This trip began two years ago as a brain-child of Noah Howell. Noah had heard vague rumors of a remote, rugged mountain range called the Revelations and had tried to fly in there from Talkeetna but was thwarted by the weather. In the big AK picture, the Revelations are about 140 miles west/northwest of Anchorage and form an almost perfect equidistant triangle between them, Talkeetna and Anchorage. You can fly there from either Talkeetna or Anchorage, although Anchorage has more planes to choose from, better weather and better down-time distractions. Continue reading ‘Revelation Mountains – Alaska’
Monthly Archive for June, 2010
Well, okay, it is really more of a photo gallery with captions, but it hits the highlights of the trip.
This was my third trip to the Ultima Thule Lodge in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains and I was there with Eli Potter, Aria, Hombi, Reto and the Claus family to do some skiing and discuss the 2011 Wrangell Ski Week. The conditions were about as good as Alaska gets with only one true down day out of the entire outing.
This area had a bit of a low snow year, and between that and being there towards the end of April, there wasn’t much snow at the lodge, although there was plenty of snow up higher in the mountains.
I’ve never gotten bored with skiing as it seems like some new twist on the theme always shows up and keeps my interest alive (that plus it is just fun). But, I don’t think I ever would have anticipated our trip to Iceberg Lake in the Wrangell-St.Elias Mountains to turn out quite the way it did.
We were out for a Claus “family day” of skiing, which involves loading ten or so people into a million-dollar bush plane and flying around until we found the tastiest looking place to ski, then setting down and doing a few laps. In this case, we ended up at Iceberg Lake, the name of which later became apparent. Continue reading ‘Backcountry Wedding’
Two videos in two days? Yes, that’s what living in the shadow of the Sundance Film Festival will do for you.
This one is a video of a single run, Peak Solidarity, in the Wrangell-St.Elias Mountains. Before skiing this peak I happened to see it in a photo book and of the entire book, this is the one that really stood out as it is such a beautiful, classic pyramid peak. It has a 5,000′ plus ridgeline that snakes all the way up it, but aside from that, it is steep and intimidating all around. Continue reading ‘Solidarity Peak Video’
After seeing an inflated PackRaft in Alaska Mountaineering & Hiking last year, it was love at first sight and I ended up buying one. PackRafts are burly little personal rafts that are capable of carrying things like skis, bikes, packs or bloody chunks of moose on them. Deflated and folded up, they weigh in at about four pounds and are about the size of a small two-person tent. There are a variety of paddles available, but I went with the four-part carbon model which is light and compact.
When getting into a new sport, I usually over-estimate my abilities and under-estimate how difficult it will be, which has led to lots of exciting times, especially with kite-skiing. But, Rick Angell came up with the novel idea of trying a mellow float & bike on the lower Provo river, which turned out to be an excellent idea. Continue reading ‘PackRaft Practice Outing’
