Twenty-four hours ago I was wedged in a snow shelter, dressed in all my clothing, zippered tightly into my sleeping bag. For the final three days of our ski course, we had one independent day of touring and then a two-day overnight…including the “bivy drill” in which candidates must dig a three-person shelter, complete with covered roof in under 30 minutes. I completed mine, but I gotta admit it wasn’t nearly the best one on the trip. Several others had way more sleepable configurations…yet another skill to work on.
We had good snow for the touring, but most of the time was taken up with more elaborate tour plans, rather than “just” getting turns. I’ll fire out a couple pics…for now I’m tired, about to crash, and looking forward to my debrief tomorrow with the course instructors, a five-hour drive to Anchorage, and then a midnight flight (direct!) to Denver. I’ll be wrestling with the punks before noon on Monday!
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- Seth Waterfall, Everest guide and all-around gentleman, crushing the bivy exercise on the HooDoo Glacier, above Valdez, AK.
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- Joey “The Matador” Thompson working on his technical ski systems high on Girls Peak.
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- This is the roof of our snow shelter–skis and poles give support, while a tarp holds snow. The snow insulates the shelter, so we enjoyed a 30-degree environment through the night. It was a tight fit, though.
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- The “Ice Palace Couloir,” with huge, teetering seracs on the right side of the pic. An enormous, two-school-bus-sized cornice is out of the pic and up left. Both these hazards threaten the route up the col and I pulled this section to guide the next morning. Luckily we had good visibility and my team got through it to the instructor’s satisfaction–phew!
