ivan Posted January 5, 2004 Posted January 5, 2004 thinking about doing an expedition here sometime (probably late june to end of july). looking for anyone who might have climbed in the range and have some info on (i've read the beta in the wood/coombs guide): 1. conditions round that time of the year 2. air-charters 3. anyone walked in? 4. blah, blah...useful tidbits...routes people have done, etc. looks like a cool place...nice & lonely. i'm thinking a shotgun would be a good piece of camping equipment? Quote
crotch Posted January 8, 2004 Posted January 8, 2004 Went there last summer from July 4-27. We saw no bears and carried no guns. Book with Bettles Air. http://www.alaska.net/~bttlodge/ Lance is a great pilot and a good guy. Tell Pete that Yoav sent ya. We're probably heading back this summer for more fun. Hopefully we won't see you there Walking in would be a multi-week suffer-fest and you probably wouldn't get any climbing done. Airdrops are mostly a thing of the past as the park service frowns upo them. Expect > or = 50% of your days spent in the tent due to weather. Clint Cummings maintains a website with a list of the climbing routes, though I don't think he's updated it to include the routes we did last summer (if you want info on those, let me know) http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/arrig/ Quote
ivan Posted January 10, 2004 Author Posted January 10, 2004 excellent stuff...so what did you do last summer? did you use bettles air starting from fairbanks or just from bettles into base? how much you pay? did you see most of the precip as rain? read on the park's page that much of the range only gets 6 inches a year...guess it must all fall at once? shit, seems like there's really no where in alaska you can go to escape shit weather... Quote
crotch Posted January 12, 2004 Posted January 12, 2004 excellent stuff...so what did you do last summer? did you use bettles air starting from fairbanks or just from bettles into base? how much you pay? Bettles air from fairbanks to bettles and from bettles to circle lake. Then from Takahula lake back to bettles. I think the flight to circle lake was about $500 and the same coming back from Takahula, but I didn't keep close track as it all went on the credit card if you know what I mean. I think it was about 250 from fairbanks to bettles and i don't remember if that's roundtrip or not. did you see most of the precip as rain? read on the park's page that much of the range only gets 6 inches a year...guess it must all fall at once? shit, seems like there's really no where in alaska you can go to escape shit weather... Mostly rain, but never really a downpour. lots of days of drizzle and mist that kept the rock wet. we did get about a foot of snow in one system which pinned us down on one side of a pass. It took about 2 days of strong 24-hour sun to clear most of the snow off the rock. Is the 6" figure for the Arrigetch, or an average for the whole park? Quote
ivan Posted January 13, 2004 Author Posted January 13, 2004 i believe its the average for the entire (freakingly huge) range (saw the number on the nps' page) 1000$ roundtrip from beetles? christ, that seems steep...how long is the flight into the lake? did you bring a radio to talk w/ the charter or use a sat phone? Quote
crotch Posted January 13, 2004 Posted January 13, 2004 flight from bettles to circle lake is about 70 miles, takes about an hour, but you're paying for the pilot to fly there and back twice. we didn't bring a radio or satellite phone, just hoped he'd be there to pick us up on the appointed date. Quote
ivan Posted January 13, 2004 Author Posted January 13, 2004 ah, faith in the essential decency of the white man's culture, how refreshing.... Quote
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