Camp!

Matt arrives at the iceberg that we would call home for the next 3 nights.

Matt, Bob (pictured) and eventually Anthony all constructed snow caves that they slept in. I built a little cave just for fun and just in case of a substantial snowfall. I was the hardy soul who withstood the cold nights in a tent. And it was cold (ok, at least for Southeast Alaska). The nights were all clear and the cold air from the surrounding mountains settled in the valley creating an inversion layer.

Bob gives his snow cave an enthusiastic two thumbs up as he checks its size.

Camping Out

I skied away from camp to get a better view of Castle Mountain in the evening light. Instead I ended up getting a better view of the cloud that surrounded Castle Mountain. So I turned my attention to camp. The little runnels that are visible in the foreground are actually part of a huge iceberg that I climbed up for a better vantage point. Just to my right was a 30 to 35 foot drop to lake level. About 1/10 of an iceberg sticks out above the water, right? (true) The camp was situated at lake level next to a much smaller iceberg. This would be our home for the next three nights.

A sign of things to come.

Before the sun hit the tents Bob and I headed toward Shakes glacier while Anthony and Matt went up the Castle Mountain valley to see what they missed earlier. I climbed an iceberg to get this view. Anthony was kind enough to loan his skis and boots to Bob for the trip over to the glacier.

Decked out in glacier gear, Bob makes tracks across the scenic Shakes Glacier.

A Favorite

After wandering about on the glacier looking for a suitable cravase to practice some rescue techniques we ended up going to the face of the glacier that was overhanging nicely. Bob set up the anchor system and tests a portion of it in this photo.


Launching the rope.

At least for now, this is my favorite photo of the trip. Thanks for the pose Bob!

After we both rappeled down we practiced ascending up the rope (Look ma, no crampons!). Even though I wasn't really using my crampons for much of anything while we were messing around on the glacier ice I still managed to break a front point. Oops, guess it is time for another pair.

Ice

Bob.

Quent the ice clown... a distant relative of the ice worm. Photo courtesy of Bob.

The shoes he was filling were so big they wouldn't even fit in the frame.

I sure wish I had the ability to jump up to the top of the glacier like Bob is doing here. It was amazing, good thing I captured the moment.

Another Day's Work

Self portrait. Yikes! I don't know what happened to that exposure, it got dark somehow. Must be those computer gremlins. I should fix it but then I would never get the rest of the trip's photos posted.

Bob muscles his way up over the snowbank. Getting over the snowbank was the toughest part of ascending. The snow would get in the face, down the jacket, and make it really tricky to slide the hardware up the rope.

Heading back to camp which was a bit over a mile off. Maybe it was more than that. It took a little while to get back. I feel as though I've adapted to judging distances in the mountains but my judgement on Shakes Lake was completely off. Everything was always farther off my initial estimate.

Looking back toward the glacier we had "worked" on throughout the day.

Evening and Morning

After getting back to camp I immediately set forth on a journey across the lake and up the side of a ridge to get a view of Castle Mountain as the sunlight struck its flank. I noticed some cold air settling on the lake as I skied over but I didn't think much of it. At least not until I prepared to take a photograph and realized I couldn't see anything due to the frost that had formed my 70-200 the lens. I quickly switched to my 50mm lens and adjusted the composition to capture this photo. Not quite what I was after but I was happy to capture the moment.

As one might expect during a temperature inversion, fog settled in the valley bottom. It was neat watching the sunlight chase away the fog. The sun was very effective! Every morning there was a miniture celebration as the sun hit our camp. The rays were most welcome.

Meet Musty the muskox, Bob's pal who has seen more of the Stikine River than me. Musty was a member of last year's 150 mile Telegraph to Wrangell ski tour. Reportedly, he can really lay down some lines with his custom quad skis.

Here he is up close and personal.

Odds and Ends

A well-used ski shows its age as it soaks up the morning sunlight after a cold night.

I went into Anthony's snow cave to relax and check it his interior design acumen. Pretty good I have to say. A nice texture on the interior walls and a brick type entrance. The bed is elevated above the floor for ease of egress. The door is sized so that a pack will fit in the entrance way and provide additional insulation. In a word, functional.

Say, that reminds me... Last year I took an arctic engineering short course at the University of Washington. The guys who taught the majority of it were both Alaskans and Michigan Tech alumni. They told us a story about the ice hotel at Cheena Hot Springs. The ice hotel is exactly that - an actual hotel made out of ice. Okay, it does have an insulated exterior shell but the interior is made completely out of ice. Ice walls, ice ceiling, ice floor, ice furniture, ice beds (or at least bed frames), world-class ice sculpture, etc. To keep folks warm, all the furniture is decked with Alaskan furs. It is kept at a constant 20 degrees and at optimum humidity levels to eliminate sublimation but also prevent the build up of frost. During an fire safety inspection of the facilities an stringent inspector noted that the hotel was in violation of the codes governing hotels and would have to be shut down immediately. Apparently the ice hotel was lacking a critical piece of mechanical infrastructure that would make staying at such a facility hazardous to one's health. Yup, you guessed it, the ice hotel was unsafe because it was lacking a sprinkler system. Never mind the little problem that water within a sprinkler system doesn't work very well at 20 deg F. Never mind that the entire building is made completely out of water - albeit in a frozen state. Oh, I could go on and on. What is really pathetic is that the inspector and whoever he reported to wouldn't back down. Fortunately the owner of Cheena Hot Springs resort is known for innovation. It didn't take him long to figure out a way to reopen his hotel. Actually, it is no longer a hotel. It is now an art museum - you can even rent your own private studio between 4pm and 11am at rates curiously similar to that of the former hotel.

I went with a commercial design and slept in my tent. Yeah, it was quite a bit colder but I enjoyed the views that my open doors provided.

As a group, we headed over to see visit the face of Shakes glacier again. The trail was starting to look like a highway.

Shakes Again

One of the guys rappels as Bob watches from above. A deep blue iceberg seems to float on the pillows of snow not far from the face of the glacier.

Bob leaps from the face of the glacier.

This reminded me of a Dr. Seuss illustration. If you look closely you can see the ski tracks wander across the top of the glacier almost all the way down to the base of the glacier.

Snow cascades down a cliff. This rock face can be seen in the panorama below.

On Top of Shakes

This is a near 360 degree panorama of the Shakes glacier from a side gully. The far right of this photo shows 3 guys playing at the terminus of the glacier. Unfortunately I the guys aren't quite visible at this resolution. The Shakes Glacier stretches toward the middle of the frame and disappears from view. Some large cliffs on the North side of shakes glacier make up the right side of the photograph.

Bob heads back to camp after a day of glacier play.

Musty the muskox guards the entrance to my snow cavern. He did a good job of keeping out intruders. Who would want to go toe to toe with a ferocious muskox anyway?

Bob emerges from his cave where Musty is faithfully standing guard. Who needs a dog when you have a muskox?

Leaving the Lake

It was finally time to got back to the warmth of the cabin. The weather pattern changed as well which helped convince us that it was time to go back to our base camp. The overcast kept dropping as the day wore on. This particular photo is of the creek flowing into Shakes Lake from which we got our water.

Anthony and I decided to hike up a side valley near the lake just to see what was there. It was pretty impressive. We decided that if the valley was in the Midwest it would be a wonder of the world but in Alaska it was just another valley. It did have some monster ice and about 4000' of near very steep (too steep for snow to cling to) walls. On the way out I walked right up to this ptarmigan. She (I think) kindly posed for a number of photographs. I love those feet! I wish I could grow feathers on my feet during the winter. 'Till then I'll just make due with my down filled slippers.

The "Cedar Shack" was anchored upstream from Shakes Cabin just a quarter mile or so.

Hot Tubin'

After three nights of sleeping on Shakes Lake, what could be nicer that a long soak in the hot tubs? The answer? Nothing.

As I was leaving the tub (As a sure sign of superior intelligence Matt decided to spent the night at the tubs, while the rest of us left.) I saw this porcupine and tried to get its picture. It was mighty uncooperative and kept climbing higher and higher in the tree. I finally managed to get a silhouette but that was about all.

As I headed back to the cabin, terrific winds would blow me to the side and I would stumble and wonder why I wasn't spending the night at the hot tub. I believe this was the windiest day of the trip. Bob had climbed partially up a ridge and said that he was blown to his knees on several occasions. At least the wind was at my back as I went back to the cabin.

The following day Bob and I decided to do a traverse. We hiked up Alpine Creek making several sketchy crossings like this. The creek was beautiful. It would be fun to photograph it after a fresh snow or as the wildflowers bloomed in the summer.