Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Nordic Skiing and Mixed Climbing

Without a computer it has been really hard to get the blog updated. So now that I've got some down time and access to a computer here are a few updates. (Vista doesn’t' seem to work very well with Blogger; so the spacing on the captions is a little weird for these posts.)


Last Thursday I had the day off so I figured I would head out to Hatchers for my first cross country ski of the season. The conditions out there were perfect! Ed had just finished grooming, it was extra blue conditions and I had the place to myself.

After skiing around for an hour and a half I noticed that there was another red swix drinking belt. There had been one other person up there while I was skiing, and they didn't look like the type that would have had a drinking belt. There aren't too many kilometers of trails right now at Hatchers and I was stumped on who else could be up there that I wasn't running into that would have a red swix drinking belt. I decided to go in for a closer investigation. To my great sunrise it was Karl's drinking belt. Apparently he had forgot it up there after his ski the previous Saturday. Thankfully I was able to get to it before someone stole it.

That evening Cassi and I heard that the ice was coming in at Eklutna. So that Friday we headed out in that direction for some ice climbing. We weren't sure what the river situation was so we decided to hike up the Thunderbird Falls trail rather than up the creek. The first climb in Eklutna is Mad Dog. Upon seeing that it was somewhat in and that we could repel into from the trail we decided to go for it.

We couldn't see from the top that there wasn't much ice on the bottom half of the climb. It looked like it might be over my head with the first half of the climb being mixed. Karl was nice enough to let me borrow his ice gear which was really nice because it was nice and sharp so I didn't have to hack away at the little bit of ice that was clinging to the rock. It ended up being a lot easier than I thought it was. It was really fun to tap the tools in on little placements than to hack away at a wall of ice.



You have no idea how long it took to get his shot of myself.



This one wasn't so hard.

The mystery drinking belt

Haha, look who's got Karl's drinking belt.




Mad Dog





Cassi

Ice and Snow!

On the first and second of the month Cassi and I headed out for a grand adventure north of town. The plan was to head out to the Matanuska Glacier for some ice climbing then head over to Hatchers for some tele skiing. After attending a wild Halloween party, we got off to a slow start on the first and didn't make it out to the Mat until 4:00, just in time to watch the alpine glow on the Talkeetna and Chugiak Mountains as we climbed.

The climbing on the glacier was a little harder than I remembered it to be. The ice was much harder and colder than when I went climbing in July with Brian. On top of that the twilight made it hard to see where the best placements were. Anyways, no excuses, it was crazy awesome!

The next morning we met friends at Hatcher Pass for some tele skiing. We had quite the mix of people out there. Between the eight of us we had everyone from complete beginners to some awesome AT skiers trying tele for the first time. It was the prefect set up for a great day! By the end of the day the snow was pretty tracked up between the eight of us and ton of other people that were out there. If you're heading out to the Hatcher's area for skiing you'll have to work for some fresh tracks.

Cassi hiking into the glacier


Talkeetna Mountains at sunset.


The Matanuska Glacier and Chugiach Mountains at sunset.

Where we climbed on the Mat.

Jason and Adele skinning up to April Bowl


The view from Hatchers

Andrew on the top of the ridge.

Cassi and Brant celebrating an awesome weekend!