Tag Archive for ‘Alaska’ at StraightChuter.com

Tag Archive for 'Alaska'

Sunday Photo - AK Rager

Published

Andrew

on September 7, 2008

in Sunday Photo

. 0 Comments

Enduring a raging storm in a remote mountain range can be fun if you are prepared for it.

: Fun & Games - Ben Ditto and Lorne Glick enjoying the scenery (or lack of it) on the Bagley Icefield. April 2008

After flying around the Wrangell-St.Elias Mountain Range the year before, it seemed like there was excellent potential to do a combination kiting/skiing trip in the area as there is no shortage of peaks and icefields. Our plan was to use kites to move down the Bagley Icefield, then tick off ski descents along the way. It kind of worked, but there was either no wind, or it was a howling blizzard like in the photo above.

Alaska storms, especially in the areas right near the ocean, can dump prodigious amounts of snow in a short time and are the stuff of mountaineering legend. This was a short but intense storm with 45mph winds for a twelve hour period - enough to bury the tents and stop us for the day, but nothing very serious in the big picture of Alaska ragers.

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Snap, Crackle & Pop – The ABC’s of Avalanches

Published

Andrew

on July 28, 2008

in 07 Avalanche Avoidance

. 5 Comments

The physics of an avalanche is as easy to understand as placing one book on top of another, then tipping the lower book up until the top one slides off. Voila - a bookalanche! The grip or amount of friction between the books will determine how easily they slide apart. If they are both dry and glossy, they’ll slide apart at almost any angle, but, if they have somehow bonded together through heat, humidity or moisture, you can turn them upside down and they may not come apart.

: One of my all time favorite avalanche education tools was this demonstration at the Alaska Avalanche School where layers of flour and sand are piled up on a flat board, which is then tipped up to 38 degrees where it rips loose and crushes the toys below.

This book example illustrates two important concepts of avalanches. One, avalanches occur when a bond (friction) fails, and two; it can be difficult, if not impossible to predict exactly when that bond will fail without some additional information. At times you could turn a mountain range over and shake it without the snow moving and at other times it will avalanche if you gently poke it with a ski pole.

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Sunday Photo - Ben Goes into a Crevasse

Published

Andrew

on July 27, 2008

in Sunday Photo

. 2 Comments

Part of the reason I like this photo so much is that it had a happy ending, but it could easily have gone the other way.

This incident took place during a 2007 trip up to the Wrangell-St.Elias Mountains with Ben Ditto and Grant Guise. We knew there were crevasses on the glaciers, but once we started climbing up a rocky ridgeline, we decided to leave the ropes and glacier gear behind.

Once we reached the top, Grant and I skied one line while Ben shot some photos, then disappeared behind a knoll to presumably ski an adjacent line. He was gone a while, when suddenly the Motorola Radio came to life with Ben saying “I’m hanging upside down in a crevasse and I’m going to die!”

We asked if he was kidding, to which he emphatically said “NO” and we started running back up the 750′ hill to get him, which took about 20 minutes. Once we got to the ridge, we could see a shallow depression (the snowbridge), with a set of ski tracks going right into it, then a set of black bases sticking straight up in the air!

We had to cross the bridge ourselves to get to Ben and then fashion an emergency rescue out of a picket and ice axe (still visible stuck into the lower lip of the crevasse) which we tossed down to Ben, who then pulled himself up to the point where we could help yard him out.

On the way up the slope to get him, Ben, being the photographer, called us on the radio and asked “Take a photo, then yank me out!” When we got there, we were so dismayed that we forgot about the photo until afterward.

Here Ben is screaming in a mixture of pain as the blood flows back into his feet and happiness at being out of the dark hole. As a side-note, when he first fell in he was held by a single Dynafit toepiece!

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Got Gas?

Published

Andrew

on July 16, 2008

in Events

. 3 Comments

Skiing in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains of Alaska is incredible, yet even better is flying around up there with Paul Claus of Ultima Thule Lodge in one of his bitchin’ airplanes. Paul is an amazingly accomplished climber/skier with endless first ascents/descents to his credit, but these skills are eclipsed by his flying skills. Flying with Paul in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains is like being on stage with The Who or the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Gardens - you might only be a dorky bystander, but just being there is an amazing experience.

Paul holds the record (world record?) for short take-offs, which is something like 42.5 feet. I can’t begin to imagine the places he has taken off and landed in, but on a recent trip up to his neighborhood, we watched him land his plane, shut it down and turn into his hanger which was in the first 200′ of the landing strip. We were all impressed, but it was just business as usual for Paul.

The crumpled Cessna 185 pictured above was one of the mainstays of the Ultima Thule Lodge and has delivered hundreds of climbers, skiers and explorers all over the Wrangell-St.Elias range. While recently being flown by a friend of Paul’s, it ran out of gas and during an emergency crash-landing on a riverbed, perhaps ended its long, illustrious life.

But, it is not like the Ultima Thule Lodge to be unprepared for events like this and they happened to have a new plane literally waiting in the wings…

Below is a commemorative photo of the old 185 being flown by Jay “Birdman” Claus (Paul & Donna’s 20 year-old son) over the WSE Mountains with Mt. Logan in the background, from 2008:

RIP 185 - May You Fly Forever in the Great Skies Above!

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