Our 30-day mountaineering expedition began at the toe of the Matanuska Glacier. With 15 bodies in tow we navigated our way up through a sea of bare ice and moraine to an immense ice fall guarding what we hoped would become the base camp for our alpine glory.
The ice fall occupied two days of our travels, one spent scouting and the other maneuvering for 12-hours through exposed terrain and multiple white outs, up into the safety of “Turtle Flats” on the Harvard Glacier. Here under blue bird skies, we found ourselves surrounded by possible peak objectives for the coming days. In total, we spent seven days up in Turtle Flats peak climbing, ice climbing, doing crevasse rescue, hunkering from inclement weather, and drinking in our alpine surroundings.
Our final days would involve a roll of the die with the weather gods to determine whether we’d be pushing for some more technical objectives. And my how the odds did not play into our favor! Deteriorating conditions, a.k.a. rain, brought about enormous increase in avalanche activity and with them our dreams of alpine glory became memories of the past. With students running the show we descended from the Harvard to the Powell Glacier and began our journey towards water and greener landscapes. Motivated by ice climbing possibilities and thoughts of non-glaciated terrain, we moved quickly through yet another sea of bare ice and moraine to the toe of the Powell.
Here our intrepid adventurers sunk their axes into vertical ice, slapping back gravity’s pull with each swing of the axe. Those ascents would be the last for the group as the call of independent travel loomed near. Dividing into groups of five and seven the students plotted the last three days of their experience and set off alone from their instructors into the Alaskan tundra to put their skills to the test.
The final days brought about hilarious hours of shwackin’ and bush pushin’ until everyone arrived at their rendezvous spot. Smiles abundant, sun burns on the mend, 70 miles behind them, and just over 12,000 vertical feet gained throughout their journey, another successful expedition came to a close.
On a personal note, during the final hour of our 12-hour push to flat freedom, I was in the lead negotiating a route through some largely crevassed terrain. Just as we thought we were home free, fog descended upon us and we found ourselves in a complete white out. It was so thick I had difficulty telling up from down, left from right. As I walked with a probe extended ahead of me to provide some depth perception, my senses began to toy with me. At one moment I felt as though I was falling, which I was, and extended my left leg over my right to catch my balance. The ground was closer than I had anticipated and I ended up tweaking my left knee. Not awesome but better a strain than something more serious. Such is life, especially in this lifestyle. Luckily, I was able to finish our route with minimal discomfort and am looking forward to two months of down time to fully recover before we head south to Patagonia for the fall and spring!
Riley says: "The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure."
