Before ever skiing in Valdez/Chugach I had heard so much glowing praise about it that I figured there was no way that it could possibly live up to all the hype.  This all changed the first time I actually skied there and I had to eat my all my sarcastic thoughts.  Valdez is one of those areas where all the components come together perfectly to create excellent backcountry skiing – the access, mountains, snowpack and logistics are all ideal.

This fact was lost on me, but not on 5-6 heliskiing operators, various snowmobile events and a few Valdez locals, including Matt Kinney.  Matt is putting on a presentation this Friday titled “Backcountry Skiing in Valdez – An Environmental Perspective” which should be interesting, and in the very least, it is being held in a cool outdoor location, the Storm Mountain Amphitheater in Big Cottonwood Canyon. As a long time Valdez local, Matt has seen an incredible amount of motorized development in the last two decades.

Matt has kindly donated the proceeds of this show to our own local snow wizard, Bob Athey, who injured his shoulder in an avalanche accident last season.

The show is Friday, August 27th from 7-9pm with an encouraged donation at the gate.

The closest town to the Revelation Mountains is McGrath, which is about 60 miles away.  Although I haven’t been to them, I have heard the Hidden Mountains near the Tordrillos are also called the Revelations, and although they have great skiing, are not the same as the Revelations we went to.

A big part of visiting the Revelations is getting in touch with Rob Jones of R&R Hunting and Outdoor Adventure.  Rob has a hunting lodge right on the Big River at the base of the Revelations and can provide any and all logistical support for your trip.  Rob arranged our flight into the glacier with a friend of his, Joe Shoeman, but once we were there we communicated with Rob as far as getting back and doing a gear pick up.

The Revelations, aka the Revs, are at the western tail end of the Alaska Mountain Range.  As an overall picture, the AK Range reminds me of a Stegosaurus with Denali/Sultana forming the main high backbone and the Rev’s are the much lower, but very spiky tail.  The Revs top out at about 9,000 and the glacier is at about 3,500, so it is an area with lots of vertical relief, but not necessarily very high.  In my case, we were camping 3,600′ lower than where I live in Park City, so the air was thick and fat.

Based on photos before we left, my initial impression of the Revies was “Hmmm, they look really steep and rugged, maybe too steep and rugged to ski..?”  Afterward my opinion didn’t changed much, except that there are actually plenty of lines to ski, but you have to sniff them out and go on a good snow year.  The 2010 season was supposedly at 60% of normal and we all toasted our brand new skis in the first couple of days.  By the end of the trip we were only taking our skis off for rocky sections over 30′ long – otherwise we just plowed through them and pillaged our edges and bases.  The Revies reminded me of skiing in Patagonia around the Cerro Torre/Fitzroy area as they both have amazing scenery, but the skiing lines seldom go all the way through to the top of a peak and they have lots of ice.

The main Revelation glacier is very cool as it is so small (only about 4 miles long), but packed with features.  It isn’t quite a dry glacier, but it is rapidly getting there.  We brought all of the standard crevasse gear and never used it, or even saw a crevasse big enough to fall into for that matter.

The Revy glacier kind of forms a letter “E” with four short legs coming off of a main body.  The glacier runs south to north and the legs come in from the southwest at 45 degree angles.  There was a distinct lack of north facing skiing terrain, which was too bad as that’s where the best snow was.  East and west slopes had all the crust you could ever want and the south facing lines were pretty runnelled and firm.

Avalanche-wise, the Revies seemed fairly safe as many of the couloirs tapered into nothing as they went up and didn’t have big collection zones at their head.  Many of the lines were also on the steep side of the 38 degree avalanche bulls-eye.  We saw a few big powder blasts, but never felt any weak layers or triggered anything ourselves.  It seems that a lot of the avalanches are started by ice fall and occur soon after the storms.

The camping opportunities were plentiful with flat, sheltered areas all over.  One of the trickier parts was finding snow that was deep enough to dig a cook tent (2-3 feet) as we’d often hit ice about 18″ down.  Going too far down the glacier would be problematic for camping as the glacier gets really rocky and icy.

We ended up skiing about 12 distinct lines in the area and most of them were great fun.  They may or may not have been skied before and the locations are listed below.  Many of the names in the Revelations (including the Revelation name itself) came from an early climbing party led by David Roberts who attached biblical references to everything.  We stayed with that theme and added some creative spelling.

The remoteness of the area favors small planes, which in turn favors small parties.  We were a party of four (Noah Howell, Jim Harris, Courtney Phillips and myself, Andrew McLean) which worked out well.  According to Rob Jones, this area is one of the most remote spots in Alaska as far as population is concerned.  We didn’t see  anyone else while we were out there, nor any signs of previous parties.  It’s a lonely corner of the AK range!

We looked at the possibility of traversing out of the head of the main Revelation glacier to the south, and although it could be done with a rappel or two, it is pretty sporty and not something you’d want to do with heavy loads and sleds.

All in all, it was a fantastic place to visit and a first-class adventure.  Highly recommended, but then again, I say that about most ski mountaineering areas… ;)

A big thanks goes out to Mountain Hardwear, Backcountry.com, Dynafit, K2, Black Diamond and the Hans Saari Memorial Grant for all the great gear and helping make this trip happen.

Click here for a Revelation Mountains photo gallery from our trip.

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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.

Click here for the Ultima Thule Lodge 2010 trip report.

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.

All photos by Ruedi Homberger

Family style skiing - at least if you are the Claus family. The Iceberg Lake namesake bergs are in the background.

As we were munching away there seemed to be some sort of covert activity going on in the background and I was halfway expecting a snowball attack (Logan Claus was in the house…).  Instead, Paul Claus asked for everyone’s attention and announced that Eli had just proposed to Aria, she had accepted, and as he was granted the authority to perform one marriage a day in Alaska, we were going to have a wedding.  Right now.  Everyone step behind the plane.

Logan Claus, on the far left, gives away Aria.

Reverand (Bishop? Minister?) Claus performing the wedding ceremony.

"By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you... married!"

My short, futile attempt at being a Wedding Director. "Throw rice now dammit!"

The wedding party photo.

The happy couple consummated their wedding by taking a victory lap on Iceberg Lake while the rest of us took another run.  It was a fantastic location and I was/am honored to have been part of the occasion with such a great group of people.  Best wishes to Aria & Eli!

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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.

A special thanks goes out to Paul & Donna Claus of the Ultima Thule Lodge, as well as Ruedi Homberger and Retro Ruesch for making this happen.

The video was shot with a VHoldr Contour HD 1080 camera which I had just picked up and was playing around with the settings on.  Unfortunately, the snow is a little washed out, but you get the idea – deep, soft and fluffy.

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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.

Load'em up cowboy. Rick Angell lashes his bike to the deck.

It works! Rick drifting down the Provo with Squaw Peak in the background.

Utah's scenic underbelly.

The PackRafts handled amazingly well considering the ungainly loads on the bow. By true PackRafting standards, this is a fluffy, light load.

Take out and pack up. My deflated raft and paddle are in the foreground.

On the road. We floated for about 1.5 hours and made it back to the car in 25 minutes.

PackRafting is one of those sports where the overall experience is way more fun than the individual components that make it up.  Floating down the Provo is done hundreds of time a day in the summer, but there was something really cool about doing it in a mini boat with a bike, and then riding back.

I’ve got a ski PackRaft outing coming up next week, which should be a blast!
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Geoff Tabin took a break from saving entire countries from blindness and along with Huckleberry, invited me out for a lap on the Cold Fusion Couloir off of Mt. Timpanogos. Cold Fusion is a beauty of a line off of the NE side of Timp that holds snow well into the Spring.  It’s fun in many regards, but especially cool as you are skiing on a ribbon of snow surrounded by the rocks of American Fork Canyon along with big vista views of the Salt Lake Valley below.

Three miles into the four-mile approach with the object of desire looming in the background.

PB&J Tabin Style. I hope his patient's eyeballs look better than his sandwiches.

By chance, we met Chad and Rob near the summit. Chad dropping the first turn with 3,000' to go.

Huck on the edge of the Utah Universe.

The line was originally known as “The Forked Tongue Couloir” but was later renamed (at least by some people) to memorialize the theory of cold fusion which has strong ties to the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.

Since the road leading to Cold Fusion goes right through American Fork Canyon, it’s fun to catch a quick route on the way out.  After the four-mile approach to go skiing, the four-meter approach to go climbing is much appreciated.

GT gettin' it on at the Division Wall.

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Light provisioning, Alaska style. Three full mega carts at the Anchorage CostCo get ready to be flown into the Ultima Thule Lodge.

Planes spoken here. Ultima Thule Lodge

Reto Ruesch, aka "The Man in Black." Like the Stephen King novel, there is no escaping him.

A very small slice of the very large Wrangell-St.Elias mountain pie.

Aria and Eli's impromptu wedding on Iceberg Lake, presided over by Paul Claus.

Deep Powder Airlines. Coffee, tea or a rawhide bone Sir?

Welcome to the Revelation Mountains where everything is bigger, steeper and scarier than it looks.

Courtney checking out the tail end of the Alaska Mountain Range.

A rare moment of mellowness in the Revelations.

Uhmmm, sure I'll have one. Can you put some pants on?

Noah and Jim climbing out of the crevasses and clouds in the Revelations.

Rocky revelations.

A the bitter end of the Revelation glacier.

Cruising out the Big River.

Noah crosses a stream and glances back at the Revelations.

A moment of moose appreciation - bushwhacking through brush with a big rack on.

Alaska ski rack - Rob Jones loads 'em up on his Super Cub.

Hehee...

More photo galleries and trip reports to follow.  Thanks to Mountain Hardware, Backcountry.com, Dynafit, Scarpa and K2 for making it possible!

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