All these photos were taken while diving in Seward, AK. 

Eric Keller entering Hidden Treasure at 70′.

Derek Frohbieter enjoying Boulder City.

China Rock Fish

Brian Clem 

Clem at 80′

Myself at 60′ at Boulder City

I spent a long day and a half hiking Crow Pass a couple weeks ago. I drove to Girdwood Saturday evening after work and hit the trail about 8:30. 

There was a ton of ash all over the place. 

I reached the cabin and met a few people. I decided to spend the evening there since it was already 10:30 and was hailing.

Sunday morning I left around 8:30 reached the pass. Crow Pass it at 3,500′.

Raven Glacier.

As I said before, there was a good amount of ash everywhere.

Toe of the Eagle Glacier and Glacier Lake. (Headwaters of Eagle River.)

Crossing the river that ended up being thigh deep. Mmm glacial water. It was at this point I wish I had something besides gore-tex boots. My feet were soaked for the next 17 miles. 

Looking up valley to Saghala Point.

The “trail.”

I reached the Eagle River Nature Center at 6pm. From there I started hitch hiking for a few miles till a couple picked me up and brought me into town. 

Cheers

Rode down to Seward a few weeks ago. Absolutely awesome weather.

I went down to work on Scott’s boat. He has a 43′ Delta. He owns Dive Alaska.

Mt. Redoubt has been erupting for a while now and Anchorage just started getting ash this afternoon. At first I didn’t realize it, I was pushing bikes at work ad started getting this funky taste in my mouth and my nose was itching… then is dawned on me. 

Mt. Redoubt:

Bretwood Higman (don’t know him) took this photo. Mt Redoubt is 103 miles south of town. Pretty good shot I think.

The roads were pretty empty driving home from work. Notice how gray the sky is. That is looking East south east.

And that’s looking East north east. If you look closely you can see the line between ash and blue sky. 

My truck once I got home. 

I imagine clean up is going to be a pain.

Cheers

Ben and I spent a couple days of spring break in Hatcher Pass. We climbed and had a very relaxing time. The weather was blue-bird. 

Just getting to the top of the bluff to set camp.

Climbing after we dropped out skis.

A ways up. 

Ben kick-stepping all the way up.

Looking back down towards the valley. 

What we were climbing.

View from our camp. Amazing spot!!

Creek as we were skinning out.

My feet at the end of the trip. Ugh.

Cheers!

Hillside Pillars is located in Hatcher’s Pass, AK. Ben and I left at 9:30 Wednesday morning and we starting the approach by 11:00.

The approach:

The ice:

The lower section is Water Ice (WI) 2 and the upper section is WI4. We soloed the lower section and kept climbing to the top.

Ben led the pitch and I followed then we set up a top rope and did laps all over the front curtain. It was an awesome day! 

It was around 3 degrees that day and oddly enough there was a column of water spraying straight out of a hole in the ice. It shot between 12 and 15 feet out from the wall! So as I rappelled down I had to take a sip. 

Needless to say, I was covered with ice when I finally got to the ground. It tasted great!! Just freezing cold.

After we climbed to our heart’s content, we down climbed and simul-rappelled down to the road. We were warm and laughed pretty much the whole time, certainly the best day of climbing in a while!

Cheers

Wow, over a month since I’ve posted… lets not do that again! Dang!

SO.. December mainly consisted of cramming for school, (Which for the most part went ok, but not stellar.) working quite a bit, (You would be surprised how busy Harley Davidson is the is middle of winter up here.) and going home! (By far my favorite part.) Home was great, always a good time seeing family and friends. Although I didn’t get to see nearly as many people as I would have liked, ’twas good catching up with those I did get to see. 

2009. Talk about a fast start to the new year, before I knew it I was back in Alaska in a freakin’ cold snap!! It didnt go above -5 for about two weeks. For the most part, it hovered around -15 with lows around -30. Needless to say, my truck didn’t start for a few days. Obviously, the battery was dead due to the cold, so I connected the battery charger and let it charge overnight – no dice, only a ‘click’ and the starter promptly said, “heh, I’m cold jug off.” I ended up going to Sears and buying an electric blanket and a space heater. I put the blanket on the block and set the space heater in the engine compartment. (Granted it’s still 20 below.) Next, bake for 9 hours on high. I skied over to my friends house at 7 am the next morning (where my truck was) and miraculously she turned over! And started!! Thankfully I didn’t have to ski back, because is was 22 below going over there and my face was burning cold.

Fast forward to yesterday. 44 (above zero), 40-50 mph winds and driving rain. Quite the change, huh? So Ben and I decided to go climbing. Driving down the highway was just as exciting as the climb! My truck was getting blown around the road and rocks littered the highway. We climbed at Waterworld, a slightly protected, small area right on the highway. We had a great time!

We played around for a few hours enjoying the warm day and sticky ice.

Ben and I planned on waking up at 5am, driving up to Ekultna Canyon, climbing some ice and being back home by noon.. That was at 10:30 the night before, then we got the bright idea to leave that night, climb all night and sleep in the next day. Bingo! Why wake up early to go climbing when you’re siked for it now!?! So we jumped in my truck and started up the highway at midnight.

12:30 we pulled into the gravel lot. It was snowing and pitch black. By 12:40 we had slid down into the canyon. The river was mostly frozen but there was a spot we had to slosh through ice cold water. Our boots stayed pretty dry, and by 1:25 were at the base of a beautiful frozen waterfall – lit up in the dim white light of our headlamps. 

Ben led up the first short curtain of ice then built an anchor, the ice was sticky and a great climb.

I followed then led out the next pitch. It was such a beautiful night! It was snowing and rather warm for the canyon, 23 degrees.

We reached the top anchors at 2:25am! We couldn’t think of anywhere else we’d rather be!! 

We rappelled down and were hiking out by 2:50 and made it to the truck by 3:20.

We’ve never done the approach at night, we loved it. Because it’s was so dark, getting a reference of where you were in the canyon is much harder, so it’s just like a nice long stroll in the park… just with packs and walking on ice in the dark.

On our way home we got the chance to help out a couple people. At 4:05 we saw headlights up ahead spin and a huge plume of snow billow up in the median. We put on our flashers and pulled over ready to help dig them out. Except they flipped upside down. Ben and I ran over broke the passenger window and pried the door open to find the lady on her hands and knees. (someone wasn’t wearing a seatbelt!) Her husband was actually following her, so we helped her out of the car and into his. Ironically enough not 100 yards ahead another car was stuck deep in the ditch. She was alright, but just as shaken. After about a half hour a police car showed up so Ben and I continued home. 

By 5am we were home and unpacking… just about the time we would be waking up! It was definitely a good choice to sleep in vs. waking up early. Talk about a hell of a night!!

Let’s see, where did I leave off..

Tuesday Steve, Valerie and I drove up to Hatches Pass.

Gorgeous weather! It was clear and about 7 degrees and you could see all the way into the valley.

Once we had enough of walking around we drove to the Lodge and got some much needed hot drinks! 

That evening we went to the gym and started dry tooling with my new ice tools! Steve was doing a darn fine job and fell less than I did. I guess wrestling does get you in pretty good shape.

Ben (my roommate) and myself took Steve down to cold snowy beautiful Portage Valley and introduced him to one of the best past-times ever thunk up. Seriously, it’s an absolute blast.

Steve picked it up much quicker than either of us expected!! While the lower section of the climb was rather mellow the top section turned into a near vertical pillar of ice.

Steve pulled through it like it was another walk in the woods!! I personally think he found his new sport!

It was awesome climbing with him! 

Cheers!

Sunday was quite the day.. I picked Steve up at the airport at 1:20am and promptly went home and crashed. He didn’t wake up til 11am. (and that’s only because I woke him up.) Sunday afternoon we drove up to the hillside and climbed Flattop Mountain. 

                                                                   It was blowing like hell at the summit.  

We had a blast glissading down the northern slope!