Birds!

The gold crowned sparrows visited us for several weeks again this year. Here is one "smoking" a sunflower seed.

A visitor from Wisconsin, Gordy, and I talked a few weeks before about how neither of us had ever captured a decent photo of a snipe. It wasn't long after that when Christina opened an upstairs window and spotted this one sitting on the ground below. She was kind enough to take a picture of it for me.

Christina makes her way down the Rainbow Falls Trail on a walk one afternoon. Why does this photo get lumped together with the birds? Well, we were listening to the winter wrens.

Streams in Southeast

I've walked and biked by this stream many times and thought that there were probably good photo opportunities if I was willing to climb down and get them. It took a little while but I finally made my way safely into the creek bottom.

Here's the result of the set-up above.

Just upstream there was a small rapids, pool and eddy.

Rainbow falls was at a high flow this particular day.

Ski Trip to Wrangell - St. Elias National Park

Nate was kind enough to invite me along on a trip to one of the most renound areas for backcountry skiing in the world. Wrangell - St. Elias National Park. I couldn't refuse the offer and joined him for 10 days.

Views from Alaska Airlines flight 65.

Getting There

We were under a deck of clouds that kept getting lower and subsequently weren't able to see the spectacular mountains on the way in.

We were able to see the Chitna River without a problem as we flew up the valley. This is just upstream from the lodge.

Nate's friend Jay poses in his room with a substantial amount of their ice climbing gear. After I left they used almost all of this on a big climb.

Skiing in Paradise

We stepped out of the plane onto some great powder. I couldn't help but smile as I realized that there was no brush to fight. Just snow and more snow. I had dreamed about coming to this area for quite some time and it was quite a rush to have it come to pass.

Nate's skis stand up for just a moment as Paul prepares to take off.

Nate leads the way towards The Monk, the snow covered hill in the distance.

Making tracks.

Looking back at tracks made. The mountains in the distance are on the other side of the Chitna River.

Nathan and I led the trip to the top. Nate also led the way down. I skied down part of the way but had to stop to let my legs recover and catch my breath. One of the two Swiss guys (Reto Smith and Ruedi Homberger or "Hombi") Reto made his way down after me. I was instantly inspired by his flawless technique as he effortlessly breezed by me down to Nate. Hombi followed and then we all skied down to the valley bottom where we had a lunch time snack. After a cup of tea we put the skins back on the skies and started up several thousand thousand vertical feet for another run down. The more I climbed, the more I was impressed by the two Swiss gentlemen who I figured must be in their late 50's that were able to keep pace with us two young guys. Nate and Hombi started down as Reto and I packed up our climbing skins and prepared to go down the mountain. Before we started down, I complimented Reto on his smooth skiing and excellent technique. He replied with a thick Swiss accent, "Thank you, it is because of my experience, I have been skiing for 64 years. I started skiing when I was three years old." I couldn't believe that a guy almost 70 years old could be doing the things he did. It turns out that Hombi is another year older than he is, and that they have been friends since kindergarten. The following day on our trip to Hell's Kitchen I found out that Reto was a member of the Swiss World Cup Ski Team during his younger years. Experienced was certainly an understatement. During the trip we spent quite a bit of time with Hombi and Reto. It was a pleasure being around such wonderful people.

Ski Tour

We decided to go for a ski tour and explore a little canyon about 3.5 miles down the river and the follow a creek a little over a mile to see the geologic feature. On the way, most of the ice disappeared and we were left with a narrow strip to ski.

Eventually that ice disappeared and we were forced to ski through a jungle of hanging roots while trying to avoid falling into the water. This photo is courtesy of Hombi.

Reto sips his tea during a short break where we took off a layers as the day got warmer.

Photos

Brothers. Photo by Hombi.

Jay flies over our heads as we ski toward our destination. We actually missed the entrance to the creek through no fault of ours. The bank had eroded significantly since the mapmakers were last in this part of the world. The map was off by about a half mile.

Nate lights up his beef stick during a break.

Hombi climbs up a little waterfall. On the return trip we slowly made our way part way down the fall and jumped the rest of the way. Even though Reto was the smallest guy in the group he managed to break through the ice when he landed. When we took our next break, he took off his boots and dumped a significant amount of water out. Brrrr!

Hell's Kitchen

Nate poses with the narrow crumbling-rock canyon known as Hell's Kitchen in the background.

In the midst of the canyon right before we turned around.

As we skied back there were no shortages of spectacular views.

To avoid the brushy crossings we decided to ford a stream. Nate led the way.

Water Skiing

After Hombi made it across it was my turn. I sprinted across the stream in an attempt to avoid getting wet while Nate laughed and Hombi snapped this photo.

Here's Nate at another crossing.

Hombi and Reto give new meaning to waterskiing as they cross this stream with their skis on.

As I approached the lodge I spoted a ptarmigan trying to hide under a little bit of brush.

Back at the Lodge

I liked the stained glass adorning the dining room. The photo was a little blurry, it would have benefited from my tripod.

Santa Clause. Also known as Ruedi Homberger. Quite a fellow.

Ice Climbing

Nate said that we would do some ice climbing while I was in Wrangell-St. Elias NP. I quickly found out that Nate is a talented ice climber. It was to have someone with a lot of experience helping me learn the ropes. As we set out on this three day excursion (only planned on it being two days) we walked into this canyon. This was my first opportunity to view the waterfall we would later climb. I called this the "yellow" falls (220 feet or so) and immediately to the right behind the rock outcrop was the "blue" falls at about 150 feet.

Nate led the way up this pitch and fixed an anchor and rappelled down. I followed suit and here I'm actually on my down but stopped at the request of Hombi for this photo. Thanks Hombi!

Here is Reto scaling the blue falls.

Ice Climbing

Nate watches Reto climb as Hombi belays from the top.

A closer view

Hombi graciously provided this photo from the top of the blue waterfall. That's Nate inserting an ice screw while I belay from below.

There was quite a bit of time between this photo and the photo above. I left my camera down at the bottom before climbing up. This is actually Nate on his way down the yellow waterfall.