Sunday, May 17, 2009

Valdez - A dream come true

After a great trip to Alps, I flew to Anchorage, AK with Adam. Both he and I respectively had AMGA exams and advanced courses to take(www.amga.com) My friend Angela Hawse had been waiting for me there for a few days because I had had to postpone my flight there due to some health issues (see Les Droites entry).

Yet, as soon as I got there, we drove 6hours from Anchorage to Valdez - the world's heliski mecca - to start checking out the terrain we were going to be examined on. And this is what we found...




Long story short (will let the pictures speak for themselves), this course made my dreams of becoming an aspirant guide a reality. After taking the advanced alpine and rock this past fall and the level III AIARE course in March, this was the missing piece to the puzzle. This has been a very dear dream of mine. I have had to fight for this dream and believe in it in ways I had never before had to. It's been the most amazing journey, one filled with hope, happiness, sadness, deep grief and sorrow, challenges, learning experiences, amazing travels, and mostly amazing people. I am greatful for it ALL. I am greatful for having believed and for people who believed in me.

I am now so excited for the journey ahead. I am still a ways away from getting the full certification but for now, I am just happy to be where I'm at...


Berlin Wall



While training, we got baseline information regarding the snowpack. The black line is the ash layer from when Mount Redoubt erupted late March. Impressive. This layer however made for really poor skiing, when, a few days later, it came to the surface on southerly aspects.



The Worthington Glacier



Eric Larsen building a sled, training for our sled lower drill



Skiing through seracs on the so called 27mile glacier



Getting a ride back to the car on a Harley... in Alaska, the law is that the passenger needs to wear a helmet, but not the driver of the bike... no comment!

Skiing down the mighty Cherry Couloir on Python Peak.... holy steepness!



The Cherry Couloir on Python Peak



Our instructor, Howie Schwartz making radio contact on the Worthington Glacier



Crevasse rescue training



Time to fly... we flew into a remote area of the range for a three day traverse with all our camping and skiing gear on our backs



Where we were dropped off



Beautiful ridge climb



Camping on day 1 of the traverse with Angela Hawse on a nice and flat rock



Inside the tent



The neverending Tonsina Glacier... miles and miles of flat... gotta love that...



Forest and I getting our evening debrief on day 2 of the traverse and day 1 of our exams. We are hiding from the blistering sun in the tent



Our camp below Hoodoo Col



View on Girls Mountain and the Hoodoo Glacier... gorgeous. last day of the three day traverse



Climbing up to Girls Mountain



Communicating bears

Friday, May 15, 2009

Les Droites - La Ginat

It's Sunday morning, and my flight back to Salt Lake City, and then on to Alaska leaves Tuesday. The weather is looking awesome. Conditions are great all over the Alps. Big north faces are fat. I feels like I don't have much time to spare to actually go climb any north face, much less the north face of the Droites.

The north face of the Droites, located on the Argentiere Basin in Chamonix, France, is a 1000m long ice and mixed route that tops out at a notch right below this 4001meter peak. It's described as very austere and cold and requiring outstanding training. Growing up in the Alps and having climbed the classic great north faces -Eiger, Matterhorn, Grandes Jorasses, Piz Badile - the Droites was really the last one I was looking forward to climbing. I was however not alone with this desire.


We arrived at the top of the Grands Montets cable car to find 20 other climbers ready to spend the night on the drafty hallways' cold damp concrete floor. He looked at other people's gear, tried to catch parts of their conversations to figure out where each one was going. Word on the mountain was that a lot of people were camping at the base of the Ginat to get a head start and 8 of us from the cable car were going on the Ginat. We decided on a 2am start.

With our skinny short heavy skis, we tried to ski in the dark with our mountain climbing boot, but conditions on the traverse to the base were pretty icy and walking seemed like a faster solution.
Already, we were regretting having brought them along with us. Nearing the base, we saw that three parties were already on the wall and more parties were coming up from the glacier and from the cable car. Although this is an ice climb - 1000m of it - no one thought twice about the ice climbing rule: never climb below another another party for fear of getting hammered by ice.

all went along, trying to be courteous with each other, climbing over each others ropes, clipping into each other's gear. The real Chamonix experience...


the face suddenly no longer felt cold or austere for that matter. We simul-climbed most of the way to the head wall and pitched out the upper section to the notch. Conditions on the mountain were outstanding. The climb had been done so much that it was all hooked out and the ice wasn't so brittle, which helped with moving faster.

Once at the notch, we did 10-15 rappels down the couloir to the glacier below. This is when the crux of the climb really started. We strapped our little skinny skis on and started down the 2500m left to Chamonix. The snow however was isothermic with a slight refreeze on top (which didn't hold our weight), which made turning impossible. So, we resorted to doing super long traverses with kickturns at each end. Brutal. We must have done over a thousand of them! or so it felt. We laughed and cried the whole way. I was desperately hoping that once we'd hit the Mer de Glace, things would get smoother.

But no! we hit refrozen deep ski tracks, which made even snowplowing impossible. I push on, while Adam opted for walking, skis in hand and we were going just as fast the one as the other! Grrrr. As we kept going, the snow softened a bit. It was almost enjoyable. When suddenly, Adam decided to cross what he thought was ice, but really was a deep puddle of water! I mean, could anything go worse! A week earlier, we had skied down all the way to Chamonix and as we reached the "Buvette" to start going down the trail to Chamonix, we realized it had all melted out! Haaaaahaaaa! With endless frustration, we put our skis on our packs for the last time, switched our brain on off to stop feeling the pain, and sucked it up, walking all the way down to Chamonix.




We arrived in the late hours of the night/ wee hour of the morning and went straight to bed. A few hours of sleep and I had to get up to pack and catch my flight from Geneva. This was ending a crazy month for me: flying back from Nepal after the Khumbu Climbing School, taking the Level III AIARE course in Silverton, CO, driving back to SLC, down to Vegas for the Red Rocks Rdv (teaching clinics during the day and doing a legal translation at night), dribing to SLC, flying to Switzerland and visiting people/skiing as much as possible. I was on such a go-go-go mode that I failed to see the extreme fatigue symptoms. They all came crashing down on me that last day. The day of my flight. By noon, I could no longer stand up and was suffering from intense pain in my stomach. The doctor diagnosed me with gallbladder issues. As a result, my had to cancel both my flight to SLC and further on to Alaska.

I got to do all the things I love and wanted to do, but sometimes, slowing down is the only way to keep going. With these issues, I was forced to rest and be in bed for the first time in ages. it felt really good and made me ready to deal with what was coming up: my AMGA advanced ski course in Valdez, Alaska.... to be followed on my next blog!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Khumbu Climbing School













To read about our experience with the Khumbu Climbing School, please check Part I of III of the story on the new Petzl North America Website: http://petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2009/04/23/khumbu-climbing-school