Gulkana Glacier GIrls on Ice 2012

July 16 - 25, 2012

 A couple days in Talkeetna enjoying the lowlands, sorting gear and feasting and then it was time for me to move on to the next mountain journey. The slow moving train provided a lovely way to get from Talkeetna to Fairbanks, where I would begin Girls on Ice Alaska. This non-profit organization was created over a decade ago to bring high-school girls into the mountains for a field science and mountaineering adventure. Its always a highlight of my summer. Given that this was the first ever Alaska program – I was even more excited and highly committed to making the trip a huge success.

Emma showing off her garden

Transformed into superstars!

We brought in 7 girls from all over Alaska: Bethel (West coast), Barrow (far North), Hooper Bay (Native village on the W. Coast), Pettersburg, Anchorage, Titalick (small island by Valdez) and Palmer. The remaining girls came from Seattle – one of whom was originally from Nepal and knew one of the climbing sherpas who works for Alpine. Small world. These girls were amazing and I had such a rich experience with them. After a day outfitting

The nunatuk to the right first emerged in the 60'

them in their gear – we drove to the Eastern Alaska Range to a place called the Gulkana Glacier. This Galcier is one of 3 selected in all of the Western mountains of the US that has been studied for the past 30 years by the USGS as part of their ongoing glacier monitoring program. It is also small enough – and safe enough - for us to adequately explore on this trip. Though massive and utterly remote by the standard of the lower 48, the Gulkana is tiny and easily accessible by Alaska standards. It was a perfect venue. 

Flirtatious caribou!

Check out my facebook page for the slide show if you like. A few highlights of the trip include being visited by what we termed 'flirtatious caribou'. Day 3 brought us stunning weather and a family of Caribou curiously checking us out. As we hiked to the upper slopes of an adjacent small mountain to do snow school – they followed! I was utterly distracted by the caribou teasing us as I tried to teach the girls proper ax and climbing technique. After watching the caribous plunge down a steep slope however, teaching the girls to follow suite was no problem. What a treat. We gathered that the caribou were beating the heat and mosquito's by hanging out on the pocket glacier.

Another highlight of the trip was watching the girls deal gracefully with some rugged wet

Taking the girls into the ice fall

Arriving at the A-frame USGS hut

and windy weather. This provided a great opportunity for me to teach them about Types of Fun. Type 1 Fun is typified by fun in the moment. E.g. arriving at a highpoint and being greeted by a stunning view or basking in the sun on a glorious day. It also might be those moments of movement when you feel strong. Type 2 fun can best be described by those many moments that are only fun in hind site. They are not fun in the moment but only emerge so with the filter of a short – selective memory. Type 2 fun moments include those long hard pulls to get to the stunning views, the heavy loads with sore feet, and all the other challenges of mountain travel. Type 3 fun is simply put – never fun. Its reserved for those utterly terrifying moments. We try to avoid these in this program. With a good attitude – potential Type 2 fun moments can just plain be Type 1 fun. Amazingly, these girls pulled off a great ratio of Type 1 fun in the bad weather – singing, laughing and loving the moments. It was impressive.

The mighty suspension bridge

Megamid magic

After our 8 days in the hills we return to the University of Alaska Fairbanks where we have the girls further develop the science experiments they worked on all week and then present them to some of the faculty. They did fabulous. It is such an amazing thing to watch girls from such a wide variety of backgrounds confidently presenting their science projects in a university setting. 
Empowerment is a huge part of this program.  I firmly believe that clarifying one's dreams is the most critical step toward making them happen.  For some of these girls their goals include very normal high school girl things like 'getting out of my tiny town and doing something with my life', or 'not getting pregnant early' or 'spending time with my family'.  We also try to tease out their dreams of going to college, becoming a field scientist or getting into the outdoor profession - and how they might make this happen.  The girls in this program are amazing - and well selected. We choose them precisely because we sense that this program might change their outlook on the world (and themselves).

In another 2 days, I will be starting the Girls on Ice Baker Program – a similar adventure – but with new girls and in the Pacific Northwest.  Should be a blast!

Denali via the West Buttress

June 24th - July 12th, 2012

Afgani fashion on Denali

My recent climb on the flanks of Denali was a great – although the Great One wouldn't even let us get close to her seemingly

elusive summit.  The dance began with a 4 day weather hold in

Plane halo

Talkeetna, hanging at TAT waiting for the 'go' from the pilots. We ended up doing our glacier mountaineering reviews in the parking lot and in the yurt. In the Alaska range, the pilots deliver you into the heart of the mountains. While we don't 'rope up' in the plane, it's pretty much 'game on' once you step off the airstrip. Reviewing roped glacier travel, crevasse rescue and altitude illness prevention helped make sure this team was as ready as we could be. Usually we cover these skills on the mountain - but hey, sometimes the weather makes one go into 'flexibility mode' early.   Fortunately, we managed to stay out of the Fairview – opting for coffees and early night sleeps instead - and the team remained in great spirits.

Valley of death earning its name

   

On the morning of day 4 we boarded the plane at 7 am, landed on the upper upper landing strip.  Conditions remained un-seasonably cool and the heavy winter snows covered the lower glacier beautifully. We started walking right away. Our team made fabulous timing during these days – and the weather and glacier conditions

cooperated beautifully. At ski hill camp -7,800 ft - we were startled at 6am by a massive serac fall that swept across the entirety ofthe NE fork of the Kahiltna, destroying the tracks of our friends - who had been in the valley a mere 8 hours previous en route to the complete West Rib.

11 camp

just below 14 camp

Carry a load, cache it, tromp back down.  Eat, sleep, eat again, break camp, climb higher and set up a new camp.  This was our routine.  9 days later we arrived at the 14,200 base camp in great form – well acclimatized, having brushed up on the big mountain expedition skills, and bonded super well as a team
.

Taking a gamble that the weather would hold, we headed up

Descending the fixed lines

on a carry towards 16,200 up the fixed lines on the 11^th day.   Just below the ridge - chirping birds coasting in the calm air confirmed the lack of winds and we clipped into the fixed lines, making it to the col.  While descending the lines, the rangers passed us on their ascent to 17 and we talked about the imminent re-union in 2 days up at high camp. Unfortunately, this carry would end up being our high point.  Nonetheless, it was the highlight of the entire trip for me and I think also all of the team!

Our previous 'marginal' forecast turned into the 'storm of the season' in the space of a few hours. The series of weak lows joined forces as an occluded front heavy with precip that looked like it would stall overhead.  Damn.  So spooked were the rangers that they descended the next day – and inspired every other team at 17 to do the same. In the end, this storm dropped 3 feet of snow in 12 hours! This snow landed on a horrible surface of Crust / Faceted snow (like sugar crystals) and then Surface Hoar (like dominoes). You don't need to be an avalanche expert to know that this made the hazard unacceptably high.  Walking around camp produced loud cascading Whuuumpphs.  The next night the winds blew strong to extreme and avi hazard only worsened.

Guides recce snow test mission

Patiently, our team waited. And waited. So did all the other teams. Almost all groups on the mountain were guided at this point and all the guides on this route of the mountain were unanimous in our assessment.  We prayed for hot sunny days and for the world to fall apart.  We wanted to see the slopes release - or at least to see some temperature fluctuations that might promote stability.  Instead it stayed cold and partially cloudy.  More snow fell lightly.  As supplies, time and fuel ran low a few of the guided groups made the call to descend the mountain. I joined another Alpine Ascent team with half the clients on the trip and Steve joined another expedition with the remainder of the team. A few other guided expeditions descended with us.

Heading down

Our group took 18.5 hours to descend from 14 camp. Normally it should have taken about 8-10 hours. We encountered rigorous trail breaking (up to my waist in a few places), some careful avi assesment, and then horrible white out navigation. During my leads I grew close to vomiting from a combination of exertion and vertigo – as a recent client might say – I was 'red-lining'! What made this so challenging was the combination of low alaskan night light, milk bottle whiteout - complete with the absolute lack of a horizon, and the variable breakable crust over 30 cm. A few times I would just fall over. Many times I found myself doing a "J" hook in spite of using all my white out naviagation skills and tools.

But we made it to the airstrip and TAT got a plane in to get us as the weather shut down! Gotta love Paul and his pilots. The remainder would end up leaving a few days later – in an equally monumental effort after much more patience than our group - but without a summit either.