A few days before I was to leave Leadville, I said goodbye to the best friend I've ever known: Sirius. We spent just shy of 11 years together. He was always there for me, and nearly always super happy to see me (he could be spiteful, though it took a lot to push him that far, I managed on several occasions, and deserved every bit of the attitude he mustered during those times). I have a plethora of incredible memories, and will cherish them. It was with a heavy heart I said goodbye, and it still weighs on me. Fortunately this sadness is quickly chased away by the memories of all the good times we shared.
having said goodbye, I set to work finishing up the remodeling project and packing my things. The last 3 nights were pretty lonely without the clicking of his nails as he wandered from one room to the next, and I was all to happy to leave early Saturday morning. I was off to san diego for a week of work, then to Juneau for another edition of Geoff's camp, after which I would settle in to Juneau for the next year.
on the ferry ride into Juneau, I received a text from Geoff inviting me to dinner, unfortunately the ferry wouldn't arrive in time to join them for dinner. Geoff and Corle were kind enough to share some left overs when I arrived at the mendenhall campgrounds. We chatted for a bit before retiring to the tents.
Day 0
The next morning Geoff and I picked up Amie at the airport, she spent the previous night in the mediation room at the seattle airport, apparently a popular place, and for good reason. We then went and picked up Jim (he had been at Geoff's camp a week earlier, and decided to stay for another edition).
Jen and Kevin would arrive a bit later in the day, after which we grabbed a quick lunch and headed over to the mendenhall glacier in search of the ice caves. It was a great start to camp, some fun explorations: clambering around the glacier and exploring a couple ice caves we were fortunate enough to find:
Melanie (she was at Geoff's camp in august of 2013 with Jen and myself) was scheduled to arrive a little after 9pm that evening. Between the ice caves and Melanie's arrival, the rest of us hung out at camp chatting about the coming adventures, and the ice caves.
Day 1
When I woke the following morning, I was pleased to find Amie up as well. we made a small fire and enjoyed the stillness of the early hours before the others began to stir.
When the rest of the group had emerged from the tents, we started laying out the requisite supplies for our planned 4 days and 3 nights in the mountains. divvying up the food and shared items and cramming everything into our packs. The merits of external pockets and stretchable material was quickly noted, and very appreciated by all fortunate enough to have a pack so equipped. Everyone's pack was thoroughly stuffed.
We loaded up our packs and headed to the breeze in for one last lunch (the best burrito in town). Juneau is a bit peculiar, the breeze in (a gas station) has the best burrito in town, the hardware store has camping supplies, and I'm sure there are a number of other oddities i'll discover over the next 12 months. Burritos in hand we headed over to a park for our parting lunch.
After lunch we headed to the basin road trailhead for Roberts, and Amie, Corle, Jim, Kevin, and Melanie started up. Geoff and I were to shuttle my truck around to the blackerby ridge trailhead where we were scheduled to drop down in 4 days.
We started the hike up Roberts, hoping to catch up with the group by goldridge. it became evident that our fast packing wasn't very fast with the amount of weight we were carrying, especially on the climbs. We took solace in the fact that with each meal and passing day our packs would grow lighter, and we would have the good fortune of being able to send any unneeded supplies down with Corle tomorrow.
Just as we were getting up to goldridge, Geoff and I caught up with Jen. Everybody was settled in for a bit of a snack and taking in the views:
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| Melanie, Jim, Geoff, Amie, and Jen |
We clambered along the ridge, over Robert's, Gastineau, Sheep, and Clark, regrouping periodically to eat, and revisit what happened over the previous segment. Apparently Kevin had a bid of an undoin when he went down during one of the glissades, sending most of his pack contents across the snowfield, the thermarest borrowed from Geoff would spend the next 5 or 6 nights somewhere between sheep and clark's before being rescued by one of the locals.
After descending off sheep, it was becoming obvious the miles were wearing on people, Geoff started to push the pace a little bit, anxious to find a suitable camp site (one large enough to accommodate 4 mountain hardware supermegaUL 2 (quite a nice little tent, though as tent's go, it's the only one I've used in the last 20 years, and the only one I've backpacked with).
We found a suitable spot on the backside overlooking a river some distance below. It was starting to rain lightly. A quick meal and a short bit of revisiting the days events and we were off to bed. I had the privilege of sharing a tent with Amie (a super cool and very adventurous lass living in Minnesota) Us being tent mates would turn out to be very fitting as we are both early to wake and quick to get moving on the day.
Day 2
Both Amie and I were up pretty early the first morning, and gathered some water and got started on breakfast. As the first pot of water was coming to a boil (or at least as close an approximation thereof we would see for much of the trip), I knocked it over spilling most of the contents. bummer, we started another pot, and before long were eating some re-hydrated eggs and enjoying warm liquieds.
After a little while others began emerging, and we continued cooking. Amie too knocked over one of the near boiling pots, only she somehow managed to spill virtually none of the water. I attribute this to her being a more experienced camper than I. Shortly after finishing breakfast, we broke camp, and made our way towards olds, one of the two big ascents we would do on the day (observation to come later on)
We made good time over olds, encountering 1 pretty interesting section that required a little creative route making on our part. Made especially adventurous by the fact that each of us had some 20 pounds or so of gear on our backs. After summiting Olds and enjoying a fun buit of glissading we ran into Bryan and his buddy coming up to Observation. Geoff and Bryan discussed the approach to observation, and how western states was unfolding before we continued on and began ascending.
The clouds were coming up pretty quickly, and about 300' below the summit we were enveloped. They would pass as we approached the summit, and provide some incredible views, as well as a good chance for Geoff to check on western states, Kevin to check on the world cup, and a group photo:
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| myself, Jen, Melanie, Amie, Geoff, Jim, Kevin atop Observation |
After another fun little glissade and crossing of the snowfield between observation and camp 17, we followed the ridge up to vesper peak and set up camp. This was to be our home for the next 2 nights, allowing for a fun little excursion the following day with only what you needed for a 6 hour outing.We setup camp, while Melanie, Jen, and Jim backtracked to restock our water levels. After taking stock of the fuel and our remaining meals it was decided the lavish behavior of last nights dinner and this mornings breakfast was not going to work, we were on fuel rations in order to have warm meals the remainder of the trip. Amie proved to be very diligent with her fuel allowances, ensuring we had enough the final morning for a luxurious round of warm breakfast and multiple servings of semi hot liquids. Though there was a bit of grumbling about the stinginess early on.
Day 3
Today was to be our day with minimal gear, just what you needed to enjoy 5 - 6 hours out in the mountains. again, Amie, and I were up early, and began preparing breakfast, Geoff and Jim followed by Kevin, and in time Jen and Melanie joined us for morning rations - tepid oatmeal, and a few lucky ones got tepid drinks too.
No amount of pleading would get you additional fuel cubes. If you are going to be in a life or death situation with limited supplies, Amie is the person you want in charge of distributing stuff. Where I am perfectly willing and all to happy to give you what you ask for, there are consequences, you are an adult, if you want to use 2 of your 3 remaining fuel cubes tonight, and only have 1 left for the last 2 days, go for it. Amie on the other hand will not budge, if it's over the allotted amount, you cannot have it. wait for the next round of distributions.
we all had some good laughs about this, especially on the final morning when the hot liquids were flowing freely:)
enough of that, today we were off for nugget peak, a fun little day outing. we started with a fun little descent and proceeded to cross lemon creek glacier??? climb up to a ridge which we followed briefly before side hilling around and over some more snowfields overlooking the Juneau ice fields and former home to some dog sledding outfits.
There was a good bit of cloud cover which forced Geoff to navigate using some top maps on his iPhone (making for an interesting excursion). at the base of the climb up to nugget peak, we regrouped, discussed our options, and chose to stay with the exposed rock as long as we could comfortably walk up it. several hundred feet from the peak, to our left dropped off precipitously, and our current route promised for a steep ascent in pretty limited visibility, so we opted to skirt around to the right and try our approach from that direction.
we trudged through snow for a good bit, climbing up and skirting around for a better approach. within about 100 vertical feet of the summit, things proceeded to get steep, and a bit more precarious. As we were wrapping around and pressing up, I looked off to our right and saw the edge of snow, to our left was a steep section that funneled down and leveled out pretty quickly. with each step, I was starting to push mini snow slides down to our left. Geoff paused, and I asked what was to our right. he pulled out his iPhone and scrolled around briefly before replying about 1000' drop.
sold, I was quite ok being within 50 ish vertical feet of the summit and calling it good, I voted to turn around, though I was happy to wait for Geoff to summit and come back down if that was his wish. He chuckled a bit and said it was a bit more sketchy as it continued up, so was going to save the summit for another day. We all turned around and began back tracking. Enjoying the lightness there was a good bit of running going on.
On the return trip we opted to descent down and climb up lemon creek glacier, avoiding the sidehill. On the way down to the glacier, Jim took a good tumble, scraping his knee and hand pretty good and landing on his chin/jaw. after a quick cleaning and bandaging of his hand we were on our way again. The trek up the glacier passed quickly, and before long we were heading back across lemon glacier towards vesper peak.
After a long and tired climb up, we were back at camp with the promise of luke warm dehydrated meals, Melanie and I set off to fill our water supplies. again we had dinner and enjoyed recounting the days events before heading off to sleep.
it rained pretty well through the night, making for a very chilly and restless sleep.
Day 4
We woke to more rain, and the promise of real food for lunch. Again, Amie and I were up and had our breakfast before the rest of camp began to stir. we prepared breakfast and enjoyed our final warm meal and liquids. thanks to Amie's steadfastness there was plenty of warm liquid to go around, 3 and even 4 rounds of warm drinks for those interested, and all the re-hydrated scrambled eggs any of us cared for and more.
we wrapped up breakfast and broke down camp. It was chilly, largely due to the cloud cover and drizzle that was coming down. after the last of the tents was packed up, and the final bits of remaining food and fuel (yes we had 1 fuel cube to spare, Kudos to Amie for exceeding expectations, though in reality, i'm not sure anybody would have been too disappointed if there were only enough fuel cubes to heat up 1 pot of water for warm drinks on the final morning:)
we headed down, through camp 17, over cairns peak and along blackerby ridge. Things got a bit strung out as the past 4 days were wearing more heavily on some than others. Everybody was in good spirits, we just proceeded at varying paces on the descent.
Upon reaching the final meadow before the descent got really technical and steep, Geoff spoke with Corle, and agreed to meet her at the bottom of blackerby in 20 minutes to be shuttled off to get his car. Geoff took off, and the rest of us proceeded to follow as fast as our technical abilities (or rather lack there-of on such terrain) would allow. The last of us popped out at the trailhead as Geoff was pulling up.
Each of us stripped out of the clothes we'd been traveling in for the better part of 4 days, and piled them in a trash bag, donning new "clean" clothes for our trip to the Laundromat and the sandpiper for a hot meal.
we gathered at the sandpiper, sat down, picked out our orders, and recounted the past 4 days. Chatting until the food arrived, at which time, it grew quite other than the sound of utensils against plates, and that o so faint sound of one (or 8) thoroughly enjoying their meal.
I'll save the remaining adventures for my next post. and will leave you with some pictures from the first 2 days of our fastpack adventure:
My Photos
Photos from Melanie
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