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Into the Whites.
After 6 months of waiting, I finally cleared the wait list and was entered into the White Mountains 100 race that starts THIS Sunday. I’ve been in a glass case of emotion this week with the ups and downs. “I’m getting in. I’m not getting in. I’m getting in.” I’ve trained all winter for this and hope the course proves to be as fun and beautiful as I remember it to be.
I should finish sometime Monday morning. See you on the other side…
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One thing that I have been able to do a lot this winter is ride my bike. If last year was the season to ski, this year is the season to bike. We haven’t had a ton of snow, the temperatures have been decent, and there are so many fat-bikers in South Central Alaska now that the trails are constantly getting packed down.
I’ve logged over a thousand miles on a fat bike this winter. I’m currently sitting at number 9 on the wait list for the White Mountain 100 race which starts March 24th. I did this race in 2010 and it took 34 hours. If I get in, I think I can cut off a significant amount of time, as I was pretty much just touring it last time.
Crossing my fingers that several people will drop out last minute!
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Lately I have been reading other adventure blogs and realized how much I missed sharing our adventures.
This winter Brian was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Needless to say our adventuring has been put on hold for a little while. He’ll be done with chemo at the end of April, just in time to start playing in the mountains again this summer.
I’ve been thinking back to our epic winter-of-powder last year. Here’s a little video to whet your Alaska appetite. This one was not hard work. Pure fun.
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And now for our next adventure… we got married!
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Craig’s new skis (Taken with instagram)
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Taken with instagram
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Lake Clark Traverse, Part II
We got pounded with snow and wind for 15 hours in the tent. I was surprised to wake up the next morning to find our little three season tent still standing. I wouldn’t call it “nice” out the next day, but the wind and snow had stopped and that was good enough for us.
We packed up quickly and headed across the next valley. We were anxious to get down to Twin Lakes where we were getting picked up the following day. We had slept at 5200 feet and the lake was at around 2500, so we figured the weather would be a lot better down there.
Our first glimpse of the Lower Twin Lake…
We got down to the final slope and finally saw the sun. But then we saw the nasty bushwhack that came between us and the lake. This is a beautiful area and we would love to come back here and explore around the other side of the lake.
Resting before the bushwhack…
We go through the worst part of the bushwhack and came out into the sun. We decided to rest and take a lunch break now that we were out of the bad weather. The mosquitoes found us within two minutes of us stopping…
We traversed along the lake as long as our legs would take us and found a good place to camp. This was one of our prettiest campsites of the summer. We didn’t spend too much time outside, though, the mosquitoes were thick!
The next day we had a few minutes of peace before the bugs found us…
After hours and hours of traversing along the lake we finally made it to our pickup spot!
Our ride out…
The pilot asked if we were in a hurry to get back to Anchorage, and if not, if we didn’t mind stopping at the other end of the lake to visit the Park Rangers, who were his friends. We said that was fine, of course. We took off from one end of the lake and were back at the other end within minutes. It was crazy to see all of that land that we traversed on foot go by in just minutes.
We stopped at the Park Ranger cabin and chatted with them about our adventures and got some good info on places to explore the next time we are in the area.
About an hour later, we took off back for Anchorage…
Flight home…
The plane face!
A cool river near Lake Clark Pass…
We flew by some awesome glaciers…
Two hours later, we arrived back in Anchorage at Lake Hood…
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Turquoise Lake to Twin Lake Traverse, Lake Clark National Park
Early August we flew to Lake Clark National Park to do a traverse. We got dropped off on Turquoise Lake.
We hiked up onto the ridge above Turquoise Lake to camp. The plan was to stay there and explore for two nights and then continue on towards Twin Lakes.
Napping above Turquoise Lake…
The next day we explored a ridge line above our camp. It snowed off an on all day. It was August 5th.
Because the wind was blowing hard off and on, we had to keep moving the tent that night. The final resting place for the tent was in this hole. It was the only protection from the wind that we could find. Later along the way, we would see a hole in the ground and say, “Hey, that looks like a good camping hole.”
Near our first camp…
The next day we packed up and headed over the first pass. We got blasted with wind in our face as soon as we came over the pass. You can see our route in this photo. We headed up the valley to the right of the patch of the snow and up over the low point on the ridge line to the right. The wind was so strong that it knocked us both down at times.
Arriving over the next we thought we might get a break from the wind, but instead we could see a band of snow blowing sideways down the next valley. Good times!
The view from the second pass…
We fought our way down into the next valley and up into a cool gorge where we had to maneuver around boulders. The gorge narrowed considerably and I wondered it we were going to be able to find a way out. Soon we came up on an almost vertical wall of snow and a very steep scree field. We decided the scree slope was less steep and clawed our way up it in the wind and snow.
The scree field from the top…
Over the top of the last pass for the day the wind now pushed us from behind. This was a cool area, but we really didn’t get to enjoy it much. We quickly setup our tent, made dinner during a half hour weather break, and then into the tent to wait out the storm for another 15 hours.
More to come!
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Waterfall Creek and Alpine Creek, Denali Highway
The Denali Highway is different than the park in many ways. There are not as many rules. I’m not sure there are any rules. You can drive, camp, build a fire, ride an ATV, hunt and fish anywhere. I love that Denali National Park does all the work it does to protect the land from people. It is so necessary. We definitely need to work to protect this planet from ourselves.
But sometimes it’s annoying to have to follow all of the rules, ride the bus, get a permit for this, and a permit for that, watch a video and listen to people lecture you on Leave No Trace principles. Yeah, I got it.
So for that there is the Denali Highway. Outside of Denali National Park, but still in a very beautiful and scenic area of Alaska, and surprisingly not trashed. The visitors here are a little more rough than the ones you see in the park, a lot more Alaskan, and a whole lot cooler (except for the ones who crap on the side of the road and leave toilet paper, or the ones who bring their ten person family filled RV into a full campground in the middle of the night and proceed to feed their kids marshmallows and let them run all over the campground until 2 am).
After leaving the park Brian and I took some well needed showers near the park entrance and headed east across the state on the Denali Highway.
Brian has a knack for finding really cool places, just by looking at a map. He had this route mapped out up Waterfall Creek, and it did not disappoint.
You don’t have to go in very far for this hike and there are two cool lakes as a reward near the end.
Wildflower meadow.
We decided to head up to the pass behind Waterfall Creek and the intent was to descend down to Alpine Creek and head back out to the road that way. But looking down into the next valley, it was raining and really steep to get down to. So we decided to head back the way we came. On a nice day though, this would be a very cool traverse.
We started the hike about 10 miles east of the Susitna River bridge, and just past the lodge at Alpine Creek. A map of our route below…
