Outdoor Research Verticulture » Backcountry http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com Get Stoked! Outdoor Research Verticulture Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:31:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Sano y Salvo: A Patagonia Ski Adventure http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/10/sano-y-salvo-a-patagonia-ski-adventure/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/10/sano-y-salvo-a-patagonia-ski-adventure/#comments Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:23:26 +0000 Teresa Bruffey http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=7307 I’m not sure how many times it will take before I learn that I am not cut out to be a ski guide. Many times in the past I have made the mistake of judging avalanche conditions based on the expectation that without mandatory air or other obstacles, all members of our group could easily out run a small fracture and have a good handle on slough management. Another misjudgment I frequently make is the assumption that everyone’s idea of fun is the same (expending mass amounts of energy to get as close to danger as possible while coming out unharmed). I think it was the latter expectation that got me into trouble this time.

Charlie Baker, a recently retired Fire Fighter from San Francisco’s notoriously radical Tenderloin district is no stranger to danger. My “client” was an extremely fit 61 year old, who runs and swims daily, and who was constantly exposed to stressful emergency situations for 30 years, in a job where navigating hazard and keeping ones cool is a necessity. A skier for years with newly found freedom on his time, the idea that he may want to join us on our trip seemed obvious. Who wouldn’t want to explore the rugged mountains of a foreign country with a group that barely speaks the language, being toured by a person who we barely know? At the end of our trip we had a planned 10-day winter camping and ski mountaineering mission. I knew this portion of the trip was likely going to be a little challenging even for an optimist like myself. For the rest of it I thought, “this is perfect”…

I’ll admit that even for me the travel was a bit strenuous. The bus, to plane, to plane, to plane, to 20-hour bus was more tiring than I expected. But still, the schedule wouldn’t allow for much rest if we wanted to actually ski while we were there. By the time we made it all the way south to El Calafate, Argentina I could feel my immune system breaking down and after one particularly long, cold day on a Patagonian mountain my body said, “enough”. What started as a cough turn to chills and soon forced a much-needed little break. It was at about the same time that Charlie made it known that he’d had enough as well. His legs no longer cared for mountain climbing, his chilled bones longed for the warmth of the sun, and he dreamed of trading his ill-fitted boots for flip flops. Like us, all he needed was some sleep, a real salad, and rest. Unlike us, his trip had come to an end and our challenges had really just begun.

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/10/sano-y-salvo-a-patagonia-ski-adventure/feed/ 0 Navigating Avalanche Terrain http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/01/navigating-avalanche-terrain/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/01/navigating-avalanche-terrain/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:29:15 +0000 Jonathon Spitzer http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=5630 The snow has fallen in many parts of the country, and back country skiing and riding has awakened from its summer slumber. With snow coverage conditions improving, we must remember to be safe. Avalanche danger will rise and fall through-out the season as the snowpack varies. One day the conditions can be stable, while the next day they may be unsafe. In just a quick instance the snowpack can change. One thing that remains constant is the mountainous terrain we choose to travel through.

As an IFMGA certified guide and heli-ski guide in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada, planning is an integral part of my life. Whether planning for an expedition ski trip, a heli-skiing day or a backcountry tour, the overall process is very similar. Here are some quick tips on terrain selection to help aid your backcountry experience.




Plan ahead with a tour plan: Get a map for the area of your future backcountry destination. Take time before you leave the comfort of your house to study the terrain on the map. Plan your ski runs and also take notice on the map where avalanche paths exist. Outline a safe ascent route to your objective, as well as an ideal way to descend. Be sure you have alternative descent routes. Doing this, will insure you have safe options. Don’t forget you can also go down the way you came up!

Google Earth: This is a great tool for looking at avalanche terrain, possible ski lines, and future adventures around the world. Instead of reading the comic’s, check out the terrain you plan to ski/ride on Google Earth. You’ll be surprised by how useful this tool is!

Be Flexible: Conditions are constantly changing. The stable deep powder snow you had yesterday may no longer exist. Rapid winds, increased temperatures, and other factors can quickly transform the snowpack. Be willing to change your tour plan as conditions might dictate.

Staying high in the terrain: Staying high in the terrain means to travel on ridge lines and broad shoulders. This travel technique is preferable while ascending uphill. These terrain features should be your preferred line of ascent. Doing this might add an additional 10 minutes to your tour, but it allows for better views of scenery, possible ski lines, and a safer ascent. Try to minimize unnecessary travel in avalanche terrain while ascending.

Avoid terrain traps: Nasty, deadly, and unnecessary. A terrain trap is defined as a terrain feature that can increase the consequences of being caught in an avalanche. Avoid gullies, creek beds, drainages, and abrupt slope transitions where avalanche debris can pile up deeply. Even the small avalanches can leave a victim buried deep in a terrain trap. The gladed slopes that are so fun on a powder day, could also end up being a terrain trap if you are pushed into the trees during an avalanche. A snow slope above trees, crevasse fields, and/or cliffs can also be dangerous.

An avalanche course is a great way to learn, practice, and execute these skills. Plan ahead, prepare, and get after it!

For more on Jonathon and his adventures, follow him at his site; www.snowrockandiceadventures.com

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/01/navigating-avalanche-terrain/feed/ 0 Snow Pit Basics w/ Evan Stevens http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/01/snow-pit-basics-w-evan-stevens/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/01/snow-pit-basics-w-evan-stevens/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:07:41 +0000 Teresa Bruffey http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=5618 Knowing how to use tools and interpret finding is key to understanding the snow pack and making good decisions for safe travel through avalanche terrain. IFMGA guide Evan Stevens takes us through the basics of digging a good snow pit and performing a compression test. Have a great, safe ski season!

As featured on Backcountry Magazine’s “Mountain Skills” video series. For more videos, check out their site.

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2011/01/snow-pit-basics-w-evan-stevens/feed/ 0 Cutting Baby Teeth http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/11/cutting-baby-teeth/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/11/cutting-baby-teeth/#comments Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:36:21 +0000 Tom Murphy http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=5222 


A famous first descent this was not. The range itself, the Neacolas, is only famous within small circles, those that are conscious of the massive efforts of the likes of Joe Stock who pioneered several range-wide traverses in Alaska. And it only came into public awareness with events such as Mt. Redoubt’s Eruption January – March 2009. In short the Neacolas are the northern most part to of the Aleutian Range, butting up against the Tordrillos, which are the southern most part of the Alaskan Range. The Tordrillos have been on the tip of skiers’ tongues for years on account of Chugach Powder Guides’ Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, the jumping off point for the famous Kings and Corn helisking/fishing trip and home to hundreds of untouched descents. The sister range to the south is home to large volcanoes and a largely unexplored set of peaks with couloirs, faces, and Patagonia-esque spires. Plenty for everyone and a great spot for some good-old-fashioned human powered soul skiing.

Our trip to the Neacolas started with a few days of weather delays, a theme that’s expected in Alaska. We had four (ish) days of good weather in our nine on the glacier, an unexplored patch of ice just north of the Cook Inlet. Our first day was a divide-and-conquer mission to check different aspects for stability. The results were pockets of instability caused by a persisting gropple layer of inconsistent thickness. That evening the weather rolled in and our little camp became the boundaries of our world. It was like being on house arrest.

Three days later a bit of improved visibility inspired a quick tour to ski a short shot low on the slope to the west of camp. As we headed out, things opened up. The clouds lifted and we found ourselves staring across the glacier at one of our objectives, the Teeth. The smaller of the two teeth looked better than ever and we decided to push up towards it, at least enough to get a feel for the conditions. With our late afternoon start, it proved to be a good idea. The sky went completely blue and it was a beautiful tour that would lay the groundwork for our ascent the next day. A descent in deep, heavy snow in a lower angle couloir brought us back to the glacier and back in our tracks; it was an easy glide to camp.

The next morning, we got an early start and headed up our track breaking trail past where we had turned around the day before, pushing up onto a massive bench on the shoulder of this mountain. The windless, nearly cloudless day made for perfect conditions and so up we went, choosing to head up the South East Rib. Steep skinning turned into even steeper boot packing until we reached the shoulder before the last ramp to the summit. The curving aspect that we came up was like the front of a shark’s fin and from the shoulder we could look over the back of the fin, a vertical, precipitous drop of over 1000 feet.

The climb to the summit was easy and straight forward. From the top we took a few pictures and a few moments to reflect on our accomplishment. Looking north and east we saw the looming monument that is the larger of the two teeth. Access to the larger objective was definitely not easiest from our vantage. We concluded that it would be better to go further up the glacier before even beginning that climb. Thoughts of the larger peak were brief in the reflective celebration of our first Alaskan first ascent and looking to the first descent that was to follow.

From the summit we skied down the face that had been visible from the bench from which we had begun our climb on the rib. Decent snow, the rush of isolation, and the spirit of pioneering a route both up and down that had never been done before was incredible. There is still snowy frontier out there and it’s closer to home than you’d think.

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/11/cutting-baby-teeth/feed/ 0 VertFest 2011 http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/11/vertfest-2011/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/11/vertfest-2011/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:32:12 +0000 Christian Folk http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=5115
Feb ’11
12
Feb ’11
13

VertFest is back -  bigger and better than ever!

Come join us for 2 days of clinics, demos, films and of course the biggest rando rally in the Northwest!  It all begins on Saturday February 12th at Alpental with Ski Photography clinics with Grant Gunderson and Jason Hummel.  Sidecoutnry Adventure Skiing with pros and guides from Pro Guiding Service; other clinics will include Advance Beacon Skills and Snow Pack analysis.

Once the fun is over on the mountain, come join us for the Backcountry Film Festival at the North Bend theater in the evening.   There will be awesome gear raffles, a chance check out the latest product showcased by our sponsors and time to enjoy a beer and food in our beer garden and oh course some great backcountry films!

Sunday the 13th is race day, so don’t drink too much on Saturday at the film fest!

For more details checkout the official VertFest Facebook page for all the up-dates, details and info as it becomes available!

Get ready for ‘HurtFest’ 2011…same Vert, more Fest!

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/11/vertfest-2011/feed/ 0 Going Sidecountry in Chamonix http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/10/going-sidecountry-in-chamonix/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/10/going-sidecountry-in-chamonix/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:15:26 +0000 Josh Pierce http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=4986 


For a dozen years I’ve been going to Chamonix, France for the snow, the steep terrain, the culture, and the relatively inexpensive skiing. Chamonix is the birthplace of Alpinism. A deep valley barely a mile wide trowelled out between the highest peaks in Western Europe, its 8,000 vertical feet of lift-accessed terrain is surrounded by peak after peak of white canvas above innumerable Haute Savoie villages and towns.

There is no one Chamonix Ski Area – no single starting point, no base lodge, none of the normal trappings you would find at an American ski area. The commune of Chamonix-Mont Blanc, at nearly 100 square miles, is the fourth largest in France and its 10,000 residents are sprawled in 16 tiny clusters in the valley, mainly in Chamonix and Argentiere. The commune extends all the way to the peak of Mont Blanc, looming over 12,000 feet above downtown Chamonix, which is only 3445feet above sea level. Six major ski areas ring the valley from Les Houches at the southwest entry of the valley to Brevent & Flegere, accessible from town to the largest ski area Les Grands Montets (6700 vertical feet), up the valley in Argentiere and Le Tour at the northeast tip of the valley. Then there is the tram up to Aiguille du Midi, which accesses the Valley Blanche on the shoulder of Mont Blanc and was the highest cable car in the world when it was built back in the 1950s.

Over the past decade Chamonix as a ski town has come of age: a multimedia megatron hi-def screen now greets you as you walk off the top of the tram up at mid-mountain of the Grands Montets Ski Area, and lift passes are triple what they were during my first trip in 1997. The Garmin AT boots I bought there a few years ago for $300 USD now sell for over twice that (at least in US dollars). But even with the meager buying power of a 2010 greenback, 65bucks a day in Cham is infinitely more satisfying than spending the $100 it costs to spend a day schussing down the trails at, say, Stratham, Vermont.

We arrived on a Saturday morning in February 2010 just as the skies stopped dropping snow on the peaks at the rate of a foot every other day for a fortnight. The first day was vertigo-inducing pea soup: 90% of the terrain at Grands Montets, Brevent, Flegere, & Le Tour is above tree line and almost wholly without distinguishing features if you are hurtling down the mountains literally through the clouds. But after a couple of poor visibility days on piste, the snow had settled enough to let the snowpack stabilize to moderate levels, and a bluebird day gave us the opportunity to leave the ski area and take a day tour.

The backcountry options that can easily be accessed from the top of trams and lifts at the six resorts that ring this valley are mind-blowing. We headed out towards the Col du Passon, laying on the Forbes Arete, a ridge across the Glacier du Argentiere from Grands Montets. A wide open, nearly 3000 -vertical foot run of semi-tracked waist-deep powder on the Rognon Glacier from the top tram got us down to a traverse across the Argentiere Glacier and the start of the skin track up the other side. Two hours of skinning and then booting up to the col (two of us on Fritschi’s and AT gear, one on a newly-created splitboard snowboard), yielded nearly 5000 vertical feet of untracked masterpiece aboard the Glacier du Tour, three of us skiing alone in a valley of giants down to the base of the ski lifts at Le Tour.

As you would expect from the valley that contains the start of the Haute Route (110 mile ski tour route linking Mont Blanc with the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland), readily accessible tours abound, and on a beautiful spring day you can see groups of dozens heading out of bounds from the top of Grands Montets, Flegere, and Le Tour. A tour from Aiguille du Midi or a trip through the Mont Blanc tunnel gets you to Courmayeur on the Italian slopes of Mont Blanc in the Aosta Valley, where the lower elevation and forested slopes hold greater promise when the clouds descend. Get yourself a local guide if you plan to leave the ski areas. There are plenty that speak English and they’ve all gone through years of training to become certified guides. There isn’t really a concept of ski area boundaries in Cham: you won’t even find a rope to cross delineating inbounds from out of bounds. Much of the terrain is on glaciated slopes, which move over the years, changing the crevasses and underlying terrain from season to season. I spent every day of this trip wearing a transceiver and carrying a shovel and probe, even if we had no plans to leave one of the resorts.

For more on Sidecountry skiing, check out

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/10/going-sidecountry-in-chamonix/feed/ 0 Out of the Shadows – Dendrite Studios movie premier http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/10/out-of-the-shadows-dendrite-studios/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/10/out-of-the-shadows-dendrite-studios/#comments Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:13:55 +0000 Christian Folk http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=4854
Oct ’10
26
8:00 pm

Seattle folks, come out to the Eastlake Zoo Tavern on Tuesday October 26th for the killer new flick from Dendrite Studios.

Show is at 8pm and tix are 10 bucks.  All proceeds will go to the Friends of the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center.  you can check  out the trailer at Dendrite’s web site here.  Also for more information visit their Facebook site.

If you go out in the backcountry come out and support FOAC, drink some beer and watch a sweet new flick!

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/10/out-of-the-shadows-dendrite-studios/feed/ 0 The Declaration of Mountain Travel http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/05/the-declaration-of-mountain-travel/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/05/the-declaration-of-mountain-travel/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 05:45:38 +0000 Martin Volken http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=3386

Declaration of Mountain Travel: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

I have been in the guiding business for just about 20 years now. I would be lying if I said that I became a mountain guide to interact with a large diversity of people. I simply wanted to go to the mountains and needed some type of job that would make this possible. Being from the Valais in the Swiss Alps made becoming a mountain guide seem like a logical conclusion. What I did not know then was that some of my best friendships would arise from people who were so-called “clients” of mine.

Not all of my clients became friends, but certainly a lot of them seem to live very interesting lives that have captured my attention in many a hut or tent. I have had the pleasure to roam the mountains with doctors, surgeons, dirt bags, lawyers, carpenters, accountants, nurses, teachers, scientists, physicists, CEO’s, CFO’s, (and SOB’s), house wives, cops, marketing managers, engineers, restaurant managers, slackers, industry reps, photographers, software developers, electricians, construction workers, movie producers, fighter pilots, marines, home builders, and many more. They come from a large diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds, though most of them make a decent living. I have been with these people on short trips, long trips, trips that were casual or where we all were scared, where the weather was on our side or where we were not invited into the mountains. I have been quietly observing these people for many years now and how they adapt to the unpredictable situations that the mountains will throw at them. Many of them get taxed to their maximum physical and emotional ability and very quickly their true colors start shining through.

Martin, in Norway, 2008

Martin, in Norway, 2008

Once we make the commitment to go into the mountains, we all get reduced to pretty much the same class. What we want needs to be carried on our backs and [that reality is where] the first switch occurs. In the “civilized world” we generally acquire more goods and services to make our lives more comfortable and better. Of course, once you have to carry all your belongings on your back, the story changes almost instantly. We start paying attention to what we really need and what we could possibly leave behind. Once this switch has been made, I have seen many of my clients experience some sense of liberation. The mountains of the Pacific Northwest are extra special that way, since there are no huts, helicopters, gondolas or porters to help out. But even in a place like the Alps with its amazing infrastructure, the story does not change all that much. Once we leave the last gondola behind, we still have to carry our belongings from one hut to the next on our very own backs. We are all pretty much the same that way, no matter what our background may be.

We keep returning to the mountains because we have experienced a great sense of freedom and fairness out there and have created some of the happiest memories of our lives. And, as I was writing this short piece, I realized that this thought sounded curiously similar to the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I wonder if Jefferson, Franklin, Chase and company would have liked ski touring?

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/05/the-declaration-of-mountain-travel/feed/ 0 Mt. Buckner, North Face http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/05/mt-buckner-north-face/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/05/mt-buckner-north-face/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 22:27:25 +0000 Jason Hummel http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=3199

Hidden dangers on the Boston Glacier. Jason, stemming the deep crevasse. Photo by Steph Abegg

Mountains have personality. We forget and all is forgiven, even when they are cantankerous, belligerent and vile. The pretty face and homely smile, seductive pull and salacious dress of rock and ice excite us climbers too much to turn away and never come back. But there, too, are so many mountains. Just a fraction of them you may visit in a lifetime! So when I do go, it isn’t with a heavy heart thinking that I may never return, but with great respect and honor that I go to meet these elders of stone and earth. They teach us lessons and reward us in ways that the confines of brick and mortar can’t.

Steph is ready when I pull up to her house in Seattle at 4 a.m. We quickly proceed to a nearby park-and-ride where Kyle is waiting. Everyone is excited. The weather appears promising. Stories and conversation carry us all the way to the end of Cascade River Road, where the final few miles are blocked by a gate. We can not see our objective, Mount Buckner. All that is visible among vine maple, willows and firs is Johannesburg’s vertical mile of rock and ice. Imposing as it is, such dominance steals an otherwise sunny morning. Those rays are for creaking joints and aching shoulders to earn. Such required efforts are why I love North Cascades National Park so much.

Along an old overgrown road, we push through deep and wet snow over ice. Steph and her snowshoes make headway while Kyle and I wallow behind, unable to skin without slipping. As we leave the trees, in no time at all we meet sunshine and the Quien Sabe Glacier. Steep climbing at its head, half a day later, brings us over Sharkfin Col where there’s an anchor set-up. What makes for an easy rappel leaves us swimming in waist deep snow below. “Hello there Mr. Schrund, you mind not eating me?”

Unconsolidated snow on a glacier, especially the Boston, the widest glacier in the lower 48, convinces us to rope up. Every dip and swale, shadow and curve hides a potential monster beneath snowy covers. Repeatedly I decide which way to go. Up, down, or straight? And now my brain fires off an answer, “Straight.” As I push through the snow, a tiny shadow I hadn’t seen glares at me. “Oh no!” I think. Between my feet everything begins to crumble. My skis catch the far wall as my back slides backwards. Blocks of snow disappear past a narrowing in the crevasse 50 feet below. After a moment to gather myself and yell behind me, “Kyle, anchor me…can you have Steph come forward?” Several minutes pass and I begin to feel comfortable, so I pull out my camera and take a few photos. Moments later with further tension on the rope from Steph, I am able to wiggle out. After brushing snow off, I’m soon back on my skis and in the lead once again. My decision this time when I ask myself “up, down, or straight?” “Left,” because down is a bad choice of words.




One lesson I relearned is the importance of always keeping the rope tight between you and the guy in front. I weigh 160 lbs and my pack and gear another 60. Imagine standing on a 10 story building with 220 lbs strapped to you. If the rope is tight and it falls a foot or two, you can hold it. Imagine then a guy standing on the buildings edge with that same 220 lbs with 10-ft of slack. Could you hold it when suddenly without warning (an hour, 3 hours, or even15 hours into your day) you look up and don’t see anything? Now that’s something to think about when you’re roped up on a glacier again!

On a nice overlook of Mount Buckner, we make camp. The sky is hazy and wind is beginning to drive snow into our camp where eating and melting water takes a few hours before we all drift off into a restless sleep. There’s nothing like waking up repeatedly to slapping layers of tent. It’s like trying to fall asleep next to a rocket engine! I awake to Steph photographing first rays on Buckner.

That morning, two feet of wind-deposited snow covered our tent and gear. After digging it all out, we start upward. Not until that moment do I realize my sunglasses are gone. It appears the crevasse didn’t come away empty handed! Staying low, I cross beneath the lower schrunds to the base of the North Face where we put on crampons and take out axes.

Since Steph is ready first, she takes off in the lead up wind-buffed powder. One thousand feet higher she passes a rocky constriction on the left and soon after, on the lee side of a cliff, she pulls up for a rest. After a drink she says, “Jason, you want to lead?” Since we are only a 100-ft shy of the summit I reply, “No, you should finish it off.” I know I feel excited when I lead an entire route. Once her pack is on that’s what she does, quickly disappearing over the slope and to the summit ridge beyond.

Ascending the final few feet to the summit of Buckner

On the maps Buckner’s NE and SE summits are shown as 9112’ and 9114’, respectively. Still, there’s a valid disagreement as to which is higher. From our perspective the NE summit did appear taller. All aside, though, as a skier I’m more interested in fall-line. So, for us, the SE summit is the only way to descend the north face. The same can’t be said for the North Face Couloir and when I come back to ski it, I’ll descend from the NE summit.

While my partners prepare for descending I continue to the SE summit to find a flat spot to transition to skis. Doing a balancing act, I teeter trying not to slip in either direction. Wind pushes me one way then the other, and neither direction would have a happy ending. I glide to Kyle who has built a huge platform to put his splitboard together in. Knowing she would be far behind, Steph, who is without skis or board, downclimbs out of sight while I stand in chilly gusts and wait for Kyle.

A satisfying first turn traverses me onto the face and Kyle follows. From the far ridge, which had blocked the wind all morning, fingers of snow and ice rip across, swirling and churning as watery rapids will. They whirl and stall in eddies before spinning out of control on top of our heads, which drip and freeze at the same time. Between this chaos, we drop a few turns at a time until we are in the middle of the route, at which point we wait as Steph climbs out of the way. Here the wind lessens and the turns improve all the way to the bottom. What a descent. What a route. After a decade of dreaming about it, I finally came and skied it – awesome!

After sorting camp, we decide to climb over Boston Peak’s 8500-ft col rather than Sharkfin col, the way we had come. It takes much longer to climb than I expect and the upper slopes are getting hit hard by wind. At a point where I am about to reverse course over concern about stability, the snowpack solidifies and we boot the remainder of the way to the notch. I love it when a fine line of safe decisions leads to success.

Heights of Buckner and our route up

After setting a picket, Steph descends out of sight and to the end of the rope. I belay her another 25 meters from there. Next up is Kyle. He decides he is going to keep his snowboard on. Just as he drops out of sight, I hear him say something like, “It looks good.” The wind is too strong to catch much more than that. A few moments later, the rope goes slack. He went without a belay. Figuring since he boarded it, I’d be fine with skis as well, I attach mine to my feet and drop into the couloir. As I get closer and see what Kyle had descended, I shake my head in wonder. Snowboards can side-slip some serious stuff! There was an inch of ice over a foot of granular snow with rock beneath. I hung from my knots at the end of the rope below a small cliff while I took my pack and skis off, pulled my axes and pons out, and put everything back on, a process that took over 15 minutes of cautious work. All the while I’m getting pelted by falling ice and buffeted by wind. Overall, a most unpleasant experience! Happily I descend far enough to coil the rope and put my skis on, so I could drop down to Kyle who is very glad to get going. There wasn’t much light left. Steph is already 45 minutes ahead of us.

As we stormed down the Quien Sabe Glacier with 5000-ft to go and 10-minutes of light left, I am already forgiving Buckner for her tormenting of me. In these mountains, there are those who find the rewards far outweigh the risks. For me, these adventures are the great eraser. There’s nothing but the moment to battle and all worries and concerns are rubbed out because they are of no consequence here. Even as night pulls up her covers and we pull out our headlamps, we understand the value of challenge in a world that continually seeks out ways to make life easier. The last few miles battling through brush to Cascade River Road and renewed sights of Johannesburg’s great walls fills me with joy all the way back to the car and civilization.

Find more of Jason’s photos from his Mt. Buckner trip at Alpine State of Mind and more stories of his adventures on Cascade Crusades. You can also read Steph’s take on the trip here.

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/05/mt-buckner-north-face/feed/ 0 February Dreaming… http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/04/february-dreaming%e2%80%a6/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/04/february-dreaming%e2%80%a6/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:47:03 +0000 Tom Murphy http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=2982 Here in Alaska there has been a warm snap. Above freezing temperatures and liquid precipitation has wreaked havoc on the snowpack. A slide closed the Seward Highway for a day just south of Girdwood. All I can do is wonder what mother nature has in store for us this year.




Last year the eruption of Redoubt with its apocalyptic display of ash and electricity quashed our plan to ski in the Neacola Range and forced us to resort to plan B, a trip to the Scandinavia Range in the Chugach. With commanding views of Marcus Baker and excellent terrain in the area it seemed to be a good option. The trip was great and some ski objectives were completed. We summitted and descended Greenland Peak. Made strong attempts on Finland and Norway peaks as well as two shots at the NW couloir off the shoulder of Denmark Peak. The breakable crust and questionable stability as the slope angle ramped up made those two attempts fall short. The only thing missing was quality snow. The thin pack made for hop turns through sharks’ fins and light footed turns on variably breakable crust rather than classic high speed big mountain descents but a great trip none the less.

So I reminisce about that trip and what some of the descents could have been like in better condition. But mostly thinking about how great it was to have such a talented group of skiers with the strength to make the most out of what ended up being a mountaineering trip instead. It was nice to be there with individuals with the determination to tackle the most aesthetic lines that were taunting us from camp in spite of the poor conditions.

This year has new potential. Even as I write this, the snow is starting to fall outside again. The temperature is dropping along with the barometer and winter is returning to the 49th state. This is good news. We have new plans for the Neacolas. Better researched and bolder in our goals we are headed to a region that has seen fewer visitors than the International Space Station, with our sites set on several first ascents/descents in this drainage. Look for more updates, as the trip approaches and planning and preparation gets underway. As long as the conditions hold and Mt. Redoubt stays docile there should be much to muse over come next February.

]]> http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2010/04/february-dreaming%e2%80%a6/feed/ 0