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Alaska Mountaineering Course: 7-Day Ski Mountaineering
Trip Highlights:
SKI MOUNTAINEERING COURSE - DETAILED ITINERARYThe following is a sample itinerary for this trip. Due to individual abilities and goals, as well as the demanding environment of Alaska, all of our mountaineering trips are customized as they unfold. The guide will constantly make decisions based on weather, logistics and group dynamics to maximize each day’s experience. There can be quite a bit of variation, but we always strive to make every trip your best ever. Participants should be proficient at traveling with telemark, randonnee or a split board, and possess at least intermediate-level skills for descents. DAY 1 - Your adventure starts at our headquarters in the historic Motherlode Powerhouse of McCarthy, Alaska. Our professional mountain guides have been busily making preparations for your trip and are excited to meet you. You know you are in good hands as you begin to get to know them - reviewing your itinerary, going over the menu, and making sure that you have your equipment in order and are properly outfitted for the trip. After the final checks are complete, the excitement builds as you and your guide head for the airstrip. There you meet your pilot and board a bush plane for the one-hour flight south to the Bagley Icefield. During the flight be sure to have your camera at the ready. The landscape below is rich with history and stunning natural beauty as you fly over thick spruce forests, lakes, and the mighty braided channels of the Nizina and Chitina rivers. Try to imagine yourself as one of the early explorers, who in the late 1800’s travelled through this region in search of a route to the Yukon goldfields. On a clear day, Mt. Logan looms far to the east, at the headwaters of the Chitina River, and just to the south of that is Mount Saint Elias. At 19, 551 feet (5,959m), Mt. Logan is the second highest peak in North America, and Mount Saint Elias is the tallest in Wrangell St. Elias National Park at 18,009 feet (5489m). As you fly across the Chugach Mountains and the Bagley Icefield comes into view, your pilot and guide begin to look for a likely “classroom” for your adventure. With such a large expanse and so many tempting lines, you’re sure to be grinning with anticipation. Soon enough, your ski-equipped plane sets down gently on a snow-covered glacier and after unloading your gear, leaves you to soak up the silent grandeur of the Bagley Icefield. Pictures are snapped, ski lines are admired, and you and your guide set about establishing a base camp which you’ll use for the duration of this course. DAY 2 - As you peek out of your tent flap this morning; you may have to pinch yourself to make sure that the snow covered peaks that seem to be floating around you are real. After a hot breakfast, you and your guide start with the basics. Basecamp construction and management as well as general glacier safety are the topics of the morning discussion. After a hearty lunch, you and your guide rope up and begin to explore your surroundings. A tempting slope beckons you and soon the silence is broken with exhilarated whooping as you and your guide link turns in the Alaskan wilderness. DAY 3 - Still reveling from yesterday’s great skiing, you and your guide awake to another delicious breakfast and set out from camp for the day’s lessons. Today you’ll discuss and practice glacier travel and rescue in depth. Travel techniques, rescue systems, and risk management will all be discussed and practiced in depth. These skills are mandatory knowledge that will allow you and your guide to journey farther from basecamp in search of perfect snow. Of course, no day is complete without gettin’ some turns in so part of our practice will be on the way to find a new slope to track up. Returning to camp in the evening, you and your guide can enjoy a hot cup of tea while admiring the alpenglow on the distant peaks. DAY 4 - Morning dawns with a dusting of fresh snow on your tent flap. You and your guide decide that today would be the perfect day to delve into the snow safety portion of the course. Up until now your guide has been keeping things safe, poking and prodding at the snow, keeping to safer slopes, digging test pits, or ski cutting slopes. Today, you’ll be introduced to the route finding, rescue, and snow science skills that will allow you to start venturing into more challenging terrain. Of course the reward for learning this material well is……..more turns! DAYS 5 & 6 - With the basics now under your belt, these are the days to put it all together. You and your guide have been eyeing the surrounding peaks and slopes and getting to know the conditions specific to your area. You can set up a z-pulley system in the event of a crevasse fall and you’re starting to recognize dangerous weak layers in a snow pack by analyzing a test pit. Over your morning tea you decide on an objective for the day and, after roping up and turning your avalanche beacons on, you set out in search of new terrain. Maybe you’re goal is to ski a narrow couloir on a nearby peak or maybe you’re hunting for the perfect corn snow turns. Whatever your style is, ski mountaineering on the Bagley Icefield is quite a treat and you’ll have ample opportunity to put your new skills to the test. DAY 7 - Today is the final day of the course and as you break camp, you reflect back 7 days ago to when the plane dropped you off in this foreign wilderness. At that time you were a stranger to the environment, a visitor. Now, with your newfound skills and heightened awareness, you are a traveler, in tune with the subtle changes occurring around you and making decisions accordingly. As you and your guide discuss some of the “soft skills”, that one must have to travel in the mountains, you feel a new confidence growing and can’t wait to start developing your own “mountain sense” in the mountains of your own backyard. The plane sweeps you back to McCarthy where the promise of a hot meal and a soak in our wood-fired sauna make it hard to keep the grin off your face. ST. ELIAS ALPINE GUIDES SKI MOUNTAINEERING COURSE OUTLINE: I. Glacier travel and rescue
II. Fundamentals of Ski Mountaineering:
WHAT'S INCLUDED?
If you have your own climbing/skiing gear, we recommend that you bring it so you can familiarize yourself with its use as you learn and hone your systems. If you would like us to arrange your transportation to/from McCarthy/Kennecott and/or lodging while in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, we offer this as a free service to our multi-day clients. Please email or give us a call to discuss the details. PDF of this itinerary - coming soon! |
Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to ski Alaska terrain and learn from the pros on the magnificent Bagley Icefield! Located within an awe-inspiring one-hour flight from McCarthy, the Bagley Icefield is the largest sub-polar icefield in the world, and offers incredible terrain for skiing and an unparalleled environment for studying snow science. Many of the mountains you will be surrounded by are unclimbed, unskied, and unbelievably skier friendly. Our ski guides will lead morning and evening discussions and training covering travel in avalanche terrain, human factors that effect decision making, trip planning and preparation, observations, travel techniques, avalanche rescue, and crevasse rescue. Days will be spent touring, skiing and riding in and around avalanche terrain. Our small client to guide ratio will allow all participants to focus on their own personal goals, from intermediate skiers with a keen interest in snow science, to extreme skiers that look forward to chatting over hot cocoa after hitting some of the extreme skiing lines that only Alaska can deliver.
