We’ve been back to reading books and playing cards for a few more days, just praying for the snow and wind to stop so we can go skiing, What’s that Joel? We might actually be good to go for a bit? With our backs aching from 8 days of digging and snow removal, we crawl out of our tents to blue skies and a completely fresh looking landscape of white. The immediate instinct is to boot up and run out of camp like wild men in search of creamy powder turns, but our training brings us back to reality, realizing that we would only be asking for trouble with avalanche conditions right after the storm. I guess one more day in camp to work on our sun tans will be ok.
Next morning we are up and ready to get some skiing done. Motivation is at an all trip high with all of the pent up energy from the last few days of being tent bound. Everything takes just a bit longer after this much snow. We spend some time digging out our skis, poles and gear and eventually find ourselves ready to go. We start off headed down and across the glacier to a new zone. Which meant we started with our skins in our pack before we got to go uphill.
I suppose if you break all of the skin track from the bottom, you deserve first tracks.
Thats actually it for action photos on the day. We shot quite a bit of video on the day, and hopefully sometime in the near future we can put together an edit for it.
The following morning we wake up to more blue skies and decide to make a long outing out of it. We pack a bit more water and food than normal and set out for our destination for the day.
We really had no idea exactly what we would ski when we got over there, but this was without a doubt the most scenic touring we did for the entire trip. The sun beat down on us all day. Skinning in T-shirts dreaming about ice cream, we slowly made our way up the ridge line.
The higher we get on the ridge the more lines we spot in the distance. There is a life time of skiing on this glacier. If only we could be here forever. Though we might end up missing some real world amenities.
One of the funniest experiences any of us had the entire trip was skiing roped up back down the glacier below our ski line. The glacier had enough pitch to it that gravity would do the work, but was flat enough we opted to stay roped up. We went flying down the glacier like a carriage team at like 35 mph trying not to get clotheslined or whiplashed into the snow. It was hard not to laugh the entire way down.
Back to camp:
After some double bacon cheeseburgers while watching the sun sink behind the mountains we run for all of our clothes as the temperature drops 30 degrees in a matter of minutes. We head to sleep to get ready for another big day of skiing tomorrow. The nights weren’t particularly cold while it was snowing, but they are downright brutal with the clear skies after the storm.
At the bottom of our mini-golf line we headed towards the big face we wake up to every morning and on the way i found this little guy to jump off of.
At the bottom we traversed hard right to make it over to the last run of the day, which was also the first place we skied on the trip.
Back in camp it was cold time, but we still decided to start working on packing up for our pick up in a couple days. This was the last day we all skied together before breaking down camp. Brad and I went out for a short morning effort the following day so that Brad could squeeze in his naked skiing for the trip, but other than that, we felt like this was a pretty good way to end the trip.
A few hours into the day we heard the plane come over but couldn’t see it at first. They came in and landed right in front of our pile of gear. When our pilot hopped out it was rather interesting to see another human after being out for almost a month with the same 3 dudes. Through some miraculous packing, we managed to get all of our gear, and all four of us into the beaver and it even took off! Coasting down the runway we had mixed feelings about whether we were ready to go. I think the consensus was yes, but only for a short break. We would all like to go back. And i wouldn’t be surprised if we did. But you never know what sorts of opportunities the future holds, but hopefully the Hayes Glacier falls somewhere in that future.
After spending about a weeks worth of time in Anchorage, I can adamantly say that I’ll be good for a while on the “Alaskan City Life,” send me back out to the BC as soon as possible.
Til next time Alaska!
pioletski December 20, 2012
Nice, nice, nice!
Mark Koelker February 5, 2013
Looks like a fantastic trip! Dreaming of my chance to get on the glaciers in AK!!!