The aptly named “Lake District” around Mammoth Lakes has an endless supply of beautiful alpine lakes which are now all frozen over and snow free, which makes for perfect skating.  I hadn’t skated for years, but the $40 investment in a pair of used hockey skates was instantly worthwhile as the setting is so sublime and the access is so easy.

It was also nice to get a break from Utah, where we hardly ever see anarchy like this.

We also had a chance to head down to the Owen Gorge for some climbing.  There wasn’t any water flow in the gorge last time I was there, but nowadays there’s a steady creek running through it with trees, wildlife (aside from snakes) and fauna, as well as fantastic climbing.

Owens now has over 1,200 climbs in it and a high proportion of them are in the 3-5 star range.  It’s a blast!

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Help support StraightChuter.com and clip in quick with a Black Diamond LiveWire Quickdraw from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

We had six days of skiing in Antarctica with 2-3 in Ushuaia, Argentina beforehand.  I kept a photo, gps and written log of where we went, which is available by clicking the photo below (2mb pdf file).

And, a 50 image set of my favorite photos…

On a personal level, I think I was almost as excited, if not more, about the return trip back across the Drake Passage as any of the skiing.  One of the great things about nature and being outdoors is witnessing weather events in all of their power and glory.  On a previous trip to Antarctica in 2003 (?) we hit 68 mph winds while sailing in a 50′ boat, which was pretty damn exciting.  This clocked in at a “Force 10″ on the Beaufort scale, which seemed like it would be hard to beat, but since the scale goes up to Force 12 (hurricane), it was like getting sooooo close, but not quite the ultimate ride.  On both legs in 2009 and the down-bound leg of 2011, we had Force 2 conditions, which are hardly worth waking up for.  However, the return leg on this trip delivered the holy grail of oceanic intensity – Force 12 in the Drake, aka The Drake Shake.  I was so happy.  :)  The waves were a bit undersized at 8-10 meters, but the wind was piping up to 100+ knots.  Yehaw! It was especially great to experience this on a 320′ ice reinforced, steel hulled boat that was built and designed for conditions like this and was being skippered by a very experienced Captain.

The trip is happening again in 2013 and Karyn Stanley of Ice Axe was already getting emails requesting reservations before the ship reached the dock.  It’s an incredible ride.
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I’ve done it about six times as a day-ride and once as a multiday car-supported camping outing, but when Brad Barlage suggested that we do it under a full moon, it seemed like an excellent idea. All went according to plan except the full moon was obscured by clouds. And there was some rain and lightning. And a large part of the road was washed out. And there was a LOT of loose sand due to the lack of vehicle traffic. But aside from those details, and lots of mosquitoes and being completely dark, it was excellent. We weren’t bothered by the pesky scenery until sunrise and I’ve never seen so many bats, toads and Kangaroo Mice in my life.  Fascinating, really.

This is about as close to moonlight as it got, and it didn't last long.

We rode counterclockwise (down Horsethief) and the section from Potato Bottom to the end of Hardscrabble was closed to vehicles due to flood damage. It was impressive. Upheaval Canyon barfed vast amounts of mud and water down onto the road and completely erased it for large portions.

This only lasted for the few miles when the mosquitoes were at their worst.

You don't get bogged down looking at the scenery, so you can keep riding. :)

When the sun finally came up, Brad popped a wheelie of joy at the sight of Monster Tower and Washer Woman.

Mile infinity with only a few more to go.

Overall, it was a great outing and fun (?) to do so much night riding.  Brad used his Jedi force and Black Diamond Sprinter headlamps, while I used a BD Storm headlamp and a Nite Rider MiNewt 350 which threw out an impressive amount of light and lasted all night.  We did it in about 14 hours with 11 hours of moving, which is hardly a record but not too bad considering the circumstances.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and light up the night with a Black Diamond Storm Headlamp from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

I recently saw a video by the God Father of packrafting, Roman Dial, who also happens to be an early adaptor of Hell Biking.  They had done a route dubbed “The Candyland-8” which involved hiking through Indian Creek, The Maze and the Needles District down in Canyonlands National Park which sounded pretty cool.  We didn’t have the time to do that one, but it got me thinking about the area and looking for routes which we could bike instead of hike as a) it is faster and b) I generally hate hiking for the sake of hiking.

The end result was a loop dubbed “The Candy-Hearted Rustler” as it goes through the Canyonlands (Candy), passes through Lockhart Basin (Hearted), floats down ten miles of the Colorado River and then exits back up Rustler Canyon. It was a fun adventure as there were quite a few question-marks for us on it, but in the end, it all worked out great.

The loop involves about 20 miles of biking on dirt roads, 6 miles of off-piste biking, a mile of hike-a-biking and ten miles of leisurely floating on the Green River.  We did it in two days which seemed just about right, especially for a first time packrafting trip where we were spending a lot of time figuring out our “systems.” The river section is completely non-technical and we ended up doing the first bike leg and the river leg in one day, camping at the bottom of Indian Creek (great campsite) and then spent a day biking back up Rustler Canyon. This leg could probably be done in about 2/3rds of a day, but we ended up stopping a lot due to the insane heat.  We knew Canyonlands in August was going to be hot, but decided to do the trip anyway as we had three days of kid reprieve courtesy of Grandma Judy.

The trip was a blast and highly recommended as a starter outing as the terrain is fairly easy to navigate (assuming you can read a map and can use a GPS).  Plus, it involves a minimum amount of hiking. For harder trip inspiration, check out The Republic of Doom and Lace Mine 29.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and navigate your way out of The Maze with National Geographic TOPO! State Series CD-ROM from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Main Baldy from the Rustler Lodge (?) parking lot. It is the righthand line line and is continuous, although in this photo an arete blocks part of it.

Main Baldy is a natural snow trap and is one of the first places to get snow, as well as one of the last to lose it.  It is high, north facing and gets lots of up-canyon windloading, and the deep sidewalls help hold and protect the snow.  Plus, it has a very skiable angle to it and is wide enough to hold lots of tracks.  The adjoining Little Chute and Dogleg Chute are technically harder, but not quite as classic as Main.

Main Baldy has a ton of history to it, including some gruesome rumor about a skier who supposedly fell down it and beheaded herself, which may be urban legend. But, I do know for sure about a group of  friends who were skiing it in the summer and had a horrific accident.  From what I remember, one skier was stopped, when another skied down on top of him, blew his last turn and took both of them out.  Seeing this from the top, a third skier went to help them, blew a turn and ended up going down as well.  The chute itself is plenty steep, but to make matters worse, all three of them tracked down and ended up getting pinballed in the moat/gully where the snow had pulled away from the side of the chute. I think there were punctured lungs, maybe some broken bones and lots and lots of stitches.

The Main Baldy summer moat. Uggggh - this would be a grim place to end up after a cartwheeling fall down 500+ feet of steep couloir.

This year Main Baldy is amazingly full and still has about 6-8′ of snow in it!  I skied it today on a gear testing mission and it is still in excellent shape with very few rocks.  Not only that, but it has been skied enough that is is kind of pre-groomed.

Main Baldy - from the top, with feeling on Aug 10th.

I’m guessing there is enough snow that it is easily going to make it all the way through the summer.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and lay into Main Baldy with a pair of K2 Wayback Skis from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Pilot Bread Crackers are an Alaskan delicacy which I previously have only found in the Anchorage CostCo, but am thrilled to say is now in the SLC store as well.  They are great for trips as they are durable and versatile (as the video demonstrates) and once you develop a taste for them, you could eat, oh, five or six of them in one sitting.  They are dry but edible on their own, but really come alive with cheese, hot sauce or just about anything else.

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A 30 second video demonstration:

A big part of this is that recreational snowmobiling is prohibited in mainland Norway (and many parts of Europe) so Svalbard is one of the few places you can use them.  They are also used extensively for group tours where you might have up to 30 rental sleds all traveling together.  Unlike in the US and Canada, most of these sleds are heavy duty touring rigs with long tracks, heated everything, dual seats, huge displacements (1000cc and up were commonplace) and were four-stroke.  Most of the terrain within 3 hours of Longyearbyen is part of “Area 10″ which requires no special permits and has ideal scooter touring terrain and conditions – long gentle valleys and generally compact snow.

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Help support StraightChuter.com and protect your scooter noggin with a K2 Rant Pro Helmet from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…

Noah Howell on the lookout for adventure.

The trip was a blast in large part to all the great people who were a part of it.  We started out by seeing Hannu from Finland and Jeremy Jones from Tahoe in Longyearbyen, and from there we met up with Doug Stoup, Karyn Stanley, Kim Havell, Ane, Scott Rayner, Scott Flint, Glen Poulsen, Dennis H., The Russians, Keoki Flagg, Tal, Elisabeth D., Giggi, Audun and the list goes on and on. It was a revolving harmonic Arctic convergence of the skiing kind.

I’m sorting through some of the thousands of photos I took and will have the best up here soon, as well as trip reports on both aspects of the adventure – the hiking part and the boat.

One of my favorite images from the trip.

All in all, Spitsbergen is a fascinating place to visit and incredible place to ski.  Highly recommended.

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One of the most influential things I’ve ever read was a fortune cookie which said “Practice Saying Yes.”  It wasn’t even my fortune, but I adopted the philosophy and it has served as a starting point for many, many expeditions.  Trips take on a life of their own, but the first step is to commit to it and then hope some of your skier buddies have read the same fortune and are also willing to say “yes.”  From there, you never know what will happen.

My upcoming trip is to Svalbard, which is a chain of islands to the NW of Norway.  I first heard of this area through Doug Stoup, then again through Kris Erickson and also through Kip Garre.  This trip was originally going to be a trio, but with Kip’s passing, it is now Noah Howell and myself for the first two parts of the journey.  To begin with, we are going to use kites to move around in an area named Dicksonland where we hope to find some nice couloirs which you can glean a hint of from the topo maps of the area.  This trip has been on and off and only recently came together, so I won’t be doing any web updates or call ins.

Kiting to couloirs in 2002 on Baffin Island with Brad Barlage. This trip really set the hook for me on kite assisted skiing as I hate walking long distances on flat terrain. With kites, you can cover huge distances and have fun at the same time. Or, you can go nowhere if there is no wind.

After this ten day stint, we will return to the main town, Longyearbyen, where we are meeting up with Doug Stoup and about six other people to board a 65′ boat which will act as our floating basecamp while we scout for skiable lines from the sea.  This is the maiden voyage of Ice Axe Expeditions (Doug’s company) Norwegian Ski Cruise, which if all goes well will be an annual offering.

The third and final segment of the trip is a second week on the boat with a new group.  The idea with this trip is to push further north on Svalbard and potentially ski above the 80th parallel, which would be a fantastically unique experience in a dances with Polar Bears kind of way.

Hanging in the rain with Doug Stoup in Antarctica a loooong time ago. Doug easily gets my vote for most traveled person I know, especially in the higher latitudes.

Even after doing lots of trips, they don’t seem to get much easier to prepare for and there is always a ton of little details to take care of.  So far, this trip has been nice as I’m already geared up with 96% of what I need (kites, skis, camping stuff, etc.) and hardly needed to get anything new.  As always, I am deeply grateful for all of the assistance I get from companies like Mountain Hardwear, K2, Scarpa and Backcountry.com for helping feed my habit.  Not only do they make and sell great gear, but they help to make sure it is thoroughly tested in wild places.  Thanks!

And of course, my ultimate thanks goes out to my wife, Polly, who makes it possible to have my cake and eat it too. If I had to choose between trips and family, I’d take family in a heartbeat, but so far I haven’t had to make the choice.

Happy turns,
Andrew

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The NE Face of the Pfiefferhorn in all of its gory glory. Rat-a-tat-tat... hang on to your hat. The "XX" marks the anchors at the top of the 30m rappel.

And the boot of choice for the day is... the Scarpa Maestrale. I've been skiing in these all year and love them.

Noah busting tracks below the NE face. At this point it was window-pane crust on top of muck. Confidence was not high.

Andy Jacobsen creeping towards the anchors after some prolonged sketchy skiing.

Two 3" five-piece 3/8" stainless-steel bolts with Fixe Rap anchors. Go ahead - haul your Hemi up here. They'll hold.

Andy calmly checking his camera exposure while Noah checks out a different type of exposure behind him.

Happiness is a warm rap anchor.

I love the wild, rugged feel of this little slice of the Wasatch.

Noah starting down the rappel.

Sucess! We're alive! Noah had been stormed or iced off the NE three times before, so not only was he (and all of us) psyched to have finally done it, but it was also the last line he had to ski to tick off all of "The Chuting Gallery." Nice job Noah!

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Help support StraightChuter.com and rappel with confidence on a Sterling Fusion Nano Dry Single Rope – 9.2mm from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…