TLDR Version/Intro:

Me and 4 buddies went to the Brooks Range in Alaska for 12 days of hiking through one of the largest wilderness areas in North America. July 28 to Aug 10. We had a blast and it went great. We got flown in by a bush flight, walked along many river valleys, hiked up a talus pile peak and then through the wilderness, across rivers and over hills to the Dalton Highway where we got picked up by a commercial shuttle service that drove us back to Fairbanks and the World.

Long version:

Day 0:

Drive from Bellingham to Seattle, Fly from Seattle to Fairbanks on Alaska Air (duh), van ride, Uber ride. Walk around town, hit a bar, Thai food. Beers in the hotel room.

Day 1:

Fly to Coldfoot on Wright Air, slight delay due to missed flight (don’t believe the hotel that you don’t need to be early to Wright Air, they take their business very seriously). Immediately upon landing in Coldfoot we jumped into prop plane the same age as my parents and fly with Dirk of Coyote Air into Upper Marsh Fork landing strip on the Marsh Fork of the Canning River. The flight was incredible, frequently with wheels just clearing ridgetops and flying the terrain up and down valleys. Extremely scenic, caribou and sheep. Upon landing there was much exclaiming and pointing and backslapping. Once we got settled down and the final packing completed we hiked up valley. Warm, patchy sun, overnight hard rain. Glorious, glorious, glorious!

I got a good chuckle out of everyone later admitting that they were forcing down the nausea the whole bush flight and hiding it from the others.

5.5 miles, 2.5 hours.

“Rainy Camp”

Day 2:

Hike up Marsh Fork, cross into unnamed very upper East Fork tributary of the Ivishak River drainage. Camp at headwaters. Hard day, with technical talus and side-hilling above cliffs and raging water. The river was running pretty high from the previous night's rain so walking in the canyon bottom was not an option for us, otherwise this would have been easier. Cool and misty with rain. Amazing, just like home but nothing like it at all at the same time, so great all around; we expected weather, didn’t rain enough to get wet. Much exclaiming about the scenery.

12 miles, 9 hours

“Frosty camp”

Day 3:

Awoke to frost on the tents and plants. Hiked down canyon to junction with upper east fork of the Ivishak, down river past multiple small confluences, easy walking. Over interminable ridge with tussocks (our first!) to Ivishak River main stem. Camp in a “hay field”. Bluebird sun and warm, 2 long great breaks for lunch. Much exclaiming about the scenery. We pushed hard on this day to set ourselves up for a potential summit tomorrow assuming the weather held out. We didn't want to get stranded up high looking for a campsite with no water.

16 miles, 11 hours

“Hayfield camp”

Day 4:

Ascended Ivishak valley toward Continental Divide, turn south to climb Seefar Peak via dogleg east gully, awesome snow in first gully, then major talus slog to the summit. Amazing time spent on the summit, warm but breezy. Lots of cool fossils in the limestone. Descent to the south and west terrible talus, so we bailed off the ridge early to Wind River valley. Made camp. Amazing dry tundra camp next to river. Shoes and socks dry at camp! First time since 5 minutes into the trip. Bathed in river and washed clothes. Bluebird, sun, warm. Much exclaiming about the scenery. A good time was had by all.

10 miles 4000', 10 hours

“Swimming Hole Camp”

Day 5:

Hiked down Wind River, saw wolves with puppies, then later moose which led us into a lousy tussock field, camped in side creek. Very mediocre spot, but extremely close to water and some dry wood, so we had a fire and drank margaritas to enliven the spirits a little. It worked. Much exclaiming about the scenery.

14.3 miles, 7.5 hours

“Margaritaville Camp”

Day 6:

Up wind River tributary, saw a grizzly with two cubs, a heard of sheep way up high, and a lone wolf across the valley making quick work of the talus. Up a unique talus-ey canyon, over two passes, one being the Continental Divide, down a tributary of a southern fork of the Ribbon River. Great walking most of the time. We got showered on twice, but mostly sunny. The area where we looked to camp was somewhat brushy with knee-high vegetation and it took a bit of looking to find a good campsite, eventually made a spot work quite well with great moss and blueberries.

13 miles, 8 hours

“Barefoot camp”

Day 7:

Nice enough weather early, quickly turned to rain, then hard rain, despite the Inreach weather saying it would improve throughout the day. Misery. Trudged up to beautiful lake, too windy and cold to enjoy it. Saw wolf puppies briefly. Over pass separating the Ribbon and Accomplishment Creek and down to tundra on other side, just past dangerously slick boulder field. Dove into tents soaked through. Very cold and wet. Lunch in tent, nap. Whiskey helped spirits a lot... at least in my tent. Less exclaiming about the scenery today, though everyone admitted it would have been great if we could have enjoyed it.

8 miles, 4 hours, no breaks.

“Sunny dry happy fun camp”

Day 8:

Woke to fog but no rain, weather improved dramatically throughout the morning. This was clutch since our base layers were completely soaked. First thing in the morning everybody got ready to hike then leapt into our wet clothes and immediately started walking quickly to warm up in an attempt to dry out some clothes. Down Accomplishment Creek, up side creek over a pass with lots of caribou antlers, half way down canyon on other side to camp. Beautiful country, lots of exclaiming over the scenery, sunny and warm, dried out everything. Decent walking. Saw moose, wolverine. Drizzle just before camp.

“Sewing camp” due to a near catastrophic pack blowout.

9.5 hours. 16 miles

Day 9:

Drizzle, fog, cool. Down interesting puzzle canyon, that was tons of fun to figure out, left side, right side, in the creek, does it go? It goes! Saw a griz at a distance, then across a big river, nameless east tributary of the Sagavanirktok, (tough, fast crossing), hardest of the trip. Slogged up a tussock hill, to canyon, over pass and down to Sag valley, mediocre camp, not many options. We were told that the Sag was a tough crossing that kills people from time to time, so we were excited to get a look at it from up high. I had done a lot of satellite and map reconnaissance of the entire route and had picked out an area of the Sag that is quite braided, hopefully making for the easiest crossing. I had read a few scattered reports of people who crossed just a couple miles further north and had to use rafts.

“Lumpy camp”

12 miles, 7.5 hours

Day 10:

Foggy AM, then sunny and warm. Across the Sag! It ended up being not that big a deal, but it helped that we were on day 10 and river crossing 1 million +/- a couple hundred thousand. Up the valley wall to an amazing broad sunny saddle with rolling fog, for a tea break. We were on a plateau above the confluence of the Atigun and Sagavanirktok Rivers. The fog started to break up after break, we walked slowly; some bad weather was predicted today and the next couple so over the previous few days we had hustled to make sure we could get across the Sag before the rain set in. Unlike the previous days, the weather report ended up being pessimistic and we had great afternoon sunshine. We strolled through tussocks to camp on a sunny alpine tundra slope. Amazing day. Surprise sun! Everyone tard sailed all their gear out on the tundra to dry out everything. Dry socks even!! The low tundra around camp made for great lounging and camping, and beautiful. The sun and sense of accomplishment really made the light on the hills glow that long afternoon.

“Kick Ass Camp”

5 miles, 5 hours

Day 11:

Hiked off the plateau to the Atigun River, up the river valley to the road, road!? Long road walk to Galbraith Lake camp. My knees hurt after the 8 miles of road for the first time in the entire trip. Mostly cloudy with sun patches and a short drizzle. Surprising amount of traffic on the road, saw a civic! Fire and celebratory attitude at camp.

“Galbraith Lake Campground”

6 hours 15 miles

Day 12:

Woke up leisurely, lounged around, day hike to West Galbraith Peak, tea and coffee on the summit. Camp time, eating everything that was left. Mostly cloudy, mild.

“Galbraith Lake Campground”

5 mi, 4.5 hours

Day 13:

Lounged in the tent, rain and drizzle, picked up by van at 11. Wes from Dalton Highway Express picked us up in a beater 15 passenger van.

Two entrees and a beer at the truck stop in Coldfoot. Food at the farthest north truck stop and bar in America was cheaper than in Bellingham.

“Hotel Camp”

10 hours in the van, zero walking.

Photo credits to Mike Graw.

Last April Eli Spitulnik and I flew onto the Ruth Glacier with about five weeks of food. We hoped to stay there until it warmed up, then bump to the Tokositna to do some climbing on Huntington. We got deposited right next to a very cold and dejected Brit and Slovene. The winter cold was still holding on strong, with nightly winds burying our camps regardless of how recently it snowed. Tom and Gasper had been there for about a week already and spun tales of vertical sugar snow and towering snow mushrooms. Their attempts on Blood from the Stone, and the direct start to RGG were valiant, but fruitless.

Huge thanks to basecamp gear sponsor Kurt Ross. 

Chamonix style storm day skiing with Tom and Gasper. Who needs a pack anyways? 

Scouting.

After almost two weeks and various attempts on other routes, we began skiing towards the SE face of Bradley at about 3 in the afternoon. Along for the ride was 3 days of food and a rack suitable for El Cap. Our intended line would start on Vitalogy (Zimmerman/Allen 2010) to gain the hanging snowfield in the middle of the face. Once there, we would climb more or less straight up the center of the face intending to finish in a couloir that would take us to the summit ridge.  

Day 1.) Following the same night climbing method as Graham and Mark, we hung out below the face as it went into the shade. Watching and listening as it calmed down for the night. Once things fell quiet, we began up the approach ramp. At the end of the ramp was a cave guarded by a 25ft tall overhanging mushroom. Still in simul mode, I fiddled in a small nest of gear and began pulling some steep mixed moves to surpass the overhanging portion of the shroom. From off to the side and around a corner 60m away, Eli heard a faint “watch me!” as I hung my pack off a beak and committed out onto the face of the shroom. Kicking myself for leaving the picket at camp, I beat the mushroom into submission until I was able to flop over and into the cave.

Downclimbing from a gear cache on an early "false start". The weather changed and we decided to retrieve our rack the next morning and pivot to a different objective. The start ramp continues out left. 

Eli mantles onto my pack before stepping out right onto the mushroom.

The next few pitches were some of the most brilliant mixed climbing I’ve done outside of a crag setting. A perfectly splitter slightly overhanging #4 crack, and short pendulum took us out towards the lip of the cave, where ice blobs allowed for an easy exit. A pitch of junky slush and a short traverse (dubbed M5R in the Vitalogy topo) took us to the M6 turf flakes pitch. A wonderfully long series of dirt filled grooves and flakes just frozen enough to get good sticks. By the time Eli made it up to the belay it was officially dark. Eli pulled on his rock shoes and took the lead. He took us out right up a well protected corner that gained a pillar, then up and right out into the slabs below the snowfield. Following in my crampons, I scratched my way up to the most heinous hanging belay. Balancing on crystals in my mono points I belayed as Eli swapped back into boots and began a long extremely runout traverse crossing fingers of barely refrozen snow over slab to gain the snowfield. 

Desperately sliding out of glassy fists. 

Delicious blobs 

Glorious turf

At one point while readjusting to keep my legs from falling asleep I turned around to see the sky erupting in green and purple stripes. I shouted into the darkness to look at the sky. A distant hoot followed a moment later and I began lowering out the bags.

The rest of the night was a blur of unprotected wallowing up crusty sun-baked facets in an attempt to reach the prow bivy before sunrise. Staring at the rope snake off into the darkness I weighed my options of preparing to unclip in the event of a fall, or try and catch a 120m whip. We arrived at the bivy just before sunrise. 

My perception of time is beginning to slip. 

Day 2 After a restless few hours festering in the tent listening to wet slides, we began prepping for another night of climbing. This time we would be leaving behind the comfort of previously traveled terrain and entering an unknown world. Bailing from above the snowfield while likely not impossible, would have been a bad time. 

More sparsely protected snow climbing took us up to a flared and wet crack feature that Eli dispatched fairly easily in his rock shoes. From there a few pitches of engaging mixed climbing took us to what I expected to be the crux of the route. From photos, a large snow plastered double corner system seemed to be the most obvious way, but it would likely involve some gross aid climbing tactics. We arrived below the feature in fading light as night two began. It looked so much worse up close than from afar. In a last-ditch effort to find an alternative, I traversed left looking for anything else. 

As I swam my way around the corner, a pillar revealed itself with a perfect wide crack and thin seam alongside it. It didn’t entirely look like it went all the way, but it was a good next step. With high hopes I began trying to free climb my way to the top of the pillar. The climbing was wonderful, but as soon as my feet began to skate off the sloping edges, all style went out the window. I took my crampons off and went full aid mode. From the top of the pillar, the seam kept going as the angle lessened. A mixture of direct aiding off of my tools and free moves on massive granite jugs took me to a generous belay stance. We were likely through the hardest pitch, but still had a lot of mountain above us. Some slab climbing in double boots took me to a delaminated slabby smear of ice. I equalized two garbage beaks and put my crampons back on. Despite my best efforts at being gentle, my beyond dull picks threatened to send me, and this detached smear down the mountain as every kick and swing bounced off. The next several pitches were a lesson in route finding as Eli took us up down and around to the main gut of the face above. I still don’t know where the best way to go was, but a diagonal rappel and some faff took us where we wanted to go. The sun began to rise as we entered a massive funnel that was invisible in the pictures we had. Afraid we’d be swept away if we lingered too long, we shifted into gear and made it to a semi protected bivy before anything had a chance to warm up and start falling. 

The massive snow choked chimney is visible in the background. 

When in doubt, traverse.

Another restless day of napping came and went without any surprises. At this height, the mountain was much quieter and felt less affected by the sun. At some point in the day, Eli was awoken by a loud rumbling from over in the direction of Mt Wake. He mumbled 6/10 and rolled over back to sleep. 

A shovel would have been nice. 

Day (night?) 3 We started climbing at about 5:30 with several pitches of quality mixed and neve climbing. At some point I was pounding a pin when the hammer of my tool snapped off and flew into the abyss. Mildly perturbed I shrugged and continued bashing the hopelessly bottomed out beak with the back of my tool. All around the same time, the sun set, the snow began to fall, and the trenching began.

Juuuust enough ice. 

After a long cold belay, I took over the lead and made one of the biggest rookie mistakes. I had just followed the previous pitch in my down parka but was still chilled, so I chose to start leading the next pitch with it still on. It was some of the most awful steep snow climbing I hope to ever experience. As the snowfall picked up, so did the spindrift. It smacked me in the face and dumped down the back of my parka, melting against my back and freezing the down solid. I was in no position to stop and take my pack off, so just suffered until I could get a belay out of the firing line. One block later we made it to a sheltered flat spot and decided to call it a day. We knew the storm was going to be short lived, so opted to wait it out and continue when we had a better idea of where we were on the mountain. 

Beginning another pitch of trenching

Spindrift avalanches lulled us to sleep as they scraped over the top of our tent. After about ten hours, the storm seemed to be subsiding. Slightly worried about our skis getting buried at the base, I texted Tom asking if he could go check on them for us. 

WET

Day 4 Two long simul blocks took us to the summit, where swirling clouds gave us brief glimpses over towards Hunter, Huntington and Denali. In an attempt to investigate how overhung the summit cornice was, I tiptoed my way around on relatively flat ground until I could see the other side. I must have taken one step too far, because the next thing I knew I was in freefall. I came to rest about 25 feet down in soft powder with snow filling my glasses. Unharmed, I frantically clawed my way out of the maw. Once free, I damn near fell back into the thing crossing back over to uphill side. Once in earshot of Eli I shouted over to him that I was okay. He just looked at me with a confused gaze that told me he had no idea I'd just fallen. There was so much slack in the system at that point that he didn’t feel a thing. Now I know that summit crevasses exist.

Big D showing off.

The "let's get the fuck out of here" thumbs up. 

After a few celebratory summit photos and facetimes with Eli’s family and my partner, we began down. The descent was supposed to be easy, but we knew of a few parties who had epics getting down.

It proved to be mostly walking and easy downclimbing. A few easy rappels got us to, and down from the Bradley-Wake col, where we slogged back to our skis at the base. 

Where's Waldo?

How not to back up a V-thread.

Upon arrival at our skis, we were greeted with an unexpected sight. ONLY my skis, poles and one skin were stuck in the snow surrounded by evidence of extensive digging and stomping. A ziplock bag with a few jelly bellies and a twix bar were stuck in between the skis. Mildly strung out despite our long sleep the night before, we theorized what could have possibly happened and messaged Tom. 

6/10 

While repacking, I stumbled across one additional ski buried under the snow, followed shortly by both of Eli’s poles. It wasn’t going to be easy getting back, but at least it wasn’t going to be awful. 

We limped back into camp at 11:50pm. Happy and ready to lay down for a while.

We named our route "sports" due to the ridiculous grade that the route got. Rock climbing, mixed climbing, ice climbing, aid climbing... snow climbing. All the sports. 

Not to mention the equally ridiculous song "Sports" by the Viagra Boys that kept making an appearance throughout the trip. 

3 days later after plenty of rest, we bid Tom and Gasper a farewell and skied over to search for the missing ski and skin. We found the skin nearly 100m down glacier, the ski itself had been blown almost 30 meters from where we left it. 

Gear drying

Style

Eli scavenging for leftover food.

The lower face had already melted out considerably in the days since we were on it. I'm guessing our traverse to the snowfield on the first day was likely gone the next. 

That same evening there was an accident on Mount Johnson. The next morning, we woke to the sound of a helicopter and messages from Kevin explaining the situation. We packed up for a rescue, not knowing what would be needed and began skiing down glacier. Clouds were threatening to thwart the helicopter rescue.  By the time we got there, Kevin and Louie were already on their way down. We helped coil ropes, feed them and carry back the other party's gear. 

During our time before Bradley, we attempted “On the Frozen roads of our incertitude” on London tower.

Mildly gripped

Bailing

We successfully climbed “Freezy nuts” to the summit of London Tower

First tunnel of the trip

Summit of London tower

Attempted “Shaken not Stirred” on the Mooses Tooth in a push from our basecamp below Bradley. We made it one pitch from the col but turned around because of continually horrendous snow conditions. 24hrs camp to camp.

Crux pitch. Felt like M7 conditions. 

Ropes going everywhere you don't want them to. 

Getting psyched to ski back down into the Ruth.

After Bradley we flew to the Kahiltna and made a half assed attempt on the Bibler-Klewin on Hunter. 

Great conditions if you don't mind having no pro. 

Climbed “It’s Included” on Radio Control Tower 1.5 times. Digging the tunnel through the P2 cornice that was used for most of the ascents throughout the season.

A solid 2 hour lead. 

Weather became continuously poor at the beginning of May, so we escaped while we still had a chance and became the bunk house locals until we could get a ride back to Anchorage. 

Coming off the heels of Eli's awesome climb on Carpe Ridge, Sarah and I also climbed this route from June 13-16th. It was a very historic year on Fairweather to have two parties climb Carpe within just a few weeks of each other, considering the previous ascent of Carpe Ridge prior to this year was the Smileys back in 2013...11 years ago! I already wrote a full length trip report on my website that can be found here, but I'll include the route topos we made below and a few brief notes. The PDF can be downloaded for a complete route overview on one page.

Flew into Fairweather Glacier with Fly Drake, and made it to 10400 foot camp first day. Big 5700 foot day with full 40 lb packs. Followed the historically done route the whole way traversing left initially, climbing the narrow couloir and following the rocky ridgecrest before following open snow slopes right of the crest from 8000 to 10400 feet. Snow below 7500 feet was firm and awesome. Perfect crampon booting. Above that was isothermic slop. Put snowshoes on at 8k. After waiting a full day at 10400 camp due to active snowfall (8-12 inches), on day 3 we traversed right to bypass the big cliffs above the 10400 camp, then climbed up steeper but good snow all the way to where ridge narrows at 12k. The historic route of going left around these cliffs definitely does not go anymore...huge overhanging ice serac shedding crap constantly.

Continued up past small flat 12400 foot camp, fell into crevasse at 12500 feet, slogged through deep drifted powder from there to 13400 feet, made it to south peak at 13820 feet and camped at 13700 foot low saddle between south and main peaks. Day 4 climbed to summit and descended standard west ridge/north basin route to 9800 foot LZ for pickup early morning on day 5. Ice nose was climbed by traversing the blue ice left of the aerated white ice wall that would crumble at the slightest touch! Had historically good weather. After we flew out there was even 3 more days of awesome weather which we used to try and climb Devils Thumb. More on that later.

Carpe Route.pdf

After packing gear on Sunday and making final preparations, Ian and I left my house Monday afternoon 5/20 and drove over to Seattle for our flight to Juneau. We hired an Uber from the Juneau airport to the ferry terminal, and took the midnight boat arriving to Haines at 4:30am. From there, we caught a taxi to the Haines airport and organized/packed gear. The famous “Fly Drake” arrived around 7am and we took off around 8am with “Bad to The Bone” playing over the headsets. I had been coordinating with Drake for several months, and have found him to be very experienced, and a well-known figure in the climbing community. I tried to eek out what advice I could regarding weather, gear, and strategies without coming across as a completely inexperienced noob.

At one point I suggested going fast-and-light up the Carpe Ridge and down the other side to Grand Plateau Glacier, which Drake seemed to think was a reasonable idea although he did not know of anyone who had done it before. At the time I liked this approach. It has two huge advantages: much shorter non-technical descent, and potential better conditions for Drake to pick us up. Its disadvantages included not being able to set up a base camp with extra fuel, or any sort of luxury items. Even the bare essentials for a climb of this magnitude added up to 55lb packs each, and we are always trying to improve on that number. No base camp means less supplies, and less supplies puts Drake in a tough situation. I have heard several stories of Drake taking a risk to pick up climbers who are out of fuel, food, or just scared in a difficult situation (often due to their own unpreparedness) even though he shouldn’t be obligated to. The guy certainly takes a lot of personal responsibility for the people he flies into the range, and I’m sure that is mentally taxing considering the inexperience and risk involved with some of his client’s activities. I did not want to be one of those clients, and we took in enough food for 5+ fat days. That might seem on the very slim side, but I am very confident in Ian and I’s ability to climb fast when we need to, and also stretch food out if needed.

On Tuesday 5/21, weather was perfect for the glacier flight. That is a rarity in the Fairweather range. I had booked everything months in advance, but kept the door open to change flights at the last second if needed to take advantage of changing weather windows. Luckily, things worked out on the exact days we had planned them. The flight to Fairweather Glacier was spectacular. The surrounding peaks are huge, due to the fact that they rise from a very low base elevation. Our views from the air revealed the Carpe to be in excellent climbing condition. Mostly snow travel with a few easy looking rock steps. We landed at 4,700’ and evaluated snow conditions. We decided to leave skis in the plane to save weight. This turned out to be the right choice, as skis would add another 6lbs to our 55lb packs. We immediately started walking across the glacier to the base of the ridge, roping up and avoiding a few very large crevasses. We accessed the ridge via a snow ramp on the right. This lead up around 1,000’ until we reached a low 5th class rock gully. We climbed this (in ski boots, not our forte) for a few hundred feet until it dumped us onto the snowfield below the first of four sarac hazards.

It is important to mention that this route is massive. Over 11k' long, I found it helpful to mentally divide the route between 4,500’-11,000’ into four sections. Each section has a serac at the top that we would have to bypass. A lot of our route decisions were based on avoiding the fall line of these seracs as much as possible. Especially considering how clear and sunny it was on our way to camp 1. The first serac we bypassed on the right, then we continued up just outside the fall line of the second serac, passing it on the right as well. There was a rock band that was about even with the second serac that had some 4th class rock scrambling, which we solo’d. We then ascended another steep snow field to the base of the cliffs that make up the ridge crest between 9-10,000’. This takes you to a lower angle snowfield just on top of the 3rd serac wall.

We made our first camp at 10,500’ at the base of some formidable looking cliffs that blocked our route up the ridge. This was a flat and somewhat sheltered camp spot, but it was in between two shallow crevasses which made for limited space. We went to bed around 9pm just after it started snowing. It snowed/slushed all night and the next morning through very warm temps. While we were stuck in the tent, we studied some of Ian’s excellent arial photographs and determined our best chance of getting around the cliffs would be to traverse horizontally about 1/2 mile to the right, and climb a steep snow gully past the 4th and final serac wall. My brother Noah sent us a forecast showing a clear weather window for a few hours in the afternoon/evening, so we used that time to push up to another great camp site at 12,200’.

On day 3, it again snowed lightly all night and the next morning/afternoon. Around 4pm, the snowfall slowed and we decided to make another short push. We ascended the seemingly endless steep snow up toward the false summit, with Ian breaking trail much of the way. We were both starting to feel the altitude, and were moving much slower than we usually do. The combined vertical gain of the route over slushy snow conditions, high altitude, with heavy packs really had a cumulative effect and we felt very fatigued. Just before reaching the false summit, we started the long leftward traverse and descended down to the col at 13,600’. The ridge here was wide, but had massive cornices. Some of them starting to break away from the ridge leaving huge cracks for us to avoid. From the col we got our first glimpse of the “ice nose”, and realized it would certainly be the crux of the route. In the interest of saving time on Friday, we pushed up a bit further to 13,800’ and camped at the saddle just below the ice nose before that night’s high winds set in. The next morning, we were up at 3am and on our way towards steep ice at 5am. We went back and forth trying to decide whether the ice nose was better passed on the left or right, but eventually decided to follow the 50 Classics guidebook advice and go left. I would not say it was bypassed easily however. We swapped leads for 3 pitches of 70 degree blue ice, then popped out on the upper snow fields. Finally success was assured, and the summit was in sight. We weaved our way through the crevasse maze of the upper mountain and popped out on its rounded summit just before 10am. Unfortunately, there was an undercast around 3000’ hiding the iconic ocean views, but we could see Mount Logan and St. Elias to the North. Weather was windy, and I would estimate ambient was around -10 degrees. I was cold even in my big parka. After taking photos, we started back down the standard route towards the Grand Plateau. The descent route was less steep than the Carpe, but is also covered in crevasses forcing us to zig-zag quite a bit. We punched through a few crevasses up to our knees or waist, but they all seemed to be mostly filled with snow and ice still this early in the year.

Once we reached the col at 13k, I messaged drake via inReach and let him know we were only a couple hours from the landing zone. Unfortunately, the snow below the col was consistently shin to knee deep all the way down, and was slow going. By the time we reached 11k we were very tired. I sent drake some more conditions information and he said he was on his way. It was at this point I realized that we never set up coordinates for an exact pick up location. I messaged him asking if the flat area at 10,500’ was sufficient, but it was too late. We waited just below 10,500’ and as Drake was arriving, wind was picking up and the undercast clouds were quickly rising. Drake managed to land nearby, but he was not pleased with our pick-up location choice. Lesson learned, I should have been more thorough with my questions prior to getting on the glacier. We quickly threw everything in the plane, and Drake really seemed to put his pilot expertise to the test getting off the ground. It took a long time, especially with a direct tail wind, to get airborne. We finally lifted off just as we passed over a massive crevasse that could have easily swallowed the plane. Once we were back up in the air, we were incredibly relieved. We all agreed that is not a situation that we would like to repeat. We landed back in Haines around 2:15pm and quickly packed gear, called a taxi, and made it back to the dock for the 3:15 ferry. We then reversed the rest of our travel itinerary and arrived back in Wenatchee at 3pm on Saturday.

In summary, I think Carpe Ridge is a desirable climb due in most part to its sheer size and position. There are some other huge ridge climbs in the Fairweather range that look quite appealing, but none of them can compete with the Carpe for sheer size. I’m glad with the general ease with which this trip worked out, and thankful for the positive conditions we experienced. We learned a lot, and certainly affirmed a lot of our gear decisions and tactics that we can now put to the test on bigger objectives. On this climb even more than others, I had the persisting feeling that God provided for us a beautiful setting and orchestrated the weather for us to witness his creation. I am also starting to realize that God has given Ian and I a narrow skill-set that is uniquely applied to alpine climbing. There is just something about putting all the tools in my toolbox to use in a high consequence environment that leaves me with an incredible sense of accomplishment. Of course, in the end God will always have control over our successes and failures, but he has certainly granted Ian and I a great success on this trip.

AllTrails:

https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/afternoon-hike-a3ec6dd-353?u=i&sh=emzgdu

Pack Wizard

https://www.packwizard.com/s/7x5UAWS

Wondering if I should retro-actively post a few of our other trip reports here on CC? Or would that be bad form? I have been struggling to create an account for a while now and finally got it to work.

It wasn't apart of the plan, it wasn't necessarily on our radar. My partner and I were coming off of a total failure. We had spent time and energy to attempt to climb the Cassin Ridge. We spent 2 and a half weeks acclimatizing and waiting for a proper window at 14,000’ camp. Including reaching the summit from 14’ camp round trip in less than 12 hours. We were feeling good and were poised to send. All the work was going to pay off, all the time, energy and money were going to come to fruition. After descending down the Seattle Ramp to close to the base of the Japanese Couloir, my partner started displaying signs of HAPE. He wasn't exactly a rockstar at altitude while we were acclimatizing, but this came out of absolutely nowhere. It was out of the blue and I didn't know how to react. It wasn't setting in yet, the fact that we had to keep walking downhill, right past the base of the route we had been planning on for months. 

It wasn't until we were walking out the Valley of Death in the middle of the day, sweating and scared. Chance (my partner) was feeling better as we descended and our plan was to head to 7800’ camp. Eventually making it to the safety of camp we contemplated what to do. It had finally sunk in, that we bailed on our main objective. I was pissed and mad. Not at Chance, but at the circumstances. Chance wanted to head back up since he was feeling better. I was adamant was that I wasn't going to go through all of that again. Knowing that there was no way he was going to be 100 percent. I told him to stay at 7800’ camp, while I go up and retrieve all of our gear from 14,000' camp. And boy did we have a lot of stuff at that camp. I ran up to the camp in less than 6 hours and slept the night at 14,000’. Planning on descending the next day. I packed up my 100-liter pack and 2 sleds full of gear. With so much gear I shuttled loads up and down Windy corner and Squirrel Hill. Against my wishes, Chance met me up at 11,000' camp to help the gear shuttling shitshow. We then made it down to 7800’ camp and discussed our options. We settled on heading down to the Airstrip where we had friends and booze. With maybe having a chance at the West Ridge.

A few days go by and we get a solid 2-day weather window to try something. Chance and I settle on the West Ridge of Hunter, where we will be accompanied by our friends Ryan and Chris. Just coming off a successful ski descent of Denali via the Messner Couloir and were looking for some more exciting “climbing”, or so we thought. We leave at 6 pm the day before the weather window, skinning down to the base of the route at 6500’. The first section is snow and has some considerable overhead hazard. We are able to move quickly and make our way up to the Cats Ears, where we rappeled 2 60 meter rappels to the base of ice face. We kept trucking along the beautiful ridgeline until we got to the rock steps. Where the 5.8 Beckey Chimney proved to be more demanding than expected, a few more simul pitches of some easy mixed terrain brought us to a nice bivy at around 4 am. We then slept until 10 am and continued on the ridge. Some more rambling ridge terrain moved slowly on, as we were tunneling through cornices and were dealing with some deep snow. We finally got to the base of the “Ice face” which didn't have any ice on it.  Just before hitting the saddle, Chance was downclimbing a snow face and he took a crevasse fall, fully overhead. After pulling him out, the 4 of us were a bit shaken. We still had lots of ridge to go and were unsure of the weather in the future. Ryan and Chris made the decision to bail back down from there. Leaving Chance and I a bit more out there than we were planning. We were sad to see those 2 go but knew that we were going to be able to move a bit faster and focus more on the climbing. We continued moving up, passing another easy mixed pitch and passing an overhanging ice serac feature that required legit WI5 ice climbing, even for just a body length. We made it to the top of the famed Ramen Couloir and got caught in a whiteout, with no ability to see where we were going, we decided to bivy again. Splitting one mountain house between us and taking rations for food. We had planned on a single push effort, but with the weather, we had decided to wait until the morning. After sending out messages for weather info, we had received confirmation that we would have a full day of climbable weather the following day. We slept and woke to beautiful clear skies and the ability to see the route in front of us. A bit of new snow, made trail breaking slightly more difficult but after some chest deep postholing, we ventured onto the Summit Plateau. The Plateau seemed safe and smooth, and we couldn't see any cracks. Honestly, we both got complacent (mostly Chance) and he walked up on me while I was trying to route find. The new snow had blanketed a massive crevasse and I popped in 25 feet. Dropping my trekking pole and a picket. I was fortunate to be ok and was able to climb out. We learned from our mistakes and kept going to the summit. The final 50-degree snow pitch turned out to be blue ice covered in 3 inches of snow. It made for slower progress than anticipated, but we were on the summit of Mt. Hunter after a short ridge traverse. We saw wonderful views of the South Face of Denali and all other parts of the range. Now we just had to get down.

We descended back to the camp above the Ramen Couloir and finished our food, besides one single Gu. We made 5 or 6 V-thread rappels down the top of the Ramen Couloir and decided to unrope and start downclimbing. The conditions were great besides the final 1000 feet, where it turned into 3-inch breakable crust to bottomless facets. Eventually making our way to the base of the Ramen somewhere around midnight. Out of food and wasted we were unsure where the sneak around was. The Supertopo beta we had said to climb 700 feet up an “easy snow slope” We blindly started rappelling into a couloir and had to climb back out. Chance and I are great friends, but in this instant, we were mad at each other and tempers were flaring. We took a pause at 2 am and brewed up, realizing being mad wasn't going to solve any of our problems. We had a description, but couldn't pick the correct gully. Finally choosing one. Knowing that we could see the bottom of the couloir but not the middle. We choose to descend as any more time up there could turn out poorly. We left gear all of the places, using all of the slings we had, even expending my prusik cord. 1 nut anchors and shitty chossy cam placements led us down to more steep snow. Similar to the conditions in the Ramen but worse we made slow progress. This was where I had started to hallucinate. The snow was so variable that the mini slide paths in the couloir proved firm enough to front point down, whereas the rest of the snow surface proved slow and postholey. The trick of the slide gullies was to get out of them when the barrage of rocks and ice funneled down the 5 foot deep paths. It was a risk, but I wanted to get off this thing so bad, the safety of the Kahiltna was right in front of us. The whole ordeal from the bottom of the Ramen to the Safety of the Kahiltna lasted around 10 hours. We then walked back to our skis at the base of the route. While walking on the Kahiltna a heavy cloud layer moved in and started dumping snow on us. We just really didn't care. We were off and thankful to be alive. With no food, fuel and very little water left we continued the journey back to the Airstrip. Our GPS’s on our phones had died and were “walking blind”. Chance took us into the wrong basin mistaking it for the Airstrip, realizing just short of some extremely crevassed area. We finally make it back to our camp at the Airstrip and stuff our faces of bacon and sausages and chocolate. It's now 5 pm and we had been awake and on the move for the past 36 hours. Those 36 hours didn't contain the hardest climbing I have ever done, but they pushed Chance and I the farthest we have ever gone. Those 36 hours gave me the most intense time period my young adult life has had so far. And the best part was I fucking liked it. 

As of the time of writing, we were the only party to have climbed Mt Hunter in the 2019 climbing season. The only team to have climbed the full West Ridge in at least 2 years. And both at the age of 21, we believe we were the youngest team ascent of the West Ridge and possibly the summit of Mt. Hunter via any route. Not that any of that matters, but I like to feed my ego sometimes. Please reach out if you know of anything different.

Gear Notes:
5 Screws, 2 pickets, a small selection of cams.

Approach Notes:
K2 Aviation

I always ran double boots on all my previous Ruth trips, but I seem to remember partners who ran single layer boots that time of year maybe with overbooties?  That was 15/20 years ago.  I know the tech has changed.  

GO!

Full TR and photos here: https://spokalpine.com/2022/07/08/denali-cassin-ridge-vi-5-8-ai4/

I will likely continue to update this TR with pictures, history and info about this part of the range. So stay tuned.

On April 19th Kurt Ross, Nelson Neirinck and I flew into the Kichatna Mountains of Alaska with three weeks of food and hopes to climb a couple new routes if weather allowed. We got dropped off on the Trident, a tri-forked glacier on the east edge of the range. Our primary objective was to attempt the unclimbed N-Buttress of Augustin Peak up to the north ridge, which we would then follow to the summit.

We arrived right at the end of a stellar weather window, allowing us no time to explore or get a feel for conditions. We crossed our fingers hoping for good neve, but accepted that sugar snow wallowing was entirely possible. While Kurt finished setting up our hasty basecamp, and Nelson slept off his jet lag (he had just flown in from Norway), I skied over to get photos of our route and choose a line as the sun fell behind the neighboring peaks.

My alarm went off at 4am the next morning. Nerves were high as we ate a hefty breakfast and discussed our planned route. With so many question marks, we almost bailed on our plan in favor of poking around to get more info on the snowpack. Thankfully we stuck with plan A, but in turn got a somewhat comfortable start at 6am with two and a half days of food and fuel. We expected to bivy somewhere on the north ridge that night, hopefully summiting and descending the next day. 

Following my skin track over to the base, we trudged up the snow cone to the start of the route which boasted nice looking water ice to start the day. Nelson took the first block, leading us up the ice steps in a fun ~100m pitch of AI3. From there he led up another 250m pitch up through some more easy ice and up the lower snowfield to the base of the runnels I had spotted the day prior. This was the last time we used the Ice screws for the remainder of the route.

This part of the buttress was one of the bigger question marks. From below we could see a series of narrow runnels cutting perfectly through the face, but whether it was Ice, neve or sugar snow was what we were scared of. As Kurt took off, we were delighted to find almost perfect neve plastered to the walls, and just enough rock gear to keep it reasonable. These two long pitches were by far the best climbing on the route. I wished it would go on forever. A small cornice crux led us out of the runnels and into the upper snowfield. Here we unroped and trudged for around 350 meters up to where the buttress met the ridge. 

It was only 3pm at this point, and with 8 hours of daylight remaining, we hoped we could make it up and over to the east ridge where we could chop out a bivy to spend the night. Based on the conditions up to that point, we decided to skip the crux of the ridge, and traverse lower along the exposed NE face to surpass the corniced knife edge above. 

After brewing up in the sun, I took over the lead for the ridge ahead. The middle gendarme provided sunbaked rotten slush climbing to get up and over. Once on the NE face I tried to make a shortcut through a rock band, but encountered vertical facets over rock, so backed off and descended around instead on the easier but faster terrain below. Once the pro ran out, we unroped and continued to the summit simul soloing the same steep snow to AI2 conditions we had been on for the past several hours.

We reached the summit around 9pm as the evening sun began to set. Despite being pretty tuckered out, the increasing winds and rapidly dropping temps encouraged us to keep moving. Chopping out a platform for our two person tent while being hammered by wind did not seem appealing. Down climbing to flatter, less exposed terrain did. Still unroped, we began our slow trudge down the east ridge toward the NE face. 2,500ft and two and a half hours of face in down climbing later, we reached the glacier. Now roped up for glacier travel, Kurt led the way down over numerous schrunds and through the jumbled mess of the icefall in the dark with impressive accuracy. The only hiccups being myself punching through a fairly inconsequential schrund, and Kurt nearly being eaten by a crevasse.

Once back on the SE fork of the trident, we wallowed our way out of serac danger and collapsed into the snow to brew up some more water and eat dinner. We were safe at this point, so it felt like a good time to celebrate with some warm food. It was 1:30 in the morning. The incoming storm had filled the sky with clouds, cutting off all ambient star/moon light, making for the darkest night I have ever experienced. 

We arrived back at our skis at 2:40am, and I crawled back into my tent at 4am. Exactly 24 hours after waking up the day prior. 

The next 8 days involved a lot of lounging, eating, a little bit of skiing, and no climbing. A series of storms dumped nearly four feet of snow on us. Our bathroom area was buried and required a grid search, Nelson's tent was almost completely buried, and all chances of more climbing were buried along with it. On Saturday, May 29th we got picked up by TAT before another endless series of storms came in. If we hadn’t come out the day we did, we would surely still be trapped in the Kichatnas right now, running out of food, missing flights and being generally really bummed. 

While quite moderate, I believe the North Buttress of Augustin Peak is now the longest route in the Kichatna Mountains. To the best of our knowledge this was the third ascent of the mountain 

Team 3:1 Advantage (3 person team originally, then 2 person).
This was my husband's (Marlin Thorman) and my 50th state highpoint we accomplished together.

Itinerary:

May 14 - Flew onto Kahiltna Glacier. Trekked from the airstrip to 7800' camp. Starting weight was about 140lb food and fuel per person (prepared for 28 days).
May 15 - 7800’ camp to 9900’ camp
May 16 - 9900’ Camp to 11k camp
May 17 - Rest day in 11k camp
May 18 - Cache to 13,500’
May 19 - Rest/weather day
May 20 - My husband trekked our 3rd teammate out to the airstrip and back by himself. (Teammate bailed due to inability to tolerate altitude and exertion with having had covid recently.)
May 21 - Move from 11k camp to 14k camp (windy/snowy day, but worse weather approaching)
May 22 - Establishing camp at 14k
May 23 - Camp reinforcement & repair day due to broken tent pole from high winds overnight
May 24 - Retrieve cache from 13,500’ and Edge of the World excursion
May 25 - Cache to 16,800’
May 26 - Reconstructing the melting camp walls day, dug an underground bathroom
May 27 - Weather day (lots of shoveling snow)
May 28 - Rest day
May 29 - Weather day (snowing & super windy again)
May 30 - Move from 14k’ camp to 17k’ camp
May 31 - Summit day, pack up 17k’ camp, back to 14k’ camp (bad weather approaching)
June 1 - 14k’ camp to 7800’ camp. Tried to push to the airstrip but poor visibility and no broken trail on lower mountain made going slow and precarious with unknown crevasse locations.
June 2 - 7800’ camp to airstrip and flew out to Talkeetna. Beautiful day!

Trip report video:

Detailed video of our snow castle camp at 14k'......

I climbed the west ridge of Mount Hunter from May 29 - June 1 just last week with a summit on May 31st. The route has changed drastically from the days of old, here is a good beta overview of the ridge if anyone is interested. We took 3 days on route with two nights at the 10650 col for a big 4k foot summit day. Weather has been fantastic in Alaska this season making for a carefree, worry free ascent (mostly lol).

I'll get to writing a detailed trip report on my website soon...just figured I'd share these route notes for now. Conditions were mostly good, but afternoons on the lower ridge started getting scary when the stepp snow softened considerably in the hot sun. Summit temps were in the mid teens with very little wind. Photos at the link below.

Photo Gallery

I am a little late in posting this because I had a 3 week Denali expedition right after this trip. So I am just now getting back into the swing of regular life and unpacking.  Anyway I figured I would post up a trip report from the Ruth Gorge.

We flew in on April 26 to the Ruth Glacier just below the East Face of Dickey.  Man that is a face to dream about!!  We were a team of 4 that functioned as 2 teams of 2.  We just changed up partners a few times based on people’s route choice.  The Ruth Gorge was Plan B and we didn’t know we were going to the Ruth until about 4 days prior to flying in.  So we were pretty ill prepared with route research and overall beta (with the exception of the classic lines).

Grosvenor, Johnson, and Wake (left to right), from the flight in.

Talkeetna Air Taxi on the Ruth Glacier with Peak 7400 and London Towers in the background.

April 27 - Our first full day on the glacier.  It was warm and sunny and I teamed up with Robbie to head for Cobra Pillar and just see how the climbing was.  We got up to the top of pitch 5 when the sun disappeared behind the mountain and it started to get cold.  We were also less than impressed by the first 5 pitches.  When the guidebook says “C1+ rotten or 5.11” you should probably just avoid that pitch!  I led it and was literally kicking new footholds into the large granite crystals and hoping they wouldn’t crumble under my bodyweight.  Needless to say we had no desire to go back with so much other good looking rock.

Robbie on the 2nd pitch of Cobra Pillar.

Robbie just after the traverse on Cobra Pillar 

April 28 - We scoped several lines and tried to generally figure out what lines had been done.  Thankfully we had used our phone to screen shot several AAJ articles so we were able to figure out some of it.  Our efforts were mostly focused on Dickey and Peak 7400 since they were the closest to camp.

Scoping a potential ice line.

April 29-30 - weather days.  Snowed about 18 inches.

May 1 - We scoped lines going south on the Ruth Glacier.  Looked at stuff on Bradley, Wake, Johnson, and London Towers.  We were starting to get a good sense of snow conditions based on aspect and finally figuring out where everything is.  We did climb the opening 2 pitches of The Escalator on Mt Johnson.  It was really fun alpine ice and it gave us a good excuse to use the ice tools and screws.  There were a couple of steeper smears to the left that we hoped to climb but the ice was only about 2-3 inches thick and there wasn’t any rock pro available.

Scoping "The Escalator" on Mount Johnson.

Climbing up the first couple ice pitches on The Escalator on Mount Johnson.  Great alpine ice!

May 2 - Based on the conditions we found yesterday we deemed it prudent to give the mountains one more day to shed snow and get some freeze/thaw going so it wouldn’t be a postholing nightmare.  We had brought a telescope so we looked very closely at a couple of lines that interested us and talked about what line to do tomorrow.  A couple people of our group went over to check out the first couple pitches of “The Wine Bottle” on Mt. Dickey.  Man that is an inspiring looking line!  We watched them through the telescope.

May 3 - I teamed up with Duncan to climb Kuriositeten (AI5, M3+, 800m).  It is a “smaller route” that was first put up in 2008 on peak just left of 747 Pass.  At 2500ft it isn’t really a small route but when you see how it looks sitting between the giants of Dickey and Bradley it appears small.  The route follows a couloir splitting the east face of the peak.  It is a lot of snow climbing but also contains some mixed steps and 3 distinct ice steps ranging from 15m to 70m tall.  Honestly it reminded me of some of the climbing in Cody, WY, where you follow a twisting canyon/couloir always excited about what might be around the next corner.  The crux is the final step.  It is about 70m+ and the first half is pretty dead vertical.  Thankfully the ice quality was great and we throughly enjoyed the position deap inside the slot.  We had very little beta about this route so had only brought 7 screws.  We were able to find rock gear for the beginning belay and then I just ran it out as far as I dared between screws.  We still had to break it into 2 pitches as I found myself with only 2 anchor screws left after 35m.  Duncan took the upper half and soon we found ourselves on the snow slopes above.  This is a fantastic route in the Ruth and should see more traffic!

One of the reasons we wanted to climb this route was to recon the decent from Bradley.  One of the reports we had regarding Bradley, was to descend the “standard west ridge” but that party bailed down a face after not being able to descend the west ridge.  Another report talked about descending to the Backside Glacier and walking way back around through 747 pass.  Another report talked about descending the Bradley/Wake Col.  To complicate matters CalTopo and Gaia both showed some weird topography anomalies on their topo maps.  In fact both showed a 800-1000ft cliff coming off the back side of Bradley that looked very complicated to navigate around.  The problem was the topo lines didn’t seem to match what we had heard in reports.  Needless to say we were very interested in looking at the descent from the top of Kuriositeten.  In the end we discovered that both Gaia and CalTopo were very wrong in their topography.  In places it was off by 1000ft.  What appeared to be a huge cliff was just a small snow slope that was easily walkable.  We couldn’t see the whole decent but we felt much better about things after this day.

Skiing over to Kuriositeten.  It climbs the big gash on the peak in the middle back.  Even though the line is 2500ft tall it looks small in comparison to Bradley (left) and Dickey (right). 

Duncan starting up Kuriositeten.

Looking up from the belay at the top of the first ice step.  

Approaching the 3rd ice step crux.  It is the narrow looking ribbon of ice way up in the slot.

Duncan climbing up through the crux pitch on Kuriositeten.  A fantastic route in the Ruth.

From the summit of Kuriositeten looking over towards Mount Bradley.

Descending the back side of Kuriositeten in the late evening light.

May 4 - Rest day.

May 5 and 6 - For the big goal of the trip we picked Mount Bradley.  A couple of our party had started up the East Ridge of Bradley the day I had climbed on Cobra Pillar.  They found deep unconsolidated snow on all northern aspects.  Even though it is called the East Ridge the first 1/3 of the route is mostly on the north side of the ridge.  So with no desire to go up that unconsolidated snow we searched for a new route.  While looking through all of our screenshots from the AAJ we found John Frieh’s report about a linkup on Mt. Bradley.  He and Dylan Johnson had also found bad snow on the start of the regular East Buttress.  So with high hopes we set our eyes on their Link of “Season of the Sun" and the “East Buttress”.  They rated it M5/6 and the route is 4500 feet tall.  It was warm so our plan was to leave camp in the late afternoon and start the route in the evening.  We were hoping that by this time the snow might start freezing back up from the day and we could avoid some nasty postholing by climbing through the night.  We left camp at 4pm and but 5:15pm we were in crampons working our way up the initial snow slopes.  The Season of the Sun route climbs on the right side of the SE face of the mountain and was originally put up by the Giri-Giri Boys. We were a little concerned about the reported M6 offwidth crux but figured we would take it one step at a time.  After about 1000 ft of snow with short steps of rock and ice we arrived at the “crux”.  We were pleasantly to find it full of ice (AI3).  So after a quick romp up great ice and another pitch of low angle rock we arrived at the 2nd couloir.  From here route goes up right then back left across snow slopes and around the end of a big buttress.  This leads you into the big central gully about mid height on the face.  The original Seasons of the Sun route cuts up and back left to stay on the face while we followed Frieh/Johnson’s variation back towards the East Buttress proper.  It was somewhere in here that it got dark.  Not pitch black but dark enough to warrant a headlamp when technical climbing.  Several mixed pitches in the dark brought us to the East Buttress proper.  From here another 2 long fun mixed pitches deposited us underneath a huge boulder.  By this time it was getting light again and we were out of water.  So we spent an hour brewing up and resting.  The rest of the east buttress went by in a blur of simul-climbing including one section where I ran out of carabiners and slings and literally clipped the carabiner with all my nuts to a piton just so I could clip the rope in.  We topped out on the summit about 10am.  The decent was pretty straight forward although with more uphill than we liked.  We just followed the main ridge to the west and then cut down and south to follow a different ridge line back towards the Bradley/Wake Col.  Unfortunately this led us to wallow up several northern aspects of unconsolidated powder snow.  Nothing like trenching in the afternoon sun when you have been up all night!  We finally reached the col and took a short break to drink the last of our water and finish up our food.  Then it was 2000ft of easy walking down to the last obstacle…the icefall between Wake and Bradley.  From the top of the col it appeared to be less broken up on skiers left.  But when we arrived skiers left there was only sagging “snow bridges” and open crevasses.  We were able to end run everything far left and then rappel over the last bergshrund by leaving a bomber fixed nut in the rock.  Finally home free we trudged wearily back towards the base of the route.  The snow was like a trap door.  Most steps you were fine but every few steps the door would open and suddenly you would be postholing to your thigh.  We were excited to be back to our skis were the going suddenly got easy!  Rolled back into camp at 7:30pm for a 27.5hr RT time.

Starting up Seasons of the Sun.

The M6 offwidth crux....we got lucky with fat ice conditions and easy climbing. 

Typically route conditions...soloing steep snow.  About 1/4 of the way up the route now.

Nearing the top of the East Buttress proper......during one of the long simul-blocks.

The route up Bradley's 4500ft face.  This is a linkup of Seasons of the Sun and the East Buttress first done by John Frieh and Dylan Johnson.

Descending back down from the Bradley/Wake Col after climbing Mt. Bradley.

May 7 - Weather day.  Snowed off and on all day.

May 8 - Snowed a bit then cleared up in the afternoon but wasn’t enough time for much more than a casual ski. It was warm again.  We watched several ice lines we had been looking at fall off the walls.

Our camp below the east face of Mount Dickey.  Mount Bradley is just to the left of center in behind.

May 9 - With the warm weather we opted for rock climbing.  But the sun didn’t burn the clouds off until noon so we got a late start.  We decided on Goldfinger which is on the Stump.  We started climbing and were happy to find good quality rock.  The rock quality was WAY better than the first few pitches of Cobra Pillar.  Unfortunately due to our late start we lost the sun and our warmth about the top of pitch 6.  We contemplated going a few more pitches but opted to just call it since it was unlikely we would top out anyway with such a late start.  The climbing was very good though and it would be a classic anywhere in the lower 48.

Coming up to the belay at the top of Pitch 2 of Goldfinger.

Climbing pitch 6 of Goldfinger.  It is fantastic climbing on very good quality rock!

May 10 - With bad weather in the forecast for the next several days we opted to fly out.  Several of the team members had flights out of Anchorage on the 13th so we didn’t want to be stuck on the glacier and miss flights.

TAT here to pick us up.  The ever changing clouds giving Mt. Bradley a moody look as we departed.

Gear Notes:
Alpine rack, heavy on screws for ice routes, heavy on cams for rock routes.

Approach Notes:
Fly in with Talkeetna Air Taxi, then ski/hike to climbs.

http://www.gorobets.com/TRs/Ham_and_Eggs_2021_04_23.html

Gear Notes:

1. 2 ropes 60 m x 8.2 mm.
2. A pair of ice tools each.
3. 8 ice screws.
4. 4 pickets.
5. A set of cams from 0.2” to 3”.
6. A set of nuts. Not used.
7. 4 pitons. Not used.
8. BD Spectra. Not used.
9. V thread cord. Not used.
10. Webbing for rappel. Not used.

Approach Notes:
From Root Canal air strip ascend snow slopes.

Benny Lieber and I attempted Mt Drum from May 3-8, 2021.  While we didn't summit, this was still an amazing trip.  It was really memorable to be visiting the Wrangells on my first trip to Alaska - a range which is pretty far off the beaten path to say the least.  TR with photos: SPOKALPINE

Gear Notes:
Screws, pickets

Approach Notes:
It's hard to get flights in here. Finding a friendly private pilot is your best bet.

I know this is WA state, but I wrote up an expedition report about my recent climbing expedition to the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range of Alaska. Might be of interest to folks planning trips up north! I don't have the typing strength to reupload/retype the entire report, so gonna be lazy and post the link:

https://www.natexploring.com/alaska/arrigetch-peaks

Here's a couple pics to showcase how unf*cking incredible it is up there. 

Gear Notes:
Double ropes, double rack, helluva lot of other shit

Approach Notes:
4 days of swamp bushwhacking. Get psyched.

Date: 4/15/1980

Trip Report:

OK, this all happened a long time ago, so here it is, to the best of my rapidly aging recollection:

In late April 1981, Keith Royster and I had been camped on the West Fork of the Ruth glacier with a couple of friends for two weeks. We were waiting for a weather window long enough for a 3-day alpine style ascent of the unclimbed North Buttress of the Rooster Comb. The pattern had been 2 to 3-day periods of stormy weather separated by a day of clearing. We knew from our experiences of the previous three seasons spent on the Ruth that if we were patient that pattern would reverse, and we could expect a 3 to 4-day period of fine cold conditions.

Rooster Comb routes

Bivy sites

We both had climbed other Rooster Comb routes on those earlier expeditions. Scott Woolums and I had bagged the first ascent of the Rooster Comb’s main summit in 1978 via the SE Face. In 1979 Jeff Thomas and I made an ascent to the NW summit from the top of the col between the Rooster Comb and Mt. Huntington. In 1980 Keith and Leigh Anderson climbed a new route up the NW Face to the NW summit. Each year we looked at the North Buttress and vowed to come back and give it a shot some day.

That day was rapidly approaching for Keith and I, but the current weather was less than perfect. It WAS good enough for a bush pilot from Talkeetna to land on the West Fork just above our camp and drop off two British climbers, Nick Colton and Tim Leech. They post-holed over to our camp, introduced themselves and announced that they were going to climb our route the next morning.

After the brits left to set up their camp we convened a hasty war council. We could beat them to the base; our gear was packed and we had skis. In a footrace we could move much faster that the post-holing brits and get on the route ahead of them. But we knew the weather, and it wasn’t going to be good. We had seen the lower buttress disappear under enormous avalanches more times than we could count. At best there would be continuous spindrift for most of the route. It was a huge decision… did we want the first ascent or the best ascent? In the end we decided to wait for the weather. We were climbing for fun, we told each other, not glory.

Five days later Nick and Tim were back from their epic. Or maybe it was just a typical day on the crag for them, being crazy brits and all. The constant spindrift had slowed them down dramatically in the lower third of the route, and they had bypassed the crux section of the gully by aid climbing around to the right. If we couldn’t be first, maybe we could score some points on style.

Now finally the weather was becoming settled, and we hoped most of the new snow had fallen off the route, because we were going to go that night. It seemed to us that, after weeks of watching the face over the past three years, the big avalanches cut lose in the mid-afternoon. By starting the climb at 10pm, we could be out of the lower gully before noon. Even in late April there is plenty of light for gully climbing at night.

We blasted off right on time, leaving our skis at the base of the route. The lower gully was classic, with excellent snow and ice up a twisting gully, perfect granite on both sides. We climbed together, moving fast, the leader placing pro until out of gear. Sometime before dawn we switched leads at Nick and Tim’s first bivy platform, set dead center in a wide section of the gully. I was nervous just stopping there to belay. It must have been a nasty bivy in the conditions they were climbing in.

Keith in the lower gully

By 10am we were feeling like we were in safer ground, with most of the lower gully below us. About that time our friend Jim Olson was at the base to retrieve our skis. From the center of the West Fork he watched a massive avalanche fall into the gully below us. A cornice had let go from high above and it scoured the gully, then washed out halfway across the West Fork. A half-hour slower and we would have been right in the firing line. As it was, we were blissfully unaware of our close call.

At about the halfway point, the gully becomes discontinuous as it runs into a prominent 500-foot rock band. We set our first bivy where the snow and ice of the lower gully met the rock band. It was a very small platform, maybe two feet wide, but well protected by the overhanging bulge of rock above. We spent the night in sleeping bags and bivy sacs at –20F. I had a miserable night, not cold, but cramping up on the narrow snow ledge. Even my facial muscles were cramping, locking my eyes shut.

About 30 feet right of our platform, the next pitch began with a 30 foot section of vertical rock, beyond which the gully picked up again, though quite a bit more steep than it had been. Keith made quick work of the rock, and led up the gully a ways before bringing me up. I got a really sweet lead up the gully to the base of the crux pitch. This is the point where Nick and Tim had climbed out to the right, bypassing the heinous, rotten vertical ice hose that the gully had just become. I was not unhappy that it was Keith’s lead!

Keith led up some beautiful gully ice to the foot of the overhanging 40-foot chimney partially filled with some really crappy looking ice. He put in an ice screw that MIGHT have held a light fall, and headed straight up. It was mostly a very scary looking stem, with his backpack and right shoulder against the rock wall on the right and his feet kicking holes into the rotten ice curtain on the left. It was a monster effort, and I was sweating bullets for him until he finally pulled over the top. Definitely a no fall situation!

Keith on the heinous crux pitch

Keith continued on easier vertical mixed ground and banged in a belay. I jugged past the heinous chimney, thinking all the while what a scary lead it must have been. I lead off from Keith’s belay, first traversing left to follow the remnants of the gulley, now degenerated into vertical ice-filled cracks. Protection was scarce, and my first piece after traversing left was a number 1 stopper. I climbed up another twenty feet of ice-covered rock, heading for a three-inch wide runnel of ice. At the base of the runnel I was REALLY looking for a placement, and there in the base of the crack was a fixed pin left by Nick and Tim. I hit it a couple of times with my north wall hammer. It rang true and I and clipped in. WHEW!

I set my axe and north wall hammer into the ice of the runnel and grabbed hold of the sling I had clipped to the fixed pin to lean back for a good look up the ice runnel. Suddenly the rock broke, the pin pulled, and I was forty feet lower, upside down over 2000 feet of air. Hanging from the number 1 stopper, I watched my snow shovel fall back to the glacier. I looked over at Keith as I slowly rotated in the air. He told me, “Stop screwing around Kerr, I’m freezing over here!” I got back on the rock, and looked up to see my ice tools waiting for me, still stuck in the runnel. The pitch had been hard with tools. Climbing back up to them barehanded was “interesting”.

Once reunited with my tools, I banged the pin back in and scampered up the ice. For the first time in two days I climbed into the sun. I anchored in and brought my frozen partner up. In a couple more easy pitches we were above all difficulties and built a commodious bivy ledge.

The next morning we kicked up the summit snowfield and pulled out the flask for a quick summit celebration. The weather was still holding perfect, and we enjoyed the 360-degree view for a few minutes before starting down the ridge that led to the col between the main summit and the NW summit and plateau. The descent to the col was exciting ridge climbing, ending in a long free rappel into the col. The climb up to the NW summit ridge was not difficult and we walked west across the plateau to the top of the wide gully that leads down to the Huntington/Rooster Comb col. It was late and we decided to bivy in the bergschrund before descending to the col.

Unfortunately, we were out of food. After we dug our way down into the crevasse and set up our bivy, I told Keith I was going out to find us some dinner. He looked at me like I had been smoking too much pot. I crawled out of our cave and crossed the top of the descent gully to the base of a large rock. I dug at the snow and rock for a few minutes, then reached into a hole in the rock and retrieved the bag of food and fuel that Jeff Thomas and I had left there the year before. Keith was suitably impressed with our foresight when I returned with a huge meal for two and a pint of stove fuel.

We started down early the next morning, and made two rappels down the gulley. We were crossing the giant cornices of the col barely an hour after we started down, working our way across to the west side, and the safest descent route to the West Fork. I knew the way down from the Huntington/Rooster Comb col really well. I’d made two round trips over the col in 1979 on our way to Mt. Huntington’s SE side, and one round trip in 1980 to gain the East Ridge of Mt. Huntington. It’s straightforward snow and ice climbing, made a game of terrifying Russian roulette by the huge cornices and seracs that threaten every part of the face. This is definitely not a place to stop for a picnic, and Keith and I fairly flew down the face, reaching the glacier in about two and a half hours.

Crossing the Huntington/Rooster Comb col on the descent

We felt great after the climb. We had managed to cut a full day off the first ascent time, climbed the crux gulley pitch, and done it in a spell of perfect weather. The North Buttress is the most classic line in the West Fork, in my book, and I put it at the top of my personal list of achievements.

Some days after we got back to base camp, Nick and Tim returned from climbing a new route on the West face of Mt. Huntington. You had to hand it to those two; they really maxed out the possibilities on their visit to the West Fork. Two years later Keith and I skied back into the range from the North, destination: the Colton/Leech route on Mt. Huntington. But that is another story…

Since our ascent in 1981 this route has only had one other successful ascent.

Gear Notes:

Lightweight alpine rack (screws, one picket, assorted pins), 160m double 9mm ropes, sleeping bags/bivy sacs, MSR stove, 3 days food/fuel

Date: 5/28/2016

Trip Report:

Not too much of a report but I thought I'd share some pics. We did the West Butt which has been reported on extensively and is really about as straight-forward as you can get for an expedition climb. It was a great trip and a great way to break into the game. If you're looking for resources here are a few things I relied on quite a bit in planning for the trip:

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1127222/TR_Denali_West_Buttress_With_a

http://www.climber.org/reports/2005/1519.html.

I can't hope to compete with the level of beta in those TR's (Thanks especially to lukeh!) but let me know if you're dying for an opinion or had questions about how we did it.

We were on the mountain 20 days and spent over half of that at 14k waiting for a good break in the weather. The most (only?) interesting climbing is the ridge between the top of the fixed lines and the camp at 17k. At least in the expedition style you have reason to do it several times.

Overall the climb is basically just a ton of work. But once you get up high the views are worth the price of admission.

Enjoy the pics!

Gear

Flying In

The Ruth

Snow Flutes

Climbers on the Kahiltna

Landed at Basecamp

Lower Kahiltna

Camped on the Kahiltna

Camped at 11k

Top of Motorcycle Hill

Windy Corner

Windy Corner

14k Camp and Headwall

Edge of the World Shot

Edge of the World Shot

Lower Kahiltna and the Northeast Fork

Hunter

Climbing the Fixed Lines

Hunter, 14k Camp from the Ridge

View from the Ridge

Foraker and the West Buttress

View from the Ridge

14k Camp from the Ridge

Nearing Washburn's Thumb

Heading for Denali Pass

Summit Ridge

Summit Ridge

On the Top!!

Approach Notes:

TAT

Details: Alaska. Finally. After multiple trips to Alaska every year since 2009 life priorities had forced me to take a "leave of absence" since my last trip in March of 2016. It was nice to finally return and with Doug Shepherd, someone who I've done numerous trips with including my very first trip to AK in 2009.

Various existing commitments limited us to a 3 day trip but weather and temps the week leading up suggested we would likely find something we could climb during the short window. I grabbed Doug at ANC early Saturday morning and we blasted for Talkeetna.

After the usual shenanigans (weight in, repack) Paul zipped us in. After looking at possible objectives on the flight in we settled on Shaken, Not Stirred on the Moose's Tooth. Though I had climbed the Moose's Tooth in 2010 it was via Ham and Eggs. I'd always wanted to climb Shaken but had never seen it in.

A SLC team was coming out at the same time we were getting dropped off and had attempted it the day prior. They had bailed at the crux due to lack of ice but after quickly looking at their pictures we thought we should at least give it a try as it appeared like it would go with some mixed climbing.

We departed camp later than normal on Sunday (~6 am) to allow temps to warm slightly; this allowed us to wear single boots. I took the first simul block to just below the narrows where Doug took over. Doug fired a few amazing pitches that took us to the crux which was ice free but Doug was able to safely protect and find a mixed way through the crux. Following the pitch I have to say it was a very impressive lead.

Some more climbing took us to the Englishman’s Col where we enjoyed an extended hydrate + coffee break before heading to the true summit.  I will say the terrain between the Englishman’s Col and the true summit is a lot of up and down with at least two rappels and nearly constant crevasse and cornice danger. "Enjoy"

We tagged the summit sometime after sunset but before dark; Doug's first time and my second. We managed to start the rappels down Ham and Eggs before it got truly dark so at that point it was just hitting rap anchors and/or making naked threads as needed. 

We arrived back at camp ~19 hours later and flew out the following day, Monday, before heading back to the lower 48. Good times.

Gear Notes:
partial set of nuts, single set 00-2 c3, double set 0.4 -> 4 ultralights, 10 laser speed light ice screws, 3 micro trax, single + tag line

Approach Notes:
Talkeetna Air Taxi is the best

Video: 

Between June 2 and June 11, Priti and I climbed the Cassin Ridge on the South Face of Denali approaching via the NE Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier (the “Valley of Death”), spending 6 days on route (including 1 rest/weather day at 17,700ft), summiting on June 9, and descending the West Buttress route.  The whole trip was 10 days 7 hours door-to-door from Seattle.

The Cassin Ridge is the second most popular route on Denali, with an average of 9 successful climbers each year, compared to an average of 584 successful climbers each year on the West Buttress route over the past decade.  We carried everything up and over, climbing Ground-Up, with 38lbs packs each at the start, no sleds, and moving camp as we climbed, without caches.

It was a Smash ’n’ Grab, meaning we decided to go at the last minute when we saw a good weather window.  We watched Denali weather every day since early May until there was about a week of good weather.  It took 24 hours from being at work on a Friday afternoon deciding to pull the trigger to being at Kahiltna Base Camp (including packing, Ranger orientation, flights, etc).  We climbed Rainier 3 times the month and a half before our trip (Gib Ledges, Kautz, and Liberty Ridge), sleeping in the summit crater the weekend before.  Still, we took Diamox while on Denali and had 2 weeks of food/fuel in case we felt altitude on route.  Luckily, we had no altitude issues, and were only bounded by our own fitness, weather, and desire to move only when the sun was on us.  Overall, weather was windless, clear, and sunny during the days with a few flurries at night.

It was an “old-school” style of climbing, slow and heavy, while most folks nowadays opt to acclimatize on the West Buttress and climb the Cassin Ridge starting from 14,000ft camp on the West Buttress, then climb light-and-fast via the Seattle ’72 ramp or the West Rib (Chicken Gully) in a few days — this was our plan for our attempt last year with Ilia Slobodov, but didn’t get the weather window.  Overall, a very successful trip, and we’re so excited to have pulled it off, after 3 years of dreaming of this route.

*Alpine Style:

The route was completed Alpine Style with the following exceptions:

-Snowshoes were cached at Camp 1 in case the lower Kahiltna Glacier was sketchy on the way back.  Didn’t really ever need snowshoes.  The NE Fork was boot-able.  There weren’t tracks going up the NE Fork, but it was wanded to the base of the West Rib.

-We clipped into the existing fixed lines on the West Buttress descent above 14k, but this was unnecessary since it was basically a staircase.  We didn’t clip into the existing pickets on the Autobahn above 17k.

Google Street View:

Apparently, nobody had done a 360 Photo Sphere Google Street View of the summit of Denali, so we obliged

https://www.google.com/maps/@63.0690675,-151.0060278,3a,75y,78.91h,50.18t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipOR4OLfMm5iBn15nn4OdiMbVTWa7lwk40pPUlnH!2e10!3e12!7i8704!8i4352

Itinerary:

-June 2: Arrived at Kahiltna Base Camp at 3:00PM and moved to “Safe Camp” in the NE Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier (“Valley of Death”).  We cached snowshoes at Camp 1 and took a right turn up the NE Fork.  This “Safe Camp” is the widest part of the NE fork, where you are least threatened by avalanches and serac-fall sweeping the entire valley floor.

-June 3: Hiked from "Safe Camp" halfway down the Valley of Death and climbed the Japanese Couloir and camped on Cassin Ledge with a sweeping view of Kahiltna Peaks and the entire NE Fork.

-June 4: Climbed the 5.8 crux, Cowboy Arete, and Hanging Glacier, camping at the Hanging Glacier Bergschrund at the Base of the First Rock Band

-June 5: Woke up to Colin Haley strolling by our bivy site on his 8hr7min speed ascent of the Cassin Ridge (he approached via the East Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier).  This was a total surprise and very inspiring see him up there!  We climbed the First Rock Band that day and bivied between the First and Second Rock Band just next to the rib.

-June 6: Climbed the Second Rock Band and found the crux to be the sustained "Hidden Rock Couloir" at the entrance, which is sustained mixed 70-80deg for about 50m.  At the end of the Second Rock Band, a Chilean Team of 2, plus Colin Haley, plus our team of 2 all took the wrong (harder) exit.  From the overhanging triangle, we all traversed right about 40ft then went straight up, finding difficulties to M4-M5.  We should have traversed right another 40ft or so to find the 5.6 slab pitches and the 5.6 dihedral as described in Super Topo.  This ended the technical difficulties of the route.  That night, we bivied at Mark Westman’s “excellent bivy site” at 17,700ft.  This turned out to be very hard to find and we spent several hours looking around for it.  It is way further up and right on the col than expected.

-June 7: Lots of snow!  So we decided to sleep all day, acclimatize and waiting out the weather.

-June 8: So much snow accumulated on the upper mountain the previous day that it took us over 12 hours to ascend the final 2,500ft to Kahiltna Horn.  We were knee to waist deep almost the entire day.  Mark Westman told us later that he was watching us all day through the high-powered scope from Kahiltna Base Camp and he could see the long trench we left in our wake.  Presumably, many day-tourists at Base Camp watched us in our embarrassing slog to the top.  This was by far the hardest day of the trip!  When we reached Kahiltna Horn at 10:30PM, we had no energy to go to the summit, so we slept on the “Football Field” at 20,000ft.  The night was beautiful, calm, and cold!

-June 9: Went back up to tag the summit, then descended 12,500ft to Camp 1.

-June 10: Got to Kahiltna Base Camp from Camp 1 at 10:00AM but it was overcast all day so TAT could not come and pick us up.

-June 11: TAT finally picked us up around noon, after we endured the most miserable and wettest night of the entire trip!

Left to Right: Sultana (Mount Foraker), Begguyya (Mount Hunter), Denali

Denali, the High One

Heading into the NE Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier (the "Valley of Death"), the West Rib visible up the center of the peak

The West Rib in the Center, The Cassin Ridge roughly up the right skyline

Closer up view of the Cassin Ridge.  The Japanese Couloir is the gash on the right.  The Cowboy Arete (Knifedge Ridge) is above, followed by the First and Second Rock Bands

Looking back at the West Rib and the Chicken Couloir

Looking up the Japanese Couloir and the bergschrund at the base of the Cassin Ridge

Looking back at the NE Fork

Looking up at the crux of the Japanese Couloir (AI4)

The Cassin Ledge.  Razor thin, great views fo the whole NE Fork, Kahiltna Peaks, and Sultana!

The 5.8 Crux just off the Cassin Ledge

The Cowboy Arete

The Base of the Hanging Glacier, the Cowboy Arete behind

A short overhanging step to get over the bergshrund

Colin Haley approaches!

The crux of the First Rock Band, just above the M-rocks

Somewhere near the top of the First Rock Band

The South Face!

Looking up at the "Hidden Rock Couloir", the beginning of the Second Rock Band, and the crux of the route, in my opinion

Just below the V-shaped overhang in the Second Rock Band

Slog to the top

Denali Summit Ridge

Summit Marker

The Football Field on the West Buttress Route and our bivouac

Heading down the Autobahn, 17k camp below on the West Buttress

The Cowboy Arete

Base Camp with Moonflower Buttress behind (North Buttress of Begguyya, Mount Hunter)

Gear Notes:
-6 screws (1x21cm, 2x17cm, 3x13cm)

-40m rope

-Small Rack of nuts

-5 cams (.3-1)

-2 pickets (didn’t use on route; just for glacier travel)

-5 single alpine draws, 2 double alpine draws (no cordalette)

-2 ice tools each (Nomics for him, X-Dream for her)

-Monopoint crampons

-Boots: Olympus Mons for him, G2SM+overboots for her

-MSR AdvancePro2 Tent

-Feathered Friends Spoonbill Sleeping Bag

-2x Thermarest NeoAir Xtherm + 1x shorty closed cell foam pad (for emergency)

-MSR Reactor + hanging kit + 3 medium cans of isopro

Approach Notes:
Approached via the NE Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier

1. Will things like salami and hard cheeses  last?

2. Will bread, bagels, tortillas last/survive?

3. What is everyones favorite mountain meals and snacks!

We have a dehydrator and will be making some of our own foods and some things they will purchase upon arrival.  We have read that having a cup of soup or broth every day can be a good way to stay hydrated and get some nutrients. Yes or no? Any other tips would be great!!! Thank you!

I also posted this in the gear topic section too.

Thanks.

What is everyone's go-to snack food / carb while on the mountain. I know that everyone says eat what you like to eat in hopes that you will since your appetite seems to go away while you are at altitude.

Typically mine have always been Snickers, Paydays, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids and beef jerky. These seem to work for shorter trips but I'm trying to come up with additional ideas that might have more staying power. More complex carbs and less sugar to avoid hitting the wall and bonking.

Thoughts?

Thanks as always.

My feet tend to run warm usually and I will wear a pair of poly liner socks along with a single layer of Smartwool Mountaineering wool socks. I also have a pair of Baruntse boots that did just fine on Mt Rainier this past March (2016) on a Denali Prep and also on The Presi Traverse & Mt Washington in February 2015.

I am going with a guided group and they have told me whatever my feet are comfortable in but the Olympus Mons maybe not be needed, but I know that Denali is a whole different animal than the lower 48. What I do like about them however is they have a built-in overboot and gaiter which would be two less things to carry and pack. If I do use my Baruntse boots I am looking into a pair of Forty Below Purple Haze overboots for the really cold days and summit day.

I currently own both pair (that fit correctly) thanks to a couple of GREAT ebay finds. My Olympus Mons weight 6#7oz (size 44) and the Baruntse boots weight 6# even (size 43).

What is everyone's opinion?

Thanks again.

What is everyone's experience with them?

How is the battery life?

I know storage depends on quality.

I am looking to charge the batteries via a Goal Zero.

Any advice?

Thanks.