Packrafting the Big Ditch

December 29, 2024 brackec Leave a comment

My first encounter with the Grand Canyon was a Thanksgiving backpacking trip in 1997. As a relatively new backpacker, this was the hardest backpack trip Emily and I had ever done. After moving to Utah and taking up ultra running, I fell in love with running in the Grand Canyon. Over two decades, I made ran dozens of trails in the Grand Canyon, exploring everything we could from the North and South Rims.

After buying a packraft in 2017 for duck hunting and slowly starting to paddle some easy whitewater, I had always hoped to paddle the Grand Canyon and see the canyon from the bottom up instead of the top down. I knew I wanted to do a complete three-week trip, so doing that while still working would be a challenge. Timing can be a great thing. I stepped down from my role as Executive Director of the Utah Avalanche Center, and five months after my replacement was hired, a Grand Canyon opportunity came up. With just 3.5 weeks’ notice, adventure friend Tom Diegel had a cancellation on his permit and offered me the spot. While this was the opportunity I was dreaming of, could I get everything in order in a short period of time to be off the grid for 21 days? Did I have the skills to paddle the Grand Canyon? I had some other commitments; could I get those rearranged? With fantastic support from Emily and the UAC staff, I was committed to the trip.

October was a hectic month getting ready, and before I knew it, Nov 2 had arrived and we were on the road heading south. The trip had me both anxious and nervous, still really concerned about having the skills to paddle a packraft 226 miles through big waves and rapids. I only had about 21 days of paddling on small rivers and creeks, so this would be a huge step up in paddling. I had encouragement from great river mentors Tom and Paul Diegel, and I had the right mindset – paddle what I could safely and walk anything that I did not feel comfortable paddling. I was not set on paddling every rapid which would help ensure a safe trip.

The logistics of putting together a 21-day trip are immense. Tom had put together a great paddle crew and an amazing trip plan with a paddle, hikes, and camp plan for each day. Ashley put together a wonderful menu from the Moenkopi options. The amount of work and planning around the food was impressive – a true art. We ate like kings and queens, with large portions for each meal and every dinner being four courses.

Driving to Lee’s Ferry we had perfect weather for a river trip with a blizzard dropping 3” of snow on us.

Meeting Moenkopi at Lee’s Ferry on Nov 3, we got our NPS river briefing and the boats rigged and ready. Being someone who generally travels light, the amount of gear and food for 21 days was overwhelming.

Rigging boats with Moenkopi — Rigging boats with Moenkope

It took a few days to settle into the river rhythm. Wake early, stretch and pack up my camp, cook breakfast, break camp, load boats, paddle all day with some hiking, set up camp, cook dinner, relax by the fire, and off to bed early. It was Groundhog Day, but spending each day traveling through the most stunning terrain on the planet.

The rapids started out easy(ish), allowing me to get used to the big water and large waves. Early rapids were intimidating, to say the least. In a small packraft, even small rapids and waves look and feel big. A hardshell kayak can plow through the waves, a packraft rolls over the top of the waves unless the wave breaks on top of you and pretty much pummels you.

As we traveled downriver, I swam several rapids (15 in total) as I pushed just past my skills while still sticking to my goal of being safe. I walked four rapids that I didn’t feel comfortable with or that had rocks, so if I swam I risked hitting a rock and potentially getting hurt. I had a strong wet reentry to my boat so I could quickly get back in after swimming. I only lost my boat and paddle once and had to be pulled into a raft when I got pulled into a hole in Serpentine Rapid.

In the rapids, my paddling started with quantity of paddle strokes rather than quality, and after over 190 rapids, it was great to see my paddle skills progress to quality. The culmination was a successful paddle of Lava Rapids with an unintentional surf of The Big Kahuna wave.

There are far too many trip highlights to even begin, but being a runner at heart, the hiking and the the opportunity for much more hiking was a highlight. The canyon is immense and you could spend a lifetime hiking and running the numerous trails and washes. Most of our hikes involved some sort of scrambling with many of them required rapels or rope assists for the climbing. We had a couple full canyoneering routes that are always enjoyable since they lead to areas most people don’t go to.

I am grateful to Tom for inviting me on this trip knowing my limited paddling experience and believing in me enough to know I could safely paddle the river and be an asset to the group.

Oh captain my captain – getting orders for the day

Inside of my tent after a nightime sand storm

Travel

Beaches and Palaces – Southern India – Part 3

December 2, 2023 brackec Leave a comment

While the hills were hot, it was far cooler than the beach and it was tough to be back in the heat. When we got to Mararikulam we checked into the homestay, had lunch, and then went to the beach. With no intention of going for a swim, we were too hot not to. Still in the clothes we had worn for now 6 days, we used the ocean as our “Prewash” of our clothes. The Arabian Sea was amazing. The water was close to 90F and it was luxurious.

The Arabian Sea

The hotel had some old junker bikes. We put 60 KM on the bikes seeing the wholesale fish market, Allepey, and Mararikulam areas. It was great to see a ton of the surrounding area that we were visiting.

Our mighty steads

2-lane roads

The sunrise fish market was super cool. The smaller fish were sold by the kilo and the larger fish were sold by a verbal auction.

Fish Market

One of the things listed as not to miss in the Allepey area is a backwaters boat cruise. You can do large houseboats, small boats, canoes, or kayaks. We chose the canoe trip. If this was your first chance to see local communities it would be an amazing experience, but having spent 5 days walking through the communities, it was a disappointment and was not worth investing 6 hours of a day. We got bored so we helped paddle for about half of the trip. We were still glad to have done it, but would have seen more walking another day in Idukki.

Canoeing the Backwaters

Another very interesting thing that we wanted to do and ended up doing twice was an Ayurveda massage. It was a very interesting process with oils, chanting, and massaging from the top of your head to your toes in one motion.

We enjoyed a little beach time before spending Thanksgiving as a travel day. It was a two-hour drive to Kochi, a 70-minute flight to Bangalore, then a four-hour drive from Bangalore to Mysore which included a stop for a roadside dosa which may have been the best dosa of the trip.

Thanksgiving dinner

Mysore is known as the cleanest city in India and it showed. It was so different than any other Indian city. It truly was clean. Only in a few back dirt roads did we find the normal road trash of India. For our first full day, we had arranged a cooking class. It was 3.5 hours in a husband and wife’s home where we made 9 dishes and then got to indulge ourselves in eating them. It was a great meal and greatly built on the other 2 classes we had taken. The rest of the day was spent walking around and seeing some of the many temples and palaces of Mysore.

Shree Chamundeshwari Temple sits at the top of Chamunde Hill with 1,025 steps leading up to it. It was great to get some climbing in after a few days. The temple was huge and there were tons of people making the pilgrimage to the top. We chose not to deal with the long wait to enter and instead took in the surroundings. This also made a great workout on Sunday morning doing 2 laps of stairs before taking the train back to Bangalore marking the end of an amazing Southern India trip.

Cooking Class

Mysore Palace

Since our first trip in 2002, India has been near and dear to our hearts. It had been a long time since we had been there and it has us eager to plan another trip. Maybe a bike tour in Uttar Pradesh or Uttarakhand?

We had a lot of highlights. We each took a turn writing down our highlights and then when we compared we both wanted to add each other’s to our list. I guess that is the sign of an amazing trip.

Chad’s Highlights

Overall walking from village to village of Idukki and just seeing local life.
Picnic with locals on the walk from Kurisumala Hill Church to Thangalpara
Cooking class in Mysore
Diwali with Mamatha and her family
Having cheap, but really good food and doing some dirt bagging
Flower market in Bangalore

Emily’s Highlights

Diwali with Mamatha and family
Flower market at Diwali
Walking around the streets in neighborhoods seeing people celebrate Diwali
The two breakfasts of eating parotta with the locals
All the friendly people when we were walking through the villages
Walking through the villages seeing how people live
Ayurvedic massages
All the colors, smells, food!

Overall, every trip to India is a rewarding experience. It is not a restful vacation, but we have always come back with a deep and long-lasting appreciation for everything it has to offer.

Travel

Southern India – Part 2: Kochi and Idukki – Coasts and Plantations

November 29, 2023 brackec Leave a comment

Kochi – The Queen of the Arabian City. We arrived in Kochi and immediately felt the intense heat and humidity. It was overwhelming from the first step out of the airport. We had 2 days to explore Kochi before heading into the hill regions. With the heat that was going to be plenty. Kochi and much of Kerala state is much different than anywhere else in India in that it has a large Christian presence. There are numerous churches dating back as old as 800 AD. Vasco de Gama was in Kochi in the 1400s and died there. There is a mix of Dutch, Portuguese, and British influence. There was also a Chinese influence as well.

Chinese Fishing Nets

Kerala is known for Fish, Tea, and Spices, especially Caradmmon and Pepper

We had over a week in Kerala and a big goal was to take some cooking classes. Our first class was in Kochi where we made Dry Vegetable Curry (Thoran), Daal, Coconut Rice, Chicken Masala, and Roti. The cooking class took place in Meera’s home and it was a great experience, the dishes were delicious, and we can’t wait to make them at home. A village-to-village trek through the Idukki region was definitely a highlight of the trip. It was very hard to plan a trek with limited topo maps so it was sort of a big guess of back roads tied together in a route from Google Maps, GAIA, and CalTopo. The route ended up great and in the end, we wished we had spent at least 2 more days walking. Day 1 was pretty much a bust. We got to Idukki Dam and it was closed so we couldn’t see the dam and walked to our hotel at 10^o North. We got dropped off up the road a little way and had an amazing 7.5-mile walk with over 2,000′ of climbing. About 1.5 miles from the hotel it started raining – HARD. We had a great time sitting at a very small store along the road for about a half hour drinking tea and waiting for the rain to die down (a little). Our hotel was set on a beautiful plantation hillside. Unfortunately, it was socked in fog with zero visibility the entire time we were there.

Waiting out the rain with tea and snacks

Day 2 was a taxi ride to Vagamon for the rest of our hiking. This by far started the best part of our trip. We walked around Vagamon, then to the Kurisumala Hill Church which was a long climb up to a Catholic church overlooking the valley. We had not packed food assuming there would be stalls along the road like we had seen during our trip. A few hours went by and there were no food stalls. As we topped a hill there was a small tour bus with a big group of men having a picnic. As we walked by, they motioned us to join them. We declined twice, but on the third request, we accepted. What came out was a highlight of our trip and this great rice and chicken meal. The men loved that we ate with them and asked to take pictures of us. They took tons of photos and videos of us as we ate and we had a fun group photo at the end. Even though they spoke no English and us no Malayalam, we could tell it was a highlight of all of our days and a lifelong memory for us.

Hilltop picnic – this was a highlight of the trip

Post picnic group photo

From there we continued to Thangalpara which was another climb, but this time to the tomb of Sheikh Fariuddin from the year 1200 AD. Many schoolchildren and locals were making the pilgrimage. From there, to the Pine Forest which was a beautiful forest that was frequented by many locals and Indian tourists.

Thangalpara – Thomb of Sheikh Fariuddin

Day 3 was not about sites, but rather about walking back roads and plantation trails. We were completely “off the beaten path”. People looked at us like we were crazy and I am sure they were wondering what the hell we were doing. Breakfast was also a fun experience for us as we found a “homely” restaurant (that is literally what the sign outside stated) which we called the local bread shop as not only were there lots of locals coming in for breakfast but many coming in for takeout of the parotta bread wrapped in newspaper and a plastic bag of the local curry to accompany the parotta. All along, people were so friendly, they would wave, greet us, or stop their car or moto to talk. The friendliness was just amazing and made us feel great. We felt like we were integrating into the local culture. It was hot and shade was minimal. An umbrella was fantastic for shade as we walked.

It may say homely food, but it was excellent.

An umbrella was welcome shade in the stifling heat

This was a fairly typical 2-lane road. I measured the slope angle at 20^o

Day 4: We regret not having more time to spend in villages. Our final day was great walking through plantations and going out of our way to see the Pattumala Church. We had several people asking to take photographs with us which is always a comical, but fun experience.

One of the many locals excited to see white people and ask us to have their picture take with them

Day 5: A short walk past Valanjanganam Water Fall and then a bit further to our pickup spot for our ride to Mararikulam.

Valanjanganam Water Fall

Part 3 coming up – Allepey, Mararikulam, and Mysore

Travel

Back to the Subcontinent – Southern India – Part 1: Bangalore and Diwali

November 27, 2023 brackec Leave a comment

Ahhh – India. Our first visit in 2002 was our first big travel experience spending 7 months in Southeast Asia with most of that in Nepal. At that time, we walked across the border from Nepal to India and then took trains across the country through Varanasi, Delhi, and Rajasthan. That alone was an experience.

Our next trip to India was in 2007 to Ladakh and Sikkim. We spent 6 weeks in Ladakh with most of that doing dental clinics for kids with Tom Grahams and then trekking through rural villages teaching handwashing and tooth brushing and giving out toothbrushes. We had an amazing experience learning and teaching. Tom was later executed by the Taliban while doing dental work in Afghanistan with a British humanitarian group. It is impossible to be back in India without him in our minds.

We have never traveled through South India. We were excited for this trip and a big part of that excitement was for the food. It is hard to get South Indian food in the US, but that is the food we prefer.

It doesn’t seem like much has changed in India since our last trip. The traffic is still crazy and the roads are a mix of asphalt, rock, and dirt and are shared by cars, buses, motorcycles, cows, and donkey-drawn carts. Street food is everywhere. It ranges from something we should probably not try (or risk getting sick) to street stalls that are mostly clean, and busy, and the food is all freshly cooked. We ate most meals at these stalls where the 2 of us could eat a meal for ~125RS per person ($1.50) and it is better Indian food that we can get in Utah.

Thindi Beedi Street Food Stalls – Dinner on Night 1

Thali Meal for just over $1.

Bangalore is a green city. There are lots of parks and huge trees. It is so different than a city like Delhi where I don’t remember parks and much greenery.

Diwali – the Festival of Lights – “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”. It is like Christmas meets the 4th of July. We were excited to spend Diwali in Bangalore. To see one of their biggest holidays in a city of over 11M people was surely going to be an experience. We were also invited to celebrate the holiday with Emily’s past boss and her family. We were excited to see how the locals celebrated. We started our Diwali early walking to the KM Market (Krishnarajendra Market) which is the flower, vegetable, and fruit wholesale market. The market was crazy and overwhelming. It was at least 6 blocks in both directions and probably 500,000 people. Amazing flowers everywhere and people buying huge bags of them for their celebrations as well as for reselling.

KM Market with people stocking up for Diwali celebrations

As we walked around the street on Diwali, we walked into a Hindu temple where we received our first-ever Hindu blessing. It was an amazing process of the Hindu Pandit (priest) reciting something as he moved a tray with a burning flame around a shrine 5 times. We then had to put our hands in the flame smoke and touch our foreheads 3 times. This was followed by him putting the red powder on our forehead then a tablespoon of sweet milk being placed in our hand to drink and then a tablespoon of coconut water in our hand to drink. It was a great experience.

We donned our Indian attire for an evening Puja and celebration with Mamatha and her family. It was amazing to see. They had a puja to worship Lakshmi and bring good fortune. The shrine at the house was amazing. A ghee lamp needs to burn for 24 hours. At the shrine, they give 5 fruits and 5 desserts. There is a burning of some type of material that you bring the smoke to your face and then carry through the house. After the puja, 51 oil lamps are lit and placed at every door and window to honor Lakshmi. We ended the evening walking around Commerce Street which was all lit up for the holiday and packed with people.

Puja Room

Diwali Celebration

Diwali Celebrations on Commerce Street

Part 2: Kerala

Skiing, Travel

Seven Volcanos (Almost)

May 31, 2022 brackec Leave a comment

Seven volcanos in seven days. It is something I have wanted to do for over a decade. Timing, snow, partners, a weather window – there was always something preventing the trip – until this year.

With only a loose plan of getting to Bend, Oregon, and figuring it out, Marc Calaf and I were road-bound. We had an 11-hour drive to figure out a rough plan for the first 3 days. After that, we were going to watch the weather. The Pacific Northwest weather can be very unpredictable. The day we left, Rainier had sustained 60+mph winds. We had options where we could ski Bend and South or if the weather improved head north to the bigger peaks of Adams, Hood, and Rainier.

We decided to start the trip on Cascade Lakes Highway with a warm-up on Broken Top and then ski South Sister. We lucked out that the Cascade Lakes Highway opened on May 16 and we would be arriving on May 20. This would save us many miles of skinning to ski both peaks.

Broken Top is a rugged mountain whose magma core collapsed leaving a huge crater. We chose to ski The Sheild on the SW Ridge so we actually only summited South Broken Top. We were treated to solitude with no other skiers and amazing views of numerous prize ski lines. We were also treated to great weather with a small storm hitting just after we returned to the trailhead.

Day 1
Ascent	5,000′
Descent	13.0 miles

Summit of Broken Top from the summit of South Broken Top

South Sister is the tallest and youngest of the 3 sisters. It also has the highest lake in Oregon (Teardrop Pool on the summit crater at 10,358’). South Sister’s SE Ridge is a very straightforward climb that was very busy with climbers and skiers. The highlight was definitely the summit crater. We were able to skin and ski right to and from the summit. We were treated with a 5,150’ descent with the top 3500’ being a continuous fall line

Day 2	Daily	Total
Ascent	5,150′	10,150′
Descent	12.5 miles	25.5 miles

The less sketchy of our 2 stream crossings

Back into Bend for some work and supplies and we were off to Pole Creek Trailhead for a doubleheader of the SE ridge of North Sister, up Hayden Glacier to the Summit of Middle Sister, and then ski the Diller Headwall. North Sister is a craggy and jagged peak and one of the hardest climbs in the Cascade volcanoes. We wouldn’t be summiting North Sister, but we would be able to get a few hundred feet below the summit to ski and avoid the 5.8 climbing of the top 400’. Middle Sister on the other hand would get us onto glaciers and steep ice. We climbed the Hayden Glacier and then had 55-degree snow ice to the summit. My flimsy aluminum crampons were not sufficient. We were treated to being able to ski the Diller Headwall which we learned from some locals is not always skiable. An amazing 42-degree descent, jumping the bergshrund, and then a few thousand feet of corn on the apron put us back to our shoes and a long 3.1 mile walk out over lots of deadfall.

Day 3	Daily	Total
Ascent	6,460′	16,610′
Descent	16.6 miles	42.1 miles

Diller Headwall off Middle Sister – it was as steep as it looked

Mark jumping the bergshrund at the bottom of the headwall

We had a 1.5 hr drive to Mt Jefferson – or so we thought. We arrived at the junction to our trailhead to a closed road and no cell service. From Jim, who we met at Pole Creek, we knew there was good skiing up from Pamelia Lake so we rerouted to that trailhead and the task of planning a new route.

Mt Jefferson is an extinct volcano that last erupted 40,000-50,000 years ago. It is the only volcano in the Cascade range that hasn’t erupted in the last 10,000 years. The peak was named by Lewis and Clark in honor of President Jefferson. The peak is the 2nd highest in Oregon and has 5,777’ feet of prominence!

The skiing options from Pamelia Lake looked great, but the approach, not so much. The trailhead was only 3,100’ which was 1,000’ lower than we planned. We decided for a 6 AM start. 8 miles later we finally left dirt for snow and started the 5,200’ climb to just below the vertical wall of the Mt Jefferson Summit. The climb was long into the beating sun and we cooked as we climbed. We ran into a couple more locals that Jim had told us would be there and climbed for a few hundred feet with them getting more beta. After the long climb, we were treated to the 5,200’ descent on amazing corn. The LONG hike out seemed to last forever but was only around 2.5 hours. Back at the van, we ate, packed, and got ready for the 3.5-hour drive to Mt Hood.

Day 4	Daily	Total
Ascent	7,480′	24,090′
Descent	20.2 miles	62.3 miles

Mt Hood is a volcano with active fumaroles that last erupted in 1865 and is said to have a Very High potential to erupt again. While one of the best ski lines is the Wy’East, we wanted a summit so we were going to climb the South Side and either Old Chute or Pearly Gates. Mt Hood is the 2nd most climbed glaciated peak in the world (Mt Fuji being the most climbed).

We woke to horrible weather with 100-meter visibility and light rain. We hung out drinking coffee, working, and analyzing weather model after weather model. There appeared there might be a break in the afternoon so we decided to ascend to 8,400’ and wait for a couple of hours for a potential weather break. The weather didn’t break. We descended back to Timberline, enjoyed the comedy show of the parking lot people, analyzed weather models once again, and decided there most likely would not be a window.

Day 5	Daily	Total
Ascent	2,650′	26,740′
Descent	4.7 miles	67.0 miles

Waiting for the weather window the didn’t come

We finally decided to pull the plug and drove 10 miles down when the storm broke. Back to the drawing board – meaning looking at the weather models. The models still did not favor a summit, but they were consistent for the next 14 hours. We turned around and headed back to the parking lot with plans for a 3:30 AM departure which would get us to the summit and back down before the weather front moved in.

The 3 AM alarm was early. We dressed and ate quickly and were on skis by 3:30. We made good time climbing at a strong, but comfortable pace and ticking off the first 4,000’ in 2 hours. The clouds moved in around sunrise and the wind picked up strongly. We were hopeful the weather would hold, both concerned about winds on the summit. We locked in compass bearings for our descent assuming we would have limited visibility.

Beautiful morning as the clouds rolled in

We switched to crampons at the fumaroles and continued up through the Pearly Gates which were an amazing tunnel of ice taking us to the crater rim and then the summit.

The top. We were treated to amazing views of the inside of a pingpong ball

We had to downclimb to the bottom of Pearly Gates and then I switch to skis for a rowdy 50+ degree descent on solid ice. To say I skied it would be an exaggeration. With poles on my pack, I used my ice tool to lower myself down the pitch until it dropped to around 45 degrees. The ice didn’t subside for another 1,000’ after which we were treated to around 4,000’ of great corn all the way to the parking lot.

Day 6	Daily	Total
Ascent	5,460′	32,200′
Descent	8.2 miles	75.2 miles

Our weather window was officially shut and our skiing would be over for the trip. While we didn’t get 7 volcanoes, 6 volcanoes in 5 days of skiing was a success.

Uncategorized

One Year at the UAC

July 9, 2018 brackec Leave a comment

One year ago, I made the bold leap from the comfort, stability (and stress) of the technology consulting world for a new challenge. I began my role as Executive Director (ED) of the Utah Avalanche Center (UAC) nonprofit. I now have my first year under my belt and it has been such an amazing experience. I took on this challenge for not only a life change but also for the chance to make a difference in a sport that I love. I started backcountry skiing when we moved to Utah in 2002 and quickly developed a passion for avalanche knowledge and education. Upon becoming friends with Paul Diegel (the departing ED), I developed a huge respect for what the UAC does and I hoped to be a part of the organization at some point in my life. I think that deep down, I have always wanted a career that would help people and be something that I was passionate about at the same time.

One of the too many to count events we provide awareness and education materials at.

What has it been like to be the ED? For starters, I have never worked with such a passionate group of people. The entire staff is whole-heartedly dedicated to the mission of the UAC and is committed to our success. This is such a change from the corporate world where so many people are just ‘filling a seat’.

Brewvies-Aspen-Extreme — Dedication is dressing up for a throw-back ski movie (Aspen Extreme) fundraiser.

I have learned so much over the past year. One of the great things about a small nonprofit is that every day is different. You can be writing a grant, talking with a donor, fixing a trailer, and giving an avalanche awareness presentation all in the same day. Payroll, insurance, employment law, hiring, teaching, grant writing, project management and the list goes on. These are just a few things that fill my days.

Bourbon tasting and avalanche education – the perfect combination.

I have also had the privilege to meet many, many amazing people that share our passion and support our cause. These people range from donors, to educators, to the staff of other avy centers.

I have also learned new skills, like riding a snowmobile in the mountains. Turns out this is MUCH harder than I had imagined.

One of the big questions I get is, what are you going to do in the summer. It is often hard for people to believe, but the ski season is actually not our busiest time of year. Summer consists of special projects (this year we are rebuilding our website and building 5 online learning modules) as well as planning our fundraising events, the Utah Snow and Avalanche Workshop, and getting all of our winter classes scheduled. Fall is event season. We have several fundraisers ranging from as small as 50 people to as large as 1,000 people, we have educational tables are numerous events (ski sales, outdoor events, etc), and we have our large 900+ person Utah Snow and Avalanche educational workshop, The list goes on.

What a year it has been! As we ramp up for the upcoming season, I am excited to be able to take what I learned in my first year, help keep people safe in the backcountry, and continue to grow our fantastic organization.

Skiing

Ski-less in Alaska: Accounts of a Shoveling Trip

May 7, 2018 brackec Leave a comment

Alaska is on the bucket list of almost every skier I know. Eric and I are no different and have been talking about a ski trip to Alaska for many years. This was our year! With busy work schedules, we deccided on the last part of April and early May. It was easy to convince Tom Diegel to join us and the 3 of us were excited for another adventure after last year’s attempted Highline Trail Ski.

As Tom said, "3 dorks ready for an adventure" — As Tom said, “3 dorks ready for an adventure”

Plans were discussed, modified, updated, changed again, and we finally had a loose plan to get dropped off on the Pika Glacier in Little Switzerland of the Alaska Range for 12 days of base camp/expedition style skiing.

None of us ever having done an expedition style trip, we built out our menu and just didn’t think it could be correct to need quantities like 20lbs meat, 14 lbs cheese, 48 bagels, 60 tortillas, and the list went on until we were at $600 and around 160lbs of food. It didn’t seem possible to need that much, but that came out to 3.8lbs/person/day for 14 days of food (2 extra days)

Our first indication that this may not be the ski trip we had planned should have been the delay in getting in due to a several day storm and a questionable 5-day forecast. Undeterred (or maybe not smart enough to know what was to come), we were excited to get onto the glacier and start skiing. We flew in on Sunday with plans to get picked up 13 days later.

Luxury Limo Service by Talkeetna Air Taxi

The glacier landing in fresh powder snow was amazing, you just floated down not really even knowing you were on the ground.

With our gear unloaded, we started slogging loads and getting camp set up. We had a short window to ski after setting up camp and little did we know, it would basically be the end of our ski trip and the start of our shoveling trip.

The only day camp was under ground — The only day camp was underground

The Black Diamond Megamid mades an amazing cook tent — The Black Diamond Megamid makes an amazing cook tent

On day 2, we were able to sneak in a partial day of skiing before “The Storm” moved in. We ended up with a storm that lasted 9 days with only a short clearing on the 9th day giving us long enough to get picked up by TAT before the next storm moved in. We spent 8 full days at camp only leaving twice (once to check out another camp and another time during a 2-hour clearing to ‘try’ to ski). Like any good ski trip where you plan to ski for 7-8 hours per day, on our now shoveling trip, we were shoveling 7-8 hours per day with rarely being able to go more than 4 hours at a time without digging out camp. We passed our time pretending to be funny, reading, playing scrabble, eating, and sleeping. Luckily the 3 of us travel very well together and were able to keep each other’s spirits high in light of the grim situation.

The Mad Hatters demonstrating our dual purpose pot parkas

Storm day 4: Sleeping tent, we had to dig our way out every 3-4 hours

Cook tent on storm day 4 just 3 hours after digging it out

Looking up out of the cook tent on one of the few storm breaks

By the 5th day of the storm, with the limited forecast we could get, and what we had not looking good, we made the call to TAT that we were pulling the plug for the next available transport back. They had no clue when the storm would clear as all long-term models showed snow with a couple breaks in 4 or 5 days. So – we continued to shovel. We attempted to leave camp, it didn’t work, it took us 20 minutes to go 300 meters.

We tried leaving camp on storm day 5, it didn't work — We tried leaving camp on storm day 5, it didn’t work

So we shoveled some more.

Continued digging and terracing of our now buried camp

And occasionally were treated to some views of the surrounding peaks

By the 7th day of being tent bound, our creativeness was really starting to develop and we invented the great new sport of competitive shoveling. We really hope this sport takes off next season as after 70+ hours of training, we felt we were in a good position to do well at competitions. Here is a tutorial on the new sport.

As the days passed and the storm didn’t, we were starting the discussions of food rationing. On day 8, we knew we had 8 more days of food but were unsure if that would be enough as there were other groups on the glacier already 5-7 days overdue. Finally, on day 10 we woke up to clear skies. Unfortunately, Talkeetna was stormed in. By mid-morning, the fog had rolled in and visibility dropped to zero. It cleared and fogged in a couple times. It would be clear on the glacier and foggy in Talkeetna. This continued until late afternoon when things cleared up and we received the pickup message.

Storm day 9, day 10 at camp. A partial day of clearing, just enough to break camp and get out before the next wave

This was camp - our tents were in those 3 holes — This was camp – our tents are buried in those 3 holes

On our final day, everyone pitched in to pack in the runways

A quick ski run before getting picked up

After 15 feet of snow, everything had avalanched. These slide paths were absolutely amazing.

TAT Pilot Paul - this was the largest storm he had seen — TAT Pilot Paul – this was the largest storm he had seen

Glad to be out of shoveling mode and hoping to sacrifice the ski trip, we made our way to Hatcher Pass for a few days of skiing in the ping-pong ball (low visibility and flat light). We had 3 days of poor weather. We skied the Bomber Traverse in a day in character building conditions (5 miles of downhill skinning in low light and isothermic snow).

Bomber Traverse in flat light. You never knew if you were going up or down until you were down

Our final day was the best weather of the trip with partially cloudy skies and bright sun.

Final day and best weather we had the entire trip

We savored 3 runs above Independence Mine and then had to head back to Anchorage to pack and get ready for early flights out. A great completion to a failed ski trip and a successful shoveling trip.

Uncategorized

2016-2017 Ski Season Video Recap

May 19, 2017 brackec Leave a comment

We were treated to an amazing ski season in the Wasatch that has us still skiing powder on 19 May. Enjoy a few highlights from the winter.

Skiing

Skiing the Highline Trail

April 8, 2017 brackec Leave a comment

For some reason, I am obsessed with the Highline Trail across the Uinta mountains of Utah. I first backpacked across the trail around 2005, did a solo run across it in 2010 to set an FKT, then ran across it again in 2013 to set another FKT. I have wanted to attempt a ski traverse of the Highline Trail and started to plan it in 2014. Snow, weather, ski partners, car shuttle drivers, etc just never seemed to work out to be able complete the traverse. Eric Bunce and I committed last spring to get it done when we could get the logistics to all line up. We wanted a third person to join us and we reached out to Tom Diegel knowing that he is always up for an adventure. The text string below for inviting Tom would probably sum up our adventure.

I was excited to have a strong set of partners for what I knew would be a very challenging few days (I also now have a feeling these partners may second guess any future adventures I invite them on). We were planning for a traverse Thursday to Sunday, then due to deteriorating weekend weather, bumped up the start to Wednesday. We knew this risked not having consolidated snow from the last storm, but hoped for the best.

We had everything lined up with a very simple plan

Tuesday I would borrow the neighbors truck and loaded my sled.
Tuesday night we would get together to finalize gear and logistics. We reviewed with Emily and Jackie our options for bailing out and the trailheads we could end up at. None were good options and all involved well over 15 miles of skiing to get to a road plus at least 3 hours of someone driving to get us
Jackie would drive us to the trailhead on Wednesday morning and then mt bike in Vernal on her way home.
We would ski for 3-4 days using a Delorme InReach to mark our progress and to call out for a ride if we had to bail out.
Thursday Evan and Paul would take 2 snowmobiles up Mirror Lake Highway and ski for the day leaving 1 sled and a pack of gear for us at the west Highline Trail Trailhead. They would stash the sled, key and bag and hope it was all there when we reached the trailhead. They would leave the neighbors truck and my trailer at the trailhead for us to get back home with if/when we finished.
We would eventually reach Mirror Lake Highway and drive the sled towing 2 skiers back to the trailhead where our (hopefully) waiting vehicle and trailer would be there for us to drive back home.

As Paul clearly pointed out, what could possibly go wrong with this ‘simple’ plan.

On Tuesday we decided that a later morning start with more sleep would allow us to go longer into the night as our goal was short naps and move as much as possible. We left Summit Park shortly after 6AM on Wednesday and we were walking up the access road by 9:30 for what we thought would be a 4 hour approach to the Leidy Peak Trailhead that ended up taking us 7 hours with 14 miles and 3700′ climbing as well as some good bushwhacking and lots of trail breaking. By the time we reached the actual start of the Highline Trail, our feet were already in bad shape from being wet for so long from trail breaking through ankle+ deep wet snow. We continued on with hopes of making it to Chipeta Lake shortly after dark. By the time we reached Whiterocks Lake (5 miles from Chipeta), we had to stop for the night due to foot issues. Trenchfoot was now turning into frost nip. We had travelled about 23 miles and climbed 4800′ in 11.5 hours. In the entire time, we took our skins off once and made 8 kick turns through stiff breakable crust.

We lit a fire and setup our bivies and attempted to dry out some socks and boot liners. This would prove to be impossible and we spent 3 days in wet boots. I had a restless night for my first winter open bivy, but woke up Thursday morning feeling restless and excited to get moving.

We had a slow start Thursday getting gear situated and feet fixed. We enjoyed some long gradual climbs and even had a few turns on Thursday. We were able to take advantage of the descent off North Pole Pass to make good mileage traversing into the massive Fox Lake and Kidney Lakes basin. We were not making great time. We were breaking trail through breakable crust in the mornings; through soft, unsupportable snow in the afternoon; and then back to breakable crust in the evenings. We were expecting to be able to use gravity and cost across some areas, and this just was not happening. We were hoping for ~3mph as an average pace and were making barely over 2mph. We talked about options, do we bail out at Painter Basin for the 18 mile skin to Henry Fork road, do we push on and hop to beat the storm, do we push on and hope the storm is delayed, etc. We sent out a request for a weather forecast via our InReach and the storm was still scheduled to hit us on Friday night. The winds would pick up and by Saturday night it would be -8F wind chills. We knew we would need to be done by 2 or 3 on Saturday to get out of Mirror Lake Highway before the storm really hit. Day 2 had us covering about 25 miles with 4300′ ascent and 3600′ descent in 13 hours.

We had our decision to push on, we would hope to camp in Yellowstone Basin Thursday night. After the skin from Kidney Lakes to Painter Basin took far, far longer than expected, we were not willing to ski down the thin snow and exposed rocks of Anderson Pass in the dark so we camped at the last stand of trees in Anderson Basin. We had made it around 26 miles in 13 hours. We made a fire to attempt to try boot liners and went to bed with the alarms set for 4:30 to get an early start in order to make it to Rock Creek on Friday. Around midnight, the winds started to pick up in earnest. I had a completely sleepless night as I listed to the wind howl, the trees shake, and tried to keep my already failing bivy system from being blown to shreds. When we woke in the early morning, I knew we could not safely continue on. The winds was gusting 40mph and was expected to pick up to 60 mph gusts by end of the day. We would be climbing from 11,500′ where we were camped to over 12,000′ and we had 4 large passes to climb all into the wind. Eric thought we could make it; Tom wasn’t sure, but didn’t want to take risks; After being the person who pushed the others to commit to the finish on Thursday, on Friday morning, I knew we had to pull the plug as we had 40 miles to the snowmobile and we were at our only bail out option. We made the hard decision to bail and sent the ‘come get us’ message to Emily, Jackie, and Ashley at 6AM as we were on our way from Painter Basin 18 miles to the road where we could get picked up. The wind was fierce on Friday. I have skied up to King’s Peak 5 times and have always dreaded the long skate across Henry’s Fork Basin by Dollar Lake. With the massive tailwind, all we did was hold our arms out and get pushed across the flat basin. Eric clocked us at 20 mph across the flat basin (which was a lot of fun when we hit the breakable crust sections). Once we got to Henry’s Fork Creek the next set of fun began. The snow was supportable for a while as we crisscrossed the creek on questionable snow bridges and eventually was unsupported and we were forced to skin the final ~5 miles to the road. We reached the road and couldn’t get our boots off fast enough as we ate through the remains of our food and waited for Jackie and Paul to come and rescue us. Our bail out was 18 miles with 1600′ ascent and 3700′ descent and took us 7 hours.

Unfortunately, the adventure wasn’t over as on Saturday we had a borrow a snowmobile and go 20 miles back up Mirror Lake Highway to retrieve our exit sled.

I think the trip can be summed up with blisters, sore shoulders, sunburnt lips, long hours on skins, and an even larger desire to go back and ‘get it done’.

Things I learned

Really great partners are a necessity for crazy long adventures like this
You can actually get frostnip toes and trenchfoot in the same day
Before your first bivy, test out your bivy gear – my bivy sack wripped open night 1.
The odor that develops when you don’t take off wet boot liners (or skimo race suits) for 3 days is worse than I ever could have imagined

Click on the gallery below to browse the photo gallery and click on each photo to see full size with captions.

[Show picture list]

Travel

Time in Catalonia

August 5, 2016 brackec Leave a comment

The second part of our trip was planned around relaxing. After another late night, we caught an early morning bus to Girona, rented a car and headed to the beach. The coast was HOT and it didn’t take us long to remember how much we hate heat and humidity. We relaxed on the beach Tuesday afternoon, then got to our hotel in Tossa de Mar to learned it had no AC or wifi. We were planning to use some of this time to catch up on work and emails and now this would not be possible. Our hotel room was over 32C, so sleep didn’t look like it would happen. .

Ruins in the fortified city of Tossa de Mar

We had booked 2 scuba dives on Wednesday with a friend of Gerard and Marta’s then had an amazing sea side dinner on a private terrace (thanks to Gemma’s roommate’s parents who are friends with the owner and made reservations for us) followed by a very warm night. It was so hot, I soaked a pillow case on water and laid it over my body to attempt to cool myself.

Dinner on a private terrace at Bahia in Tossa de Mar

We were excited to dive on Wednesday as we don’t get an opportunity to do it very often and always nice to see under water in different areas.

Scuba Diving with L'amfora in Tossa de Mar — Scuba Diving with L’amfora in Tossa de Mar

Afer diving, we drove to Villafranca in the Penedes area to tour and taste cava. We had planned to spend 1 night in this area and we were very happy we extended this to 2 nights. Cava is the traditional sparkling wine from the Penedes area. Any Spanish sparkling wine can be called cava, but the only certified cava (each bottle has a certification sticker) comes from Penedes. We were staying right on a vineyard in a 12-room boutique hotel shaped like stacked wine bottles. The base of the bottle was the windows and our windows overlooked the vineyard.

Our fantastic boutique hotel at Mas Tinell in Villafranca, Penedes

On Thursday morning, after a run through the vineyards and hillside, we had a cava breakfast and hit the road for some tours and tastings. We had an amazing time learning about cava and tasting the differences. I think we both may have become cava converts.

Cava tours in tastings in the Penedes region - bottles ranging from 350ml to over 26L — Cava tours in tastings in the Penedes region – bottles ranging from 350ml to over 26L

The traditional method for getting cava settlement into the bottle neck

After several hours of tastings (probably a few too many), we needed a walk and some groceries. In town, we found a nice meat and cheese shop. Everything in the shop was Euro/Kg (so we thought). We found the Iberico Jamon we wanted, ordered 300g and when the bill came to $43 Euro’s, we realized that the 4 Jamon’s on 1 of the tables were Euro/100g. We quickly changed plans from meat and cheese as a snack and quick lunch to focusing a good meal on this amazing meat. The quality was not wasted and we thoroughly enjoyed every bit of this delicacy. We had a truly amazing meal accompanied by cava and wine tasting at our hotel that night and had a plan to get on the road to Calafell on Friday morning with a stop for a trail run along the way.

Run in El Montmell-Marmellar on the way from Villafranca to Calafell

Calafell was a little too touristy for us, but there was a Starwood hotel there so we could stay for free on points (one of the few perks of business travel is that we used frequent flyer miles for our airfare and could stay on this beach on hotel points). We checked into a beautiful Le Meridian hotel and quickly went down to the beach. I was once again reminded of my distaste for heat and humidity and didn’t last long on the beach. We decided we needed a relaxing night so we planned our dinner to be tapas in our room. We already had top shelf meat, we just needed a few other items and we were quickly able to put together an amazing meal of Iberico Jamon, tapenade, salmon pate, white anchovies, gazpacho, bread, and wine. It was nice to sit on our patio and have a long, relaxing dinner.

Roman ruins in Tarragona dating back to 200 BC

Our last day would be spent driving back to Barcelona. We had spent time in Barcelona a few years ago so we didn’t want to spend much time there. What we hadn’t planned for is that most everything would be closed on Sunday. We were disappointed to miss out on a few shops we wanted to check out (mostly the huge Mercado). We were able to take in a Jamon tour and tasting which while a little touristy, was very informative.

Jamon tasting in Barcelona

We capped the night off with dinner at 7 Portes which is known for their paella (although Gemma’s mom’s was much, much better) and an early night back at the hotel as we had to leave for the airport at 4AM.