with on the hike out... cant got into details but yes- climbers can be very scary at the 12th hour.

Went up to Hatchers on saturday for sunny rock climbing with Jillian, great day!


lead the top of Toto, was psyched!

Ptarmagin

Rainy weekend, now its bueatiful out!
Climbed the cooler on ptarmagin on sunday in full on clouds, and rain, and had a total blast doing it. Its the perfect climb to do solo or with a friend in a few hours from Anchorage. A quick bike in, fun snow climbing, a good summit scramble and decent scree for the descent. Snow Conditions were thin to say the least, less snow now than a month later last year.

Went back tonight with Joe, and had a blast again, way mellower many stops to goof off...
Was a bueatiful night in Anchorage.. feels like fall is creeping in...
Biking on the way out I was in the big ring on the sheep really getting on it.. when I look up to greet a huge bull moose with a double wheel lock up skid, made the stop about 15 feet from the tips of his enormous rack. sometimes those adrenaline shots come when you least expect it

Fun weekend

With no plans had a great weekend.
Solo packraft on Eagle river on saturday. Hiked to Glacier lake, paddled across then tooled around the moraine a bit.







Then headed up to Hatchers with Billy and Yvonne to try lower spire again.
We got most of the way up but then hunkered down for about 3 hrs while lightening blasted around us and rain soaked us. Eventually we tried going up more but I got freaked out by numerous nearby strikes and having an ice axe on my back. We made 3 double rope raps to get down to the glacier.













Got home past midnight, Great weekend!

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!