I dropped these guys off in the Chugach for a week of backcountry skiing … They did their skiing and then they got “Chugached”.  This is one of my favorite stories of the season, because it could not have happened to a better team.  It’s not uncommon for people in this situation to give up, and then wait for days and days and days for their Super Cub chariot to arrive.  Well … I’m here to tell you that these little planes have their limitations and so do their pilots.  When someone is in the process of getting “Chugached” by 80 knot winds, falling snow, and poor visibility … there is nothing we can do, or anybody else, so you better be in the business of helping yourself or you have no business being in these mountains.

Sometimes I think that the sat-phone has really messed with the psyche of those in the field, because the umbillical cord of civilization is really not severed if the simple push of a few buttons can bring you to the ear of anybody in the world.  Deep down inside people don’t really believe that they are on their own.  It used to be that once you were out there, that was it … period, live with it.  I am happy to say that there are still some with the old school mentality of “git ‘er done” because that is exactly what these boys did as you will read in the paragraphs below.

On the seventh of May Matt dropped Graham and I at about 6000 feet on the Powell Glacier. It was an incredible day to fly. The next day we went on an exploratory cruise, but ended up climbing and skiing an icy knife-edge ridge that lead to a 9500 ft peak just west of Mt. Thor, which had an amazing view of College Fjords. Although this peak likely has a name, and has likely been climbed and skied, we chose to call the ridge “The Canadian Cleaver”. The next day, we had yet another day of great weather, and we took advantage by skiing a 2500 ft coulee just outside of camp. We called this one “The Guillotine”, given the massive cornice at the top.

On the third day we tried to avoid too much adrenaline by taking a nice glacier cruise, but were turned back by high winds and incoming fog. That night the winds started gusting up to about 80 knots, and there was little sleep had. Shortly after sunrise, we were roused when one of the fly lines broke and the tent collapsed on us.  We spent the next 3 hours trying to build taller snow walls, while the winds continually blew us off our feet and threw most of the snow blocks out of sight down glacier.  This began to feel like a losing battle and the tent was eventually ripped to shreds by flying blocks of snow, and every aluminum tent pole was mangled.  In survival mode, we dug a snow cave and toughed out the storm.  When the storm cleared we got the motivation to hike out, since it looked like more weather was rolling in and we didn’t want to spend too many nights in the cave. This is when the adventure began.

We left camp at 6:30am, and were luckily able to avoid complete white out. The ski off the glacier only took 2 hours thanks to hard snow and good bridges. At the foot of the glacier we started towing the sled through punchy corn snow down the braided south fork of the Mat. River. With Matt’s advice to avoid the Matanuska River lower down, we stayed east and climbed out of the river valley through an ice filled gorge with the hopes of ending up at the radio tower. This was painful however, since the bag’s were no less than 80 lbs and the skis strapped to them magnified the already thick bush wackin’. We encountered a deceased moose as a nice warning of possible things to come (ok, it wasn’t that bad). At 7:30 pm, we saw our first glimpse of the tower, and called Matt to let him know that we would be out shortly, but we were deceived. We intersected yet another massive canyon (this one looked like hell on earth due to mud flows and flash floods). We forded the east fork of the Mat River at 10:30 p.m. and reached the radio tower at 1:00am. After replenishing morale and nutrients, we left our bags, and carried onto the road with the hopes of hitch hiking back to Meekin’s airstrip, however there wasn’t a car for miles. We therefore walked down the road until 4:00 a.m. where we reached the end of the epic after about 22 hours and 50km of exit.             

All together, we had an excellent adventure, learned much more than we had in the previous weeks spent at UAA, and were totally stoked on Matt’s knowledge of the area, the awesome plane ride, and his effort to fly us in on such short notice to such a rad place.  Looking forward to next year.

– Jeff and Graham

Photo Captions:
photo 1: Matt flying away under some seracs
photo 2: Jeff eying the line on our first day
photos 3+4: looking down the powell
photo 5: looking down the Harvard into PWS
photo 6: Jeff skiing the so called “Canadian Cleaver”
photo 7: Looking back up
photo 8: Jeff heading up on our second day
photo 9: Graham on the ridge on day 2
photos 10+11: Some ice above the Sylvester
photo 12: turns from day 1
photo 13: camp pre storm
photo 14: a look at the second day’s line, dropping off the top snowfield skiers right and into a couloir hidden from this angle
photo 15: a look at camp and the entrance to the hobbit hole apres storm.
photo 16: i guess you could call it tree skiing
photo 17: getting kinda tired
photo 18: crossing the east fork

I took this last week as I was hauling in the second half of a kite skiing party.  These guys are still up on the glacier right now.  We were scheduled to pick them up this morning but the latest storm has left them tent bound, and us grounded from the glaciers.  I made an attempt at them on Monday but the storm was moving too quickly.  So they have spent the last 60 hours staying dug out.  

I talked to them on the sat-phone today and they said some of the gusts of wind were reaching 70 knots.  It has also snowed somewhere between 2 and 4 feet in the last 48 hours.  It is always difficult to judge snowfall when the wind is blowing that hard.  We hope to pick them up tomorrow, but the forecast does not look good.  They have plenty of food and fuel for several more days and this sort of thing comes with the territory.  It’s always an adventure when you get above 5000′ in Alaska.

 

Marcus Baker attempt 2010 Randy Howell, Marcin Ksok

  On May 2 Mike Meekin and Matt Keller flew Randy Howell and me onto the higher slopes of the Marcus Baker glacier. We landed just below a prominent western ridge of Mt. Marcus Baker. It was the initial objective, but after seeing its icy upper slopes and the exit guarding seracs, we opted for the standard Matanuska Glacier route. Unfortunately high winds formed an invisible gate at the pass leading to the Mat Glacier, therefore a trek was in store for us.

On the way we scoped out another possible line up the mountain, an inviting ridgeline extending from the north-western flank of the peak. A lot less committing and exposed route than our initial objective.

The same night we traveled 2 miles and 1000 vertical feet to set up a cozy base camp at the foot of the ridge, elevation 7100’. Next morning started out with some step kicking up a snow slope, that is when we got the first warning. A loud whoomp shook the surface, but it was just as unsafe to continue to a lower angle terrain about 50 feet higher as it would have been to return. In a few hours we overcame the rocky ridge and higher snow slopes, zig-zagging between some bershrungs. At 9600 feet a comfortable camp was set up for the night.

Next morning was our summit bid, but the day was cut short, way too short. Few hundred feet above camp, as we were heading towards a crest of the ridge I kicked a step with my right foot and instantly heard a loud boom and lost my footing. The ride down was fast and helpless, with a heavy pack I tried to fight the avalanche, but my resistance mattered very little. Luckily the debris stopped before going over the 2500’ icefall below us. I was glad to hear Randy’s euphoric cheering, it meant he was still on top and alive. The 400’ long crown face loomed above us, the mangled tent slightly below.

The tent was still intact, but we lost 2 ice tools, ski pole and most of the fuel, forcing us to retreat in encroaching clouds which limited visibility. Next day shaken, but in good spirits, happy to be alive, we flew back out. Matt came in on his day off to pick us up just ahead of an incoming storm front.

Although the trip was cut short, by the time we reached town new plans were already being made for next year’s attempt.

 

 

 

 

 

These guys spent several days up near Marcus Baker last week.  The weather did not cooperate and they spent the vast majority of their 4 days on the mountain waiting out a storm in their tent.  Mike dropped them off with the Cessna 185 as the winds were gradually increasing from 30 knots.  You can see the snow drift formed by the disruption of air as it flowed around their camp at hurricane force dumping a couple of feet of fresh snow in the process.  In-spite of the nasty weather these guys had an awesome attitude, and are excited for more.  They said …