5 Thoughts on Alaska and Alaska Video

So, I finally finished my Alaska Ski Video (embedded below), and I wanted to give a few final thoughts on Alaska.

Thought 1: This place rules. For somebody who loves adventure, this place is as good as it gets. Just the stuff I turned down or didn't have the money for (ski tour down a frozen creek to a remote ice climbing destination, heli drop at a remote backcountry yurt for week of touring) would be incredible. Me living in Alaska would be like a gambling addict living in Las Vegas.  I'd have an amazing time, but I'd almost definitely get myself into trouble.  Which leads me to . . .

Thought 2: I need more training. I definitely need more knowledge - snow safety, wilderness first aid, mountaineering, etc.  I didn't feel grossly unprepared, but I definitely wasn't the most educated person there. In fact, my complete ignorance of avalanche knowledge was kind of embarrassing.  I might take the PSIA Backcountry Accreditation next year, which would put me in a good place to take a AIARE Level 2 Course the following year. That, combined with a lot more backcountry trips and maybe a few ice climbing adventures will make me a lot more comfortable when I get into winter shenanigans.

Thought 3: I did it all wrong. If I was trying to have a pure ski vacation, I screwed up royally.  I really only got one resort day at Alyeska and 5 backcountry ski days. I guess 6 "skiing" days in a 10 day vacation is pretty good, but a lot of those touring days consisted of a long hike up, followed by 1 run down.  A couple of times, I'd hike halfway up again and get another run out of it, but it was definitely more of a "hike" day than a "ski" day.  Next time, it's going to be more like this guy:

Pickup truck. Camper on pickup truck. Ski rack on camper on pickup truck. Trailer on pickup truck. 2 Snowmobiles in trailer.  Not a bad way to access all of that powder in the background. Of course, having a snowmobile (or 2) would really have been no good for me because . . . 

Thought 4: Travelling alone sucks. I was visiting a college friend that was only available for adventures on the weekends (which were awesome). The problem was, she works all week, and I had to find my own adventures Monday - Friday (which is a lot more difficult by myself).  At the resort, skiing by yourself is never really the best time, and in the backcountry, skiing by yourself is never really the best idea. So, I ended up having to ski in a lot of heavily trafficked snowmobile skiing areas, when I would have much rather been out in the middle of nowhere. And not to sound vain, but it's nice to get pictures and videos of yourself shot by a buddy (like that Tug Hill Trip). I'm not really satisfied with the below video for this reason (too much first person GoPro-ing without another person in the frame).

Thought 5: I'm not sure if I'd want to live here. The mountains and adventure opportunities are fantastic. The skiing is great. The mountain biking is supposed to be phenomenal (how could it not be?). I could seriously have an amazing adventure every weekend and, for at least 6 months of the year, every day after work. The problem is, I think I caught it at the best time. Right now, Alaska is going through "breakup", a season of flooding, ice jams, mud, grime, and unfrozen dog shit. In the summer, the entire state is apparently overrun with mosquitoes (35 different kinds?). And after summer, it starts getting real dark, real quick.  In December, Anchorage only gets around 5.5 hours of daylight (and it isn't really "daylight" as it's supposedly pretty dreary). I found out that Alaska has a pretty transient population - people who are there for a couple of years and then move somewhere else. I could see doing that. It seems like just the kind of place that would be the perfect "change of scenery." 

So, I'm not moving to Alaska just yet. I need to go back for a more pure skiing vacation to make a final decision. Anyone want to come with? If you need a little more convincing, here's the video:

Trip Report - Thompson Pass, Alaska 3/30/12

I'm working on the Alaska video (trying to edit the entire vacation down to 6 minutes, so a lot of stuff is getting left on the cutting room floor), but I figured I should finish my story about Thompson Pass.

So, after a day of really tiring touring (damn, those hills were steep), I had made plans with the snowmobile shuttle guy to get a ride to the top.  Then, in theory, I would have toured around the top of the mountain with a bunch of short laps, and then skied one big lap down at the end of the day. The drive back to the pass was pretty scenic:

I was scheduled to meet the guy "between 9:00 and 10:00".  At around 9:15, I pulled into the parking area where he had set up shop the previous day and waited.  And waited.  And waited . . .  until about 10:45.  The whole time, this was the view through my windshield:

That would be the Worthington Glacier (summer picture here).  It looked absolutely perfect for skiing (and was one of the places that the snowmobile shuttle guy offered to take me).  Only problem was, I was alone. Glacier travel (what with crevasses, ice flows, hidden hazards, etc.), is not the best undertaking for a random dude with no winter mountaineering experience.  I was wishing that the guys in this helicopter would pick me up:

Since that didn't happen, I decided to make a go of it anyway.  I drove across the street to the parking lot and looked around.  Snowmobile tracks straight up the glacier.  That was good.  I could follow those, and hopefully, they would lead me to powder nirvana instead of icy megadeath. Looking around more, I saw some tents, some RVs, and 2 guys applying skins.  Nice! First time I saw anyone else opting for the hard way (granted, I was only skiing the well trafficked areas because, again, I was all by myself).

I formulated a plan to stalk them, and thereby keep myself somewhat safe (I realize this is not good backcountry etiquette, but if they weren't friendly about it, I would have just skinned up and skied down the snowmobile tracks). Here's what the hike up looked like:

Those are some buildings for the Worthington Glacier State Recreation Site.  I just realized that website says to stay off the ice.  Oops.  Here's one of the two guys hiking up:

Note the ridiculously large crevasse, visible on the right.  Of course, I was more concerned about the stuff I couldn't see, which would become an issue later.  Skin track stoke (?):

So, once again, I was on a road made out of snowmobile tracks, so I felt pretty safe.  Damn skin trak was steep as hell again, though.  Nevertheless, I caught up to the two guys (who turned out to be from Salt Lake City), and hiked up with them for a while for a little added protection.  Why? The weather was turning:

We had hiked about 3,000 vertical feet in about 4 hours, and those guys wanted to go higher.  My legs didn't have much left, so I ate a Snickers bar and thought about going down.  On one hand, going down a glacier in low visibility was a questionable activity, and even more ridiculous by myself.  On the other hand, I was tired, and going down now meant I was that much closer to beer and fried food.  Beer and fried food won out.

I told the two guys that I was going to head down right next to the skin track, and if they saw my car in the parking lot when they got down later, they should turn their beacons to "search" because I was stuck in a crevasse somewhere.  The skiing turned out to be not so good.  Besides not being able to see anything, the snow was pretty crusty, and I had to stick really close to the skin track for safety.  You'll see what it looked like in the forthcoming video (or, really, you won't see what it looked like).

I made it down safe, though. and I stashed my gear in the car and took off back to Anchorage.  Pretty good views on the way back:

When I made it back to town, I ate fried halibut and drank tasty, tasty Chuli Stout.  Excellent decision by me. In fact, I made a lot of good decisions that day.  So, I'm no longer a random dude with no winter mountaineering experience.  Now I'm a random dude with very little winter mountaineering experience.

In my next post, I'll premiere my video, Alaska in Six Minutes, and give my final thoughts on "The Last Frontier", including my ideas for how to do a pure Alaska skiing vacation (not that the state tour thing wasn't fun. I'm just going to attack this place completely differently next time).  I'm also going to do something outrageous this weekend (either skiing or mountain biking), so look for a report on that as well.

Trip Report - Thompson Pass, Alaska 3/29/12

For the past 9 days, I've been in Alaska. Even though the snow isn't great (I heard yesterday that Valdez only got 17 inches in March), it's still the best stuff I've skied all year. While we scratched and clawed for every inch back home, Alaska has been enjoying a record year. So, after a resort day at Alyeska last Friday, some random touring around the Anchorage area, ice climbing, cross country skiing, and road tripping, it was time to get into some serious skiing.  So rented a car and started the 6 hour drive to Valdez.  Here's some pictures from what might have been the most beautiful drive I've ever taken:

I started to see ski tracks as I went through the pass:

So I basically said to myself: "That looks good. I'll ski that".  I put on the skins and started hiking.  Much to my chagrin, it appears that the snowmobile is the preferred method of travel.  I was huffing and puffing up the hill while guys were constantly lapping me having the time of their lives on a bluebird day. At least all the tracks groomed out a nice path for me to skin up. "Skin Track" stoke:

If the constant passing of snowmobilers wasn't enough, the sound of helicopters throughout the pass was enough to drive me insane.  It seemed like I had the slowest method of travel imaginable. It was STEEP, too. Very tiring skin.  Also, I kept getting passed by hardcore snowmobile chicks that would take their boyfriends up the hill, drop them off at the top, and then ride the thing down and wait for them at the bottom for another lap.  Where can I find a girl like this?

Eventually, I climbed as far as I wanted to go:

Pretty good view from the top.  I ripped a run, and went back for one more shorter one before my legs were completely fried. I went down to check out the "scene":

Site of Tailgate Alaska (really cool video on that site to get a sense of the place), Thompson Pass appears to be a mecca for skiers and riders. Tons of campers, pickup trucks, and snowmachines (they don't call them snowmobiles up here for some reason).  These guys are living the life.  One dude was running a snowmobile shuttle service for $50 a drop (which would go a lot higher than where I climbed), and I tried to set something up for the next morning (I'll tell you how that worked in my next post).

After talking to a few people, I decided I was doing it all wrong. If and when I come back to Alaska, it'll be a pure skiing vacation (instead of the multisport/multiregion tour that I'm doing now), right here in Thompson Pass. There will be a pickup truck, a snowmobile, and lots of friends (or amazing sled shuttling girlfriends). I'll talk about this more in my next post, but it really feels like because there is just so much stuff in Alaska, it makes having a solid plan that much more important.

Anyway, I ate dinner and had a few beers at the Rendezvous Lodge (note the heli out back):

Then I cruised into Valdez at twilight (9:00 or so) and stayed at a $25 a night B&B.

So, all in all, it was a pretty spectacular day.  Easy, fun, and safe. The next day, however, was none of those things (well, maybe fun).  That was the day that I skied this glacier:

Stay tuned for the report on that adventure when I get around to posting again.

Trip Report - Kayaking (?!) the Raquette River

So, I was looking for something original to do on Saturday, and I made plans with an old friend to have a kayaking adventure. It turned out to be pretty fun. Here's the route we took.

We stashed a couple of mountain bikes at the takeout, and geared up outside the car (as always, click on the pictures for a photographic explosion):

It was a short drag to Axton Landing:

Matt, Kayaking JONG:

After putting in, though, everything was awesome.  Totally peaceful, totally calm, and a "lazy river" pace to the water made paddling super easy.  Here's some more pics:

Really cool reflections on the water:

We stopped a couple of times at the various campsites along the route for trail mix, water, and candy.  If we had planned better, we would have brought a cooler of Guinness for St. Patrick's Day.

It's still a little early in the year for this, and we ran across a few icebergs.

Ice was also covering the stagnant water outside of the main channel:

It was still gorgeous, though:

After the paddle (which took a little under 3 hours), we stashed the kayaks behind some docking material:

Then we picked up the bikes we had stashed in the woods:

The plan was Old Wawbeek Road back to the car so we could avoid riding on the main road as much as possible.  Unfortunately, it was a little too early for that too:

Eventually we made it back to the car, packed everything up, and cruised on home, ready to celebrate the holiday with a night out in Lake Placid.  Like I said, it was pretty fun.

Adirondack Backcountry - 3/12/12

To be fair, I didn't really say we were going "skiing", I only asked if Pat was "up for an adventure".  And that turned out to be exactly what we got. Where? Well, apparently, you aren't supposed to divulge backcountry spots on the internet, but let's just say that this a "popular ski destination" that has been talked about a lot.  Oh, and I went there in November.

We set off from the Garden Parking Lot in Keene Valley, and started up the Phelps trail towards the John's Brook Lodge. Most of the trail was covered in a nasty layer of ice that probably would have been easier to navigate with Micro Spikes (click on the pictures to enbiggen them and enhance the experience).

Luckily, the hiking got better as it warmed up throughout the day.  We passed a couple of other skiers who were on their way back to the parking lot because they said the snow had deteriorated mightily over the past couple of days. They were bringing all of their equipment back out and were just going to try and do a few summit pushes.  Hmmmm . . . . Come to think of it, the closer we got to the slide, the bonier it looked.  It was then that we started thinking that this trip might not work out so great after all.  

Still, though, we persevered. We crossed the cool suspended bridge at the DEC Interior outpost:

We walked a little ways, and were approaching the slide we wanted to ski, when we happened upon this nice scene:

I briefly thought that this might be the base of our slide, but a quick glance at the map said that this was Wolf Jaw Brook, and not Bennie's Brook (Whoops. I said the name and ruined the backcountry experience for everyone . . .  Damn). So just as we were crossing Wolf Jaw Brook, I stepped on what I thought was solid ice on top of a rock.  It turned out to be unsolid ice on top of thigh deep water.  Suddenly, I was butt deep in a freezing cold torrent of water.

After scrambling out of the creek and back to the trail, I took off some clothes, put them out in the sun to dry, and reassessed the situation:

My boots were soaked, but I could just switch to my dry tele boots (they had been on my backpack).  After about 20 minutes of sun, my socks and snowpants were dry enough (drier than they would be skiing in the rain).  And it was about 60 degrees and sunny out.  Adventure continues!

We got to the slide and some parts were a little tough to ascend:

We were mostly able to pick our way around the difficult parts, though:

And eventually, we hit the meat of the slide:

The sound of melting was all around us. To be honest, the skiing didn't even look worth it.  All ice, thin cover, rocks, no good lines, etc. etc. etc. 

But when we made a couple of turns, the surface surprised us. The ridiculously high temperatures made the ice pretty edgable:

We had to step over some rocks, ford some rivers and barrel through some stumps at some points, but I managed to keep my skis on all the way down to the Southside Trail (the trees on the left side were somewhat open with soft snow over a mossy base, actually quite nice for skiing).

We decided to go back via the Southside Trail to make a loop out of it.  Unfortunately, there is no bridge back to The Garden, so we had to do a little creative fording:

All in all, it was a fun trip.  The skiing wasn't really spectacular (or even very good), but the adventure more than made up for it.  And really, that's what we set out for anyway.