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.
Ben Clark and Jon Miller are on a ski expedition to return to 23,390′ Baruntse, their second attempt.
Ski The Himalayas Season 2, Episode 4 leads viewers on the Mera La trail to Baruntse. Miller and Clark share the adventure as the pair view the expedition footage often sharing a story “not for air”. In this episode the trail winds through high mountain passes and into remote villages.
http://www.vimeo.com/14134442Having wanting to ski the remote Glacier Peak in the North Cascades for a while now, my brother and I finally lucked out with promising weather and hit the road for three days. With a great late snow season we were confident there would be snow left to ski, even if it was almost August, and we were fueled by our inspiration was to keep the turns all year spirit alive.
Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, adventure
Up at 3:30 a.m and out the door in an hour, I was excited for a big day out in Pemberton, B.C. to climb and ski the Aussie Couloir. Two minutes into my drive I got a speeding ticket going down the Mt Seymour Parkway in North Vancouver. As a kid in the 80’s I think we were clocked at higher speeds on our skateboards… But once through the formalities of the speeding ticket, I picked up my friend Sky and brother Andy. They quickly persuaded me into going to the Garibaldi area. And knowing these guys — we were in for an epic.
After 11,000 feet of climbing and almost 50 kilometers in 18 hours, we had climbed and skied the East Face of Mt. Carr, the West Ridge of Mt. Davidson and East Face of Castle Towers. Check out photos of our mini epic below!
Written by Mike Traslin. Photos and ski team: Andy Traslin, Sky Sjue and Mike Traslin.
Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, adventure
Mt. Harvey, one of the highest peaks in the North Shore mountains of British Columbia, is distinctive with its steep-sided summit stretching up so near the sea and 360 views looking out over Howe Sound, the Lions, Mt. Brunswick and various other mountains and lakes. It’s just a 20-minute drive from North Vancouver, so last winter, I put together a little video with my new helmet camera.
It’s mostly hiking to get there — with just enough snow pre-Olympics in December. It’s incredible to ski right above the ocean, on a snow slope around treeline above Lions Bay. Check it out…
Skiers: Andy Traslin, Mike Traslin. Filmed by Andy Traslin
Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, adventure
When Eastern culture meets Western adventure in the world’s highest mountains, expect the unexpected.
After a fractured ankle, Osprey athlete Ben Clark and Jon Miller return to the 23,390′ Baruntse in Nepal for their second attempt to ski the Himalayas.
This episode transports them from Colorado to Nepal. Miller and Clark share the adventure as the pair views the expedition footage often sharing a story “not for air”. The adventure begins here, view the Himalayas and discover what the two Schraplinists have to learn.
http://www.vimeo.com/13583420
It was just supposed to be a casual day: go for a short tour and get some photos. The weather was so unpredictable for May and June that we had to ignore the forecast and go for it. I was getting ready for a marathon bike race — The Squamish Test of Metal — the next day, and wanted to take it easy. We started our ski day hiking in a whiteout, but to our amazement when we got to the glacier it was a perfect bluebird day. “Let’s tour for 500 feet,” we said. But once we got going it turned into going another 5,000 feet to the summitt. The skies were clear, the wind was calm and the travel was fast, so we had to go for it.
Volcanoes have an appeal that even sharp peaks in the North Cascades can’t equal. They are massive! From their steep faces and crumbling icefalls, cracked glaciers and sloughing moraines to their encroaching forests, glassy lakes and gorging rivers, their grandeur is far-reaching. From Interstate 5 driving or on the back roads of Washington, you can see their snowcapped facades shimmering under beams of the sun or the moon.
Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Product
Ferry Time
Strange things take place north of the 66th parallel come mid-May. On about May 17th, the sun seems to enjoy its perch above the horizon and for nearly 60 days it refuses to dip below the horizon creating the “Midnight Sun”. While 24 hours a day of sunlight screws with your body clock, it does make for some incredible skiing.
I took a 2 hour flight from Oslo to Tromso, followed by sections of ride in vans and ferries to navigate the endless fjords carved from rugged peaks and glaciers.
After every possible form of transport — planes, trains, automobikes and boats — we arrived at the ultra-plush Lyngen Lodge, which would serve as our basecamp for a week. I use the term basecamp loosely as the lodge has 5 star accomodations and dining for 16 people and a boat moored out from to take you to the bottom of a lifetime of lines.
Your only limit is your own engine. With 24 hours a day of sunlight you can never blame the darkness on snuffing out another lap. On the first night we enjoy Reindeer steaks and some tasty Rhone wine. After dessert, I headed out for a 3,000 foot ski out the backdoor. I charge up the peak and stop only to snap some photos of the sun tracking horizontally across the horizon line for hours on end.
Snapshot taken at 1AM on a post dinner skin on Storehaugen.
At home in Colorado, great Alpenglow lasts about 10 minutes, so it takes some time to realize that the light is going to be lighting my turns for the next 7 hours before it starts to get really bright again around 8AM. And a run in stellar corn is a good way to burn off some reindeer and flush wine from the system. I arrive back at the Lodge in time to have breakfast before heading to bed around 7AM.
I awake mid afternoon in time to take a boat trip out for some cod fishing. After our fishing excursion (very short lived as I have ADHD and fishing can’t hold my attention for any more than 30 minutes) we head across the fjord to a commercial fishing village that survives solely on cod fishing. The fish are hung from wooden racks for months until they dehydrate and then they are shipped to Spain and Portugal and served as a delicacy. The heads are dries as well and sent to Japan for fish-head soup. The factory has more than 100,000 fish heads drying while we visit. The smell is not one likely to be bottled and sold as perfume anytime soon.
Heading to a soup near you.
Fishing aside, this trip is all for skiing. The highlight is a long boat ride through various fjords landing us in a sea-side basin below 5,000 foot peaks. These peaks are ultra-rugged and a lifetime’s worth of lines spill toward every edge of the island.
Norway has the goods.
We started the skin at midnight and dropped in around 2:30 in the morning. The light was amazing and the corn snow had taken on the shade of a pumpkin shell. The glassy sea is broken only by islands and mirrors the color of the sky. The light is like nothing I have ever seen. Orange softens to pink and is replaced by bronze as nature lays tricks on my eyes.
Pondering the scene before dropping in.
Around 3 a.m. I dropped in and skied prefect corn thousands of vertical feet back to the sea. We scrambled to the sea and waited for our boat to collect us off the rocks. I cracked a beer (a rarity in Norway as they are $10+ per can) and sipped to my good fortune. Surrounded by friends in what may be the world’s most scenic location, the rock of the boat on the ocean’s ripples lulls me to sleep and I start to dream of another day skiing under the Midnight Sun.
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
Lobbying in DC is exhilarating, but feels a bit like banging my head with a hammer. Saving our snow is a worth while cause, especially since almost all of our sports depend on it, not to mention our drinking water! In celebration of National Oceans Day yesterday, I wanted to reflect on water. Almost 50% of our world’s drinking water is tied up in snow and glaciers. As our world’s glaciers melt away, our ocean levels are rising, threatening our beaches and our cities.
Conservation, Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Uncategorized, causes
