The GTP turns 1

Lucy had a birthday, to celebrate I took her out to do what she loves most - tundra galloping!
3 pm late start, but lots of built up glycogen from sitting and sewing way too much this week. Left Glen Alps parking lot really not knowing where I was going, but it was just going to be fast!

Up to the ball field, down to williwaw lakes..

Up the pass to the long lake valley...

hammered up to the ridge overlooking the ship valley and got a sweet view of the area of the last overnighter

started to head up the ridge to Koktoya, but it was fairly chossy rock.. and this day was all about galloping through the tundra so we actually stopped 5 minutes and soaked in the view a bit. she's a ball buster that dog...

Was pretty amazing to get so far back in the front range so quickly..

anyway, ran back to glep alps taking the ball field route for some bonus vert.

just awesome.

yum

they are still up there:

Bird ridge +

Quick plan thrown together for an overnight turned out to be one of the best weekends of the summer.. or is it fall? feels like it. anyway, climbed up Bird ridge from the arm to 3,500' and kept on going:


taking the ridge back to the overlook peak - lame name for a cool mountain.
Bird ridge makes you work for it up front, but then it just does not get much better.




Circled around the peak and dropped into an alpine basin via super steep tundra ramps.
The north face of the overlook peak, still a lame name for this one!


Fall is upon us, temps hovered right at of just above freezing, there was a tinge of frost on some grasses in the morning.


Luz got her morning started off right...


up we go, gaining a ridge with light packs, our camp was in the second valley down.


some peak, I don't even know the name of it yet. matters not, was a super aesthetic hike to get up there. superb ridge walking and cloud 9 views...


North Fork of Ship Creek, Organ Mountain and Marcus Baker in the Distance:


The back side of the 5,000'ers in the front range, cool to see them from this perspective since we look up at them all the time from Anchorage.



I love my new camera, I've never been much of a close up photo person.. but I am now.
when Lucy has a few thousand vertical under her paws she starts to make a mellow enough subject.












yeah - from a point and shoot. crazy.

anyway down, back to camp, up and over a pass down side hill down, 6' tall grass vertical down falling, solid bushwack & moments of doubt by the blondies, reached the Indian Valley trail for the hike out through immense piles of bear shit to hit the road at dark. A Maximum Weekend for sure. Can't wait to go back.

new camera

Have had my head down for the past two weeks. This has been the view:

From good reviews by some aspiring photographers, I picked up a Panasonic LX3. Hopefully I'll be nice to this one. The images so far have been stunning. I'm stoked to have a good camera again. It's going to come in handy pretty soon.

Res pass

Quick overnighter with J up to the Resurrection Pass and back.
Great trip, couple hours up, rain all night, couple of hours back in sprinkles and mud.
Perfect.











Fall is upon us!

Let my people go slaying

I read Yvon Chouinard's business memoir "Let my People go Surfing" a few months ago. I think if it works for Patagonia then it must apply on a small scale as well to keep morale up and burn-out low, even if its a one person business. High pressure bluebird skies at the end of August is the Alaska summer equivalent of a good surf swell or a winter day of cold smoke.

Bashful peak at 8005' highest peak in Chugash State park, rising almost 7000' vertical feet above Eklutna lake. It was a worthy objective for what I call an "Eric day", have not had any real solo mountain time this year and have been craving it.


The 10 miles around Eklutna lake were quickly put behind me thanks to the karate monkey with marathon XR's, made it to Styver's Gully in an hour from the parking lot. Armed with good route beta I picked up the faint path that lead steeply to the hanging valley and mostly avoided bushwacking.


The Fireweed is saying goodbye to summer too.


With 5000' of ridgeline ahead of me there was no time for lollygagging. Gained the ridge via the tundra ramp on the far right after bashing across the moraine.



The first 3000' went by pretty nice, decent footing and just classic ridge hiking. Higher I left the mosses that bind the rock together and the scree slogging began in earnst.




Chicken shit gully - the crux of the route. It's nasty. Terrible footing and awful rock. I tried leading up the center part to avoid rockfall on the easier gully with a trace of ice to the right, but eventually had to back off, down climb and run the gauntlet up the steep semi-frozen dirt/rock with kitty litter. Chugash crud at it's worst.


Above Chickenshit the altitude and scree slowed me down, but the views - damn!


The last bit to the summit. Reminding me what state I'm in..


It's pretty amazing, the summit register had about 10 entries in the last 5 years. Thinking how this is the highest summit in the area I'm surprised Bashful does not see more attention. It's what I love about climbing in the Chugash - There is no guide book. To figure out the peaks you need to do some homework and then just see what you find when you get there.



Down down down. 7000' worth







I'm going to push for the "let my people go slaying" program at the next board meeting.

Bashful Peak from Eric Parsons on Vimeo.

Bikes & boats

The fine gentlemen at Surly have caught the Packrafting bug.

http://www.surlybikes.com/surlyblog.html

Good stuff Nick and Dave!

Emergency Overnighter #2

Sometimes you just need to call a state of emergency.
After both of us worked all day, the red button was hit and we headed out to the backyard starting at like 8:00 pm. Just wanted to get some air.




Up powerline..


Pitched the mid at the lake just below powerline pass, its actually starting to get dark at night these days.



I've been experimenting a bit with a really light 24oz Big Agnes down bag. It's great so far, warmer than I'd expect and packs to nothing.

mmmm


one thing that must suck about being a dog - you never know if you're going to sit on the couch all day, or in this case - run downhill for 15 miles!


down down down.


The emergency situation has now been downgraded. But one never knows when it will arise again. Back to work.

The Mamma visits

Mamma Parsons is passing through town. She recently retired and immediately embarked on a 540 mile canoe expedition in the Yukon. Paddling down the Porcupine river and finally to the Yukon ending in Ft. Yukon, then flying to Fairbanks and taking the train to Anchorage - not the typical way of arrival for a family visit!

With strong paddling arms, we quickly decided to head out sea Kayaking.
Capt. Dano's Sailboat provided water taxi services out Resurrection Bay in style.



He Dropped us off at the Fox island spit


Nice evening paddling...


These basalt cliffs were really cool.





The Mamma in her element:


This was pretty amazing, paddling up to the head of a little creek amidst thousands of spawning salmon.




Made our way to Thumb Cove,


and did battle with the beach monsters!




The following morning we made an early crossing of the bay to Caines Head. The fog caught us in the middle, there was about 5 minutes that were pretty disorientating before we poked through it.


Looking back to Thumb Cove:


back in anchorage, The mamma gets acquainted with Luz