Category: AK

© 1994 May 24, Summit Day Departing the all–too–familiar fester dome at 12:30 p.m. we were stalled by howling winds and an upper peak lenticular. Three hours later we loaded up and set off in calm winds with the lightest packs we’d carried. Cramponing up the final 2900 feet unroped on firm saastrugi was a …

Keep making backcountry turns

© 1994 1994, May 17, Day V on the Wall One more perfect day followed before a cloud bank appeared and we narrowly escaped a whiteout on the descent from 14,500′ to the serac camp at 11,000′. Skins worked well on the ascent to 12,800′, where the Canadian Route becomes a knife–edge ridge dropping away …

Keep making backcountry turns

© 1994   1994: May 11, Day VII of the approach In clear weather we skinned across the Peters Glacier, trying to focus on the views rather than contemplate its hidden dangers. With only two of us on this checkerboard of crevasses we were nervous, the saga of Jim Wickwire and Chris Kerebrock always at …

Keep making backcountry turns

  1994: May 4-5, The adventure begins… A storm kept our photographer Bill Stevenson, John, and I from departing on May fourth, but we hit a good send-off party with halibut, moose, and beer instead. We finalized gear the next morning, and taxied across the runway in John’s sleek white ’76 Caddy. Motivation was high. …

Keep making backcountry turns

A slide now, while skiing in the center of the upper face, would carry me over 10,000-feet over cliffs and icefalls to a frozen, broken death. But we were confident in the results of our snow stability tests and I was having the run of my life, the culmination of every moment I’ve ever spent in the mountains. The higher power, grinning from ear-to-ear, had given us the nod. We got away with it!