After many years of skiing on the North Shore mountains of British Columbia and looking across the border to the north face of Mt.Bakerin the North Cascades, I knew one day I had to ski it. A lot of factors have to come into play too pull it off — weather, work, desire, motivation and fear.
For the past two years my wife and I have called Iowa City, Iowa our temporary home. We moved here for my wife to pursue
Riding Sugar, Iowa
a pediatric residency. A priceless decision for a major career accomplishment. This two year commitment brought us to a place that I would have never imagined I would live. For a boy that grew up around rivers full of rapids and trout, mountains with ample single-track and long winter runs; Iowa was really the last place I would have visualized myself calling home. My knowledge of Iowa was little more than a bit of knowledge about that big cross state bike ride, RAGBRAI.
However, being in Iowa I have been pleasantly surprised to find one of the best technical single-track trail systems where no one would expect a strong mountain biking community. Iowa City is home to one of the better single-track systems in the midwest, the Sugar Bottom Trails. The two years spent here have treated me well with ample opportunities for some great single-track and providing a new drive in my MTB passion. Matter a fact Iowa City was ranked as one of the best towns in 2007 by Outdoor Magazine. Sugar Bottom Trails were a major contributor to that ranking.
The Wrangells didn’t follow our plan, but we realized a first class adventure was guaranteed when our bush pilot looked like Merle Haggard.
In early May, Gary Green’s Pilatus Porter shrank to a speck on the horizon above Skolai Pass, and then the mountain silence surrounded us. Dylan Taylor, Danny Uhlmann and I were left standing on the desert-like Solo airstrip in the eastern Wrangell Mountains. We had skis, food for 10 days, a pile of maps and a heap of curiosity. This was our first visit to the Wrangells, a high and glaciated range that juts north from the Saint Elias Mountains in Alaska.
Carrying our skis, we hiked to skiable auffice (overflow ice) and skied all day along the Middle Fork and camped among rubble at the glacier terminus. The next day we skied a thin coating of snow over glacier ice into a steep-walled cirque until a ground storm stopped us. The wind howled all night and loaded the dramatic ski terrain with hairtrigger avalanche slabs. Encased and trapped by avalanche slopes, we searched the basin for two days for an escape route — often retreating from whumphing faces and sometimes releasing avalanches from hundreds of feet away.
Eventually we found a 9,000-foot sneak to the Chisana Glacier, but there we discovered a new hazard—crevasses. Not just regular crevasses, but little, hidden and nasty crevasses that kept us roped together like sled dogs. In silent, pink twilight we crossed the vast Chisana neve and camped at 8,700 feet looking across to Mount Bona (16,421’) and Mount Churchill (15,638’). The next day we continued searching for thicker snow. Anything to bridge the crevasses and subdue the avalanches, but the crevasses just became deeper and more hungry and the lurking avalanches waiting to stuff us into those terrifying slots. Trapped, we searched the maps for an escape route. We gambled on taking the Nizina Glacier out toward the mining-gone hippy town of McCarthy.
We skied 25 miles down the Nizina Glacier, skated across the new pro-glacial lake and crested a terminal moraine to see a sight of staggering beauty. The vast Nizina floodplain stretched out and around the corner to McCarthy. For two days we walked together down the tundra-coated cobbles, stumbling as we watched dramatic patterns on the limestone walls and iceflows appear in the steep canyons between. When the river banked hard against the mountains we bushwacked on bear trails, dragging our skis in the duff. But somehow the irony and agony of carrying skis was subdued by the crippling beauty of Alaska. Late in the evening we walked into McCarthy. A week before tourist season, the town was silent.
Compared to our Big Idea, the trip was a non-event. Our plan was not to dodge avalanches, tiptoe over crevasses and take our skis for a stroll. But we didn’t feel cheated. In many ways our trip went exactly as planned. In Alaska plans are often just talking points. The real objective is the unknown and the plan is no plan. Except for one plan… I’ll be visiting the Wrangells again real soon.
See more of Joe’s photos at: www.stockalpine.com/posts/wrangell-ski-tour.html
If you are anywhere near beautiful, downtown Vail Village, Colorado this weekend you need to seriously check out the heady buzz that is the Teva Mountain Games. A Celebration of Mountain Sports, The Games are a veritable Olympics of mountain sports-and we isn’t talkin’ curling! World class pro athletes and folks just like you and me(well, maybe not like me) compete in all the best of mountain sports including multiple disciplines of cycling, running, kayaking, climbing, and even fly-fishing. Hell, there are even competitions for dogs and kids, which truly make this an event suited for everyone.
Osprey is celebrating the Games with a Gear Town presence in Vail Village just across the boulevard from the fantastic folks at the Bag and Pack Shop (also with a location in Avon, CO) with 20% off any Osprey Pack throughout next weekend. We are offering free demos of the brand new Raptor hydration packs plus others, free sizings and fittings, fantastic giveaways so you remember to make your next pack the best the universe has to offer, and fantastic demonstrations of all that is new for the spring and fall 2010 season. If you are craving mountain fun or need a new pack, there is no other place to be than Vail this weekend-for the Teva Mountain Games!
20% off every Osprey is easy
KONA Koralled
Alternative uses for snow
Osprey’s own Sarah Harper Burke will summit Mt. Shasta for The Breast Cancer Fund “Climb Against The Odds” . Please donate to Sarah’s climb today! Whether it be $5 or $50, every dollar will help in the fight to prevent breast cancer. Donate here.
I live in an instant gratification type of society. Online shopping, instant messaging and smart phones bring me a sense of having things right now. So when we arrived at the trailhead to Snowdon Peak, all I could think about was, “that’s really far away”. I wanted to be at the summit right now. I wanted to be learning all the information I came to acquire right now.
The Breast Cancer Fund “Climb Against The Odds” Mt. Shasta climb is three weeks away. In preparation for the climb I needed to learn basic mountaineering techniques such as how to glissade and use an ice axe and crampons. Graciously, the Southwest Adventure Guides of Durango donated a day of training to the cause. It was 6:30 am and my guide Bill Grasse and I were geared up and ready to go.
I’ve been doing little work-outs here and there but this last Sunday was my inaugural training hike for the Mt. Shasta climb. With little backpacking experience and after a long winter, I am slowly working my way to being ready to ascend 5000 feet to Shasta’s 14,179 summit.
Three weeks ago I was given the opportunity by Osprey to be part of this year’s Breast Cancer Fund “Climb Against The Odds” expedition. Osprey is a long time supporter of this amazing program and this is the first year they’ve put an Osprey team member on the climb. Being one of the newest Osprey employees, it seemed like a great way to be involved. After saying yes to the chance to be a part of this, reality struck and I started to process what getting ready for a climb like this means. There’s the fundraising aspect and then there’s getting in shape but more importantly, I needed to learn more about what this climb was really for. I needed to learn about breast cancer.
In the United States, a woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is an alarming 1 in 8, and no more than 1 in 10 women with breast cancer has a genetic history of the disease. A growing body of scientific evidence points to toxic chemicals and radiation as factors contributing to the high rates of breast cancer.
If you are anywhere near Minnesota’s Twin Cities this weekend and are an avid outdoor enthusiast, you need to swing by Midwest Mountaineering at 309 Cedar Ave. South in Minneapolis to check out all that is happening at the 50th Adventure Expo. Voted Best of Minnesota and Outdoor Retailer of the Year by Backpacker Magazine, Midwest Mountaineering pulls out all the stops for the three day Adventure Expo extravaganza with seminars, presentations, films and sales galore with tons of stock to meet your every spring and summer outdoor need. The festivities are far too numerous to list here and you would be best served visiting http://www.midwestmtn.com for all of the sordid details. Believe me; it is worth the visit, both virtually to the website and in person at the brick and mortar shop.
One of the greatest things about the entire expo is that experts from Osprey Packs will be on hand to fit you and provide any technical info you need. And did I mention that Osprey Aether and Ariel technical backpacks are all $50 off for the expo?! Incredible savings the likes of which you won’t see again in 2010 on these gender specific and super versatile Osprey technical backpacks with a fully updated design new for the spring of 2010. You can preview all of the Osprey Aether and Ariel models by visiting www.ospreypacks.com, or just swing by the shop from 9-6:30 on Saturday, or from 11-5 on Sunday.
It is surely going to rain this weekend so I can think of no better thing to do than visiting Osprey at Midwest Mountaineering’s Spring Adventure Expo for both the killer deals and the killer entertainment.
See you here!
Midwest Mountaineering is celebrating the 50th Adventure Expo this weekend!
Technical Daypacks by Osprey are top sellers for good reason!
This winter my goal is a chicken-shit mentality.
After a hellish summer of climbing deaths—Johnny Copp, Craig Leubben, the Toulumne climber on the route next to us…—I began questioning my risks. If the odds caught up to Craig, they’d surely catch up to me. Novices appear to have surreal luck. They center-punch the gnarliest avalanche path on an extreme hazard day and survive. But how about me? I want to spend 200 days a year in the mountains for another 20 years. The smallest risks I take quickly pile up, unless I can outsmart the odds.
I realized skiing high-consequence avalanche terrain is my greatest risk. Especially those steep, powder-filled gullets. Those lines I crave so bad that the hazard becomes imaginary. My goal is to claim “Chicken Shit!” 10 times this winter. I’m up to four.
The first two times I chickened out were on the south face of Kickstep at Turnagain Pass—a steep run with huge consequences. After heeding my senses and bailing twice for alternate tours, Ryan Hokanson and I got Kickstep on round three.
A few weeks ago I was skinning up below the Col du Passon above the Argentierre Glacier in Chamonix, France with some random Californians I’d just met. Ahead, a group broke trail, tip to tail, through deep snow up the moraine wall. One of the Californians looked up and said, “Was that crown there before?” The skin tracks disappeared into a fresh avalanche. The debris pile, and track setters, were out of sight.
“Oh we would have heard some thing,” said another Californian and they went back to putting on their skins. I sprinted over the crest and spotted the dazed and snow-plastered track setters extracting themselves from the avalanche debris pile. Seeing everyone okay, I went back to the Californians. “Hey guys, I’m going to bail. Have a great day though!” Tic! That’s three! I skied piste at the Grand Montets. Not a bad alternative.
Then Cathy and I tried the Haute Route, the famous trail from Chamonix to Zermatt. A route crossed by thousands each year. Being super early season, we waited for clearing storms then started from Verbier, Switzerland. We plowing through deep storm snow and crossed three passes.
Fifteen minutes from the Praflueri Hut, our first night’s destination, I crested a moraine wall and Cathy yelled, “Avalanche!” I skied off the shuddering slab and it piled into a deep, cracked mound.We skied the avalanche bed surface until the hut was just minutes away. Although deserted, the hut was shelter. In fading light, another heinous moraine wall appeared before us. We searched, but only found steep, whoomphing slopes.
We spent our first night on the Haute Route inside this ancient concrete water tank. That’s four. Six to go.
See more photos from skiing in France at www.stockalpine.com/posts/chamonix.html
Climbing the frozen falls
Ready to demo packs and spread the love
The lucky Mutant winner gets the news
If you are not in Ouray now for the 15th Annual Ice Festival you need to get your axe in gear and get here soon to join Osprey Packs for North America’s premier ice climbing event which only runs through Sunday, January 10!
Today’s Osprey celebration festivities included a day at the beautiful Ouray Ice Park where we provided free pack demos, sizings , fittings and a display of all the best new technical packs 2010 has to offer this galaxy-or any other.
From the Ice Park it was on to the Ouray Community Center where the tribe gathered for food, drink and a great gear silent auction which featured several choice Osprey Packs and raised considerable funds for the Ice Park. Osprey Prophet of Passion, Timmy O’Neill joined in the festivities drawing a single name-in a style all his own-from the many attendees who threw down some hard earned cash in support of the Colorado Environmental Coalition (CEC), who have been Colorado’s voice for the environment since 1965.
Not ones to not fill the day, Osprey also sponsored Majka Burhardt’s Namibia Speaking Tour presentation at the Main Street Theater. If you missed it you have another chance to catch it Tuesday, January 12th, 6:30PM, at the Dolores Community Center, 400 Riverside Avenue in Dolores, Colorado. Highly recommended.
How can we top all of this on Saturday!? Not really sure we can but we will certainly try and make it worth your while to pay a visit to Osprey and the Ouray Ice Festival. The 2010 Ouray Ice Park Competition starts at 9AM and features some of the top climber’s in the world challenging themselves mentally and physically on a route designed to do just that. We will be in the Ice Park all day providing free pack demos, great giveaways, and another chance to win a pack if you donate some cash to benefit the not for profit efforts of the CEC. Osprey Athlete Majka Burhardt will lead a 12:30PM Easy Ice WI 3+ clinic that is not to be missed.
Saturday evening wraps with the Guy Lacelle Super Hero Party (costumes encouraged!) with music and your Master of Ceremonies, Osprey Prophet of Passion, Timmy O’Neill-who rumor has it will be coming as himself!
In celebration of the Ice Festival, all Osprey Packs are on sale at Ouray Mountain Sports for incredible savings that will not come around again until 2011, so don’t just sit there reading this, get your axe in gear and join us now!
