Chugach Avalanche Center forecaster Wendy Wagner above a class III avalanche on Manitoba Mountain at Summit Lake. This is Wendy’s second season with the Chugach Avalanche Center. She came up from the Utah Avalanche Center.

It’s a fat season so far in south central Alaska. We’ve had relentless warm storms that are plastering the mountains with thick snow. Most of these storms are combined with winds over 100 miles per hour… while it’s grim now, the base and mid-pack are rock solid for when the good weather rolls around and the spring ski season will be huge.

Here’s a gallery with a few photos from our season so far…

Hiking into the Wedge (right) on a rare Alaska trail.

Anchorge is legendary for bad rock climbing. The crags along the Seward Highway were awarded a top five in the worst climbing areas in the US. For that reason, I’ve never climbed on the Seward highway although it is just minutes from town. By driving an hour you get high quality granite in the Talkeetna Mountains near Hatcher Pass, but it’s tough to catch dry conditions at there. Then Kevin Wright showed Cathy and I “The Wedge”. Solid rock just outside Anchorage! It is a bike and then a hike, but it is close!

Here are some photos from our trip…

Adrian and Bryan climbing Timeless, a two-pitch 5.9 that had a real handcrack and solid rock.

Adrian and Bryan topping out on Timeless. Ship Lake Pass is beyond.

Kevin leading Wisdom, a one-pitch 5.9. Kevin is the lead avalanche forecaster for the Chugach Avalanche Center. See a post from a day on the job with Kevin. After Wisdom we climbed Timeless, the route Adrian and Bryan were on. Kevin, Cathy and I each got to lead a beautiful 5.9 pitch. Almost unheard of in the land known for Chugach Crud.

Hiking back to the bikes in the warm fall light.

The double fisherman’s knot has plagued me for years. For climbers, this bomb-proof knot was traditionally used to tie ropes together for rappelling. Now most climbers use the flat overhand (aka the Euro Death Knot) for rapelling. I switched to the in-line overhand when the double fisherman’s made my cordelettes impossible to untie for anchors, threading boulders, or rescue scenarios. But I was still stuck using the double fisherman’s for my prusik loops. The knot would weld shut when I desperately needed it untied. And one more annoying thing: the double fisherman’s is near-impossible to teach clients.

I experimented tying my prusik loops with an in-line overhand, but that felt flimsy. Then Greg Nappi, a well-known Mountain Trip guide, clued me into the Flemish Bend at the Alaska Ice Festival… and my knot world became peaceful.

The Flemish Bend is an in-line, re-woven figure eight knot. The big deal? It’s easy to learn, it’s solid and it’s easy to untie. Make sure to have three-inch tails.

A prusik loop in action. For my ski mountaineering prusiks, I use 4-foot lengths of 5mm accessory cord.

A prusik loop–tied with a flemish bend–used for escaping the system for crevasse rescue.

I’ve toppled thousands of cairns. I kick them over and scatter the rocks. I then walk away, leaving my trail of no destruction. I admit I feel somewhat pompous about destroying these towers of rocks. Like I was up for an early morning run before work and saw the sunrise while others were sleeping. But should I feel ashamed?

During my cairn-toppling years I’ve come to a consensus. I scatter all cairns on:

1. Summits –  You can’t go any higher than the highest place. Especially irksome around my home in Alaska. Let others feel like they’re first.
2. Trails – Just follow the trail.

But then maybe some places can be justified:

1. On Mountain Routes – Some heavily-used mountain routes rely on cairns to keep people from getting lost. In this case the cairns have replaced heavy-duty trail building. Better yet, maybe we all need improved route-finding skills.
2. Tricky Turns - A small, three-stone cairn can mark a hidden gully descent route from a climb, or a hard-to-spot access trail.
3. Fragile Alpine – Keeping everyone on the same route in alpine tundra can minimize the overall impact.

But who should make the cairn-building decisions? It’s often the outdoor newbies who feel lost and start piling stones. My opinion is don’t build cairns. Approach the mountains on their own terms. Practice true leave no trace. Tear down the cairn!

Do you have strong opinions about cairns? Let me know.

Joe Stock is a mountain guide and photographer based in Anchorage, Alaska.

Mount Logan is serious wilderness. Not wilderness with trails and wildflowers, but WILDERNESS. Like nobody there. For 16 days of our 21-day trip we had Logan to ourselves. Why? Because Logan is the second highest mountain in North America. At 19,550 feet, Logan is shorter than Alaska’s Denali at 20,320 feet. So who cares about something that’s second? Me! And three customers and guide Tino Villaneuva.

Climbing Mount Logan via the King Trench route is similar to Denali’s West Buttress. But without the safety net of hundreds of people, helicopters, medical personel and rangers, Logan is a notch more serious. Our 3-week trip was an adventure, meaning it had an unknown outcome. We found little information about the route and just waited each day to see where our route would go and where we’d camp.

Mount Logan is a long, high altitude trudge. Roped together, we hauled sleds and double-carried most of the route. I recommend the Osprey Aether 85 for expeditions on my gear list for clients and everyone on our team had the Aether 85. They are AWESOME expedition packs!

Finally, after battling up the MacCarthy Gap at 14,000 feet, we reached the summit of Mount Logan in Canada on June 15 at 5 p.m. Our summit day was 15 hours long and freeeeezing cold. We managed to pull our facemasks down a few minutes for the photo above. See more Logan photos on Joe’s blog.

Skiing in the Western Chugach all leads up to May. The snow becomes stable and darkness never happens. Over the past couple weeks we’ve hit the impeccable Korohusk Chutes, an 18-hour, 13,000-foot day on the Rumble Chute and the White Lice Chute. With fluffy snow still lingering on high north faces, Cathy and I headed into the Chugach behind Anchorage. We stashed a car at the Eagle River Nature Center and began walking from the South Fork of Eagle River. Our plan, to ski the Flute and Organ Glaciers and search for skiable faces along the way. And not get eaten by a bear.

We’d been seeing black bears and and grizz with cubs for several weeks. They’re hungry this time of year and fiercely protective of their young. Guns are the best bear defense, if you know how to shoot them. We brought fireworks instead. Cathy can shoot a gun, but I’d probably have to carry the 10-pound thing. If a bear charged I’d surely miss and shoot my foot instead.

We walked and skied 10 hours up to a quiet camp on the Flute Glacier and slept for 11 hours. Getting out of the tent is difficult when I’m spooning with Cathy in our double-wide sleeping bag. But we managed to head out and find some great lines on the Flute and Organ glaciers. Check out photos from our trip below!

Cathy booting up the north face of Flute Peak.

Cathy near the summit of Flute Peak. We brought a 200-foot 5.5 mm Dyneema rope and doubled it up to climb the summit pitch.

Rapelling using a Munter Hitch from the summit block.

Cathy skiing amazing dry snow on the 45-degree drift on Flute Peak.

Cathy loves bushwacking, especially in old-growth Devil’s Club forest (joke). These prickers hurt going in, but the pain goes away, until a week later when they become a gnarly zit. I made up for it by carrying her across Eagle River.

Sunshine is bad for making powder, but great for exploring Alaska. After hearing reports from a friend, we grabbed our bikes and headed up to Hunter Creek in The Butte. The big gear question for the trip was should we take fat tires or studs? The first part of the ride was soft snowmachine trails—perfect for fat tires. But then we covered three miles of smooth river and lake ice where studs are best. Anthony took his fat tire Pugsly and only slammed the ice a few times. The rest of us took regular mountain bikes with studded tires.

Last weekend was the third annual Alaska Ice Climbing Festival in Portage, Alaska. The fest is geared to climbers of all levels with several evening parties, a slideshow by Alaska Range alpinist Mark Westman and two days of clinics covering everything from a junior skill builder to advanced climbing.

Greg Nappi, an Alaska mountain guide and I taught an ice anchors clinic. With six students we covered ERNEST anchors on a fat ice flow beside the road. I’d never worked with Greg, so I gleaned a few skills myself. I’ve officially moved beyond the double fisherman’s knot, which is the world’s most annoying knot, and will now use the Flemish bend (in-line figure eight) to join my prussik loops. I also learned that A-threads are stronger than V-threads for rap anchors.

Overall, a great festival!

The staff at the Chugach Avalanche Center has seen 100% turnover in two months. Yesterday I joined the new crew in the office and in the field. We planned to visit Palmer Creek near Hope, the site of a full burial the week before. The victim was able to dig out of the soft snow, although I’m sure he did some heavy thinking in those ten seconds during the avalanche.

On the long drive to Hope we saw countless avalanches, many of them skier-triggered. The snowpack is unusually touchy this winter after a freezing rain event in November followed by three weeks of cold and clear. The high pressure is still around, skies are clear and some powder is about, but I think we’ll go adventure ice skating (50-mile lake linkups) until things stabilize…

Here's Antisana (left) and Antisana Sur in the an article on new Antisana Sur mixed climbs. The Connelly-Stock (between route 3 and 4) doesn't exist anymore.

I want to climb Kimanjaro to see the little glacier on the summit before it disappears. Sounds like I’ll have to go soon because it’s almost gone. Around the equator, in Ecuador, it’s the same scene—disappearing glaciers. The equatorial regions aren’t liking climate change.

In 2001, I guided a trip in Ecuador. One of the routes we climbed was La Rampa Route, a steepish glacier route on Iliniza Sur. This December I saw that route is gone. Below, I’ve included a gallery with photos of routes — found and lost — because of climate change.

The American Alpine Club owns a single backcountry hut. It’s the Snowbird Hut, up in the Talkeetna Mountains of Alaska. Through the hard work of AAC Alaska section president Harry Hunt, James Brady and Cindi Squire, the new hut is functional for this winter. The Snowbird Hut sits above the Snowbird Glacier. The Glacier is just a stagnant melting piece of ice like all Talkeetna Mountain glaciers, but the skiing is incredible. A popular trip in the area is the Bomber Traverse.

I joined Harry and Cindi for a super fun weekend at the Snowbird. The old dingy, leaky, half-crushed-in-by-snow Snowbird Hut sits below the fancy new Snowbird Hut. The old hut will be helicoptered out next summer.

Cindi reveals the shiny new steel kitchen counter.

Harry fluffs in the R30 duff into the ceiling. Toooooasty!!

In splitter weather we insulated the ceiling, finished sheeting the floor, started sheeting the ceiling, built a bench and a table. It helps that Harry is a carpenter.

We had both a full moon and the northern lights. Become a member of the AAC and visit the best hut in Alaska. P.S. The Mountain House on the Ruth Glacier may be more dramatic, but the location will drive a skier batty.

Crane hauling one of the 30-pound steel pipes 2,500 feet up to the 5,005-foot summit of Harp Mountain.

Avalanche centers continually struggle for money. The Chugach Avalanche Center was started with an earmark from the late Uncle Ted Stevens. That money is drying up and the Avi Center has become more dependent on the Friends of the Chugach Avalanche Center. This is a fired-up group of backcountry users that volunteer their time to help out.

Checking levels on the instrument box.

Recently, I joined the Friends to install a weather station on the summit of Harp Mountain on Hiland Road near Eagle River. Crane Johnson designed a typhoon-proof tower and equipped sensors for wind, temperature and relative humidity sensors. Unfortunately funds didn’t allow a weather cam — they triple the cost of the station. We hauled the gear up the mountain, and following Crane’s guidance, Hiland Road skiers had live data by the evening.

Final tweeks on the anemometer. Through trial and error, Crane found that cables supporting a single tower doesn’t work. The cables get rimmed up, start vibrating and loosen. This tower was cheap, fast to install, and will last for years with little maintenance.

Today the Friends are having photographer Kris Erickson present at Anchorage’s finest establishment, The Beartooth Theater. The event on Thursday, October 28 is at 8 PM. This is guaranteed to be an awesome event with great photos, serious beer drinking, lots of gear door prizes and a gear auction. Last year Andrew McLean packed the house with 420 people and raised a heap of money for the center.

Thanks a ton for donating several Kode ski packs, Osprey!