I am trying to get better at dealing with the bloggo-sphere! Facebook is the lazy mans blog and I think I have even been slackin on that so here we go!
Had an awesome albeit unproductive trip in March around the Juneau area. Some friends and I put up some monsters. http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web12w/newswire-ak-ice
March I linked up with my good friend Tyler Gress in Red Rocks. Tyler had a negative experience in Red Rocks on his last trip and I wanted to show him that it is, in fact, badass and totally wild. We kicked things off on the Brownstone Wall climbing a fun .10c I can't remember the name of but it was super fun. Next day we headed to the Black Velvet Canyon to climb "Fiddler on the Roof." I think it is like .10d, but again super fun and exposed! By far the best climb on that wall in my opinion.
We decided to go for a hike up to the Cactus Flower Tower and have a whack at the Warrior. Well somebody beat us to the punch and they were having and "enjoyable climb." Opting out of the epic we dropped our packs and came back the next day only to get slaughtered. That climb is awesome! Wrecked as we were we decided to take a rest day.
Adventure Punks! If you haven't done it go and do it! Seriously! It is so good. If getting on that climb wasn't enough Bon Iver was playing at the Hard Rock. Again, HUGE surprise. Before this show I may have listened to Bon Iver if I wanted to fall asleep at a party at the Playboy mansion. They came on stage with a 9 person band and rocked the house! Top 10 days of my life! Did I mention Taco Bell drive through taco fest?
Fast forward to May and Clint Helander and my blind date off the couch attempt on the North buttress of Mt. Hunter. Some heavy drinking led to some festering in a tent waiting for weather... wondering what the hell I was doing wearing Baturas on the Moonflower. Someone had just bailed because their "brash" partner wore Baturas and got frostbite. Well my feet were toasty the whole time! (that they were in Baturas).
The weather broke and with 2 other parties getting on the wall and our slow, fat and hopefully successful climbing style we opted for the 8am start. Better to sleep when it is cold and climb when it is sunny and awesome! As always in the Alaska Range we found the Bibler/Klewin to be better than advertised. We were right on schedule. The only hiccup of the day was a core shot rope we suffered on the Prow...
My friend Justin was on the Wall of Shadows with his buddy Kyle when his crampon broke. We learned this just as we finished Tamaras Traverse and were a few easy pitches to our bivy. 20ft from the belay Clint's crampon broke behind his secondary points... so much for the North buttess. We rapped through the night getting to our packs sufficiently pooped, frustrated, and I had a pair of rock hard frozen ski boots to force my feet into. My feet were totaled. We gave it one more half hearted attempt and heade back to Talkeetna for a 36 hour bender of legendary proportions.
We will return next year conditioned, hungry, and familiar. It is one month until I head out to Kyrgyzstan with my brother from another mother Sam. The psych is high!
Clint in the Twin Runnels lovin life!
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