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Dawn patrol in Alaska is at 9 in the morning.  Pretty hilarious.  There is plenty of daylight to get in a full ski day even in mid winter in Alaska, plus the sun doesn’t bake the snow too much which can make it dangerous.  Stu Brown took us to ski Sunburst in Turnagain Pass near Anchorage.  When we first pulled up it was white out fog, but as we skinned up, it turned bluebird. The snow was stable with a firm hard base as it was warm prior weeks, then we hit a cold spell about 9F.  The pow was soft and creamy and the whole Anchorage gang was out full of smiles with their handsome dogs frolicking around in the snow.  Nice scene out there.

We stayed with Stu and met some of his friends, and had dinner with Mike and Dayna.  Nice time in Anchorage.  Anchorage is looking nicer and getting fixed up a bit.  Its very diverse with Koreans, Samoans, Philipinos, Native Americans, and Hispanics.  People in Alaska sure are nice.  They let us stay with them at their house, lent us a car.  There are not many tourists in Alaska in December….maybe 4?

Movie of the Ice Axe Expedition to ski Antarctica November 2015 starring Jim Sogi and Sarah Smith, with Glenn Poulson, Otto Hub, Jim Granger, Doug Stoup, Karyn Stanley, Elizabeth Keane, Tekla, Andrew McClean.

The expedition to ski Antarctica  this year went perfectly from the day we left our house, to our return almost a month later.  Although Hawaii is a great place to come back to, it was really hot, raining and muggy, so after returning from New Zealand ski expedition, I had post vacation depression and was in a weakend state of mind when Karyn Stanley of Ice Axe Expeditions email popped up.  Hey, We have openings for some of the best cabins on the trip.   We decided to do it after thinking about it for five minutes.  Sarah spent some time helping her elderly mom to move to an assissted living home near LA.  The ticket to Ushuaia was incredibly inexpensive on Korean Air, and the flight was empty and I had a row to lie down and sleep for the 11 hour flight to Sao Paulo.  The food is great on Korean air and the attendants are pretty and nice.  Sao Paulo GRU is a beautiful, clean and new airport with good food and super clean bathrooms.  The US is falling behind world standards in maintaining public infrastructure such as airports, and public bathrooms.  The Tom Bradley International terminal at LAX is new and nice.

We got to Ushuaia in the morning after 3 full days, 72 hours of travel and were beat. Luckily our hotel gave us early check in a we collapsed, exhausted.  We had gone down 4 days early to be sure our gear made it, and skied a few of the lines that are visible from downtown Ushuaia up on the Martial Glacier.  The peso was at 14 to the dollar. You could get a live king crab dinner with wine for about $20.  Among execellent wines are Sauvingon Blancs, very crisp and fresh, and perfect with seafood.  We skied some steep  bowls and chutes on nice corn snow with a great view of Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel. Ushuaia is a nice town which thrives on tourism.  The people are friendly and work.  Crime does not seem to be an open problem.

Doug Stoup started Ice Axe Expeditions by exploring Antarctica ski lines on a Russian tanker with Kris Erikson 15 years ago, and put together a first class ski trip for the rest of us.  We sailed on Sea Adventurer, a 100 meter, ice hardened luxery ship, with 57 en suite cabins, and room for 117, first class dining, outer galleries and a top notch world class crew ready for adventure.  The ship is in great shape, and is well run by a friendly, and very competent crew.

There were fewer people, and more independent single women on board this trip than last time, and many new guides. They feel comfortable because its a safe protective environment where they can meet people and have fun without having to worry so much about personal safety.   We met many new friends among the fit, healthy and personable world extreme adventurers.  There is a great feeling of commaraderie on board as we’re all sharing the similar dream and on the adventure together.  The expedition team was top notch led by Alex and Doug Stoup. They got up each morning at 4am to scope out new unskiied zones and to find a way off the boat,  up on to the glaciers over the 100 foot icefalls that fell to the ocean.  They are experienced and led us to perfect corn and deep powder.  It snowed for days 4 feet deep, which was unusual, and probably happens once every thousand years, but we scored perfect fluffy powder days.  We had only one weather day, but my tire muscles sure didn’t mind the rest.  A few of the Scandinavian guides were characteristically dour, but the other guides are super friendly, personable and helpful. We go to meet and get to know Kiwi guide Mark Sedon, and famous ski movie stars Chris Davenport,  Andrew McClean, Kris Ericson,  and Todd Offenbacher.

After loading Zodiacs and heading to shore, we would take 3 or 4 runs of about a thousand feet each then head back to the ship for Hors d’oerves, and a 5 course sit down dinner served by friendly Ukranian wait staff.  The bed would be turned down in our cozy and clean cabin with hot showers.  Everything worked well and was clean.

The Drake passage can be rough, but going down was mellow with 30 knot winds and 5 meter seas. The trip back was rough with gust over 100mph and 10 meter seas.  The ship had to tack back and forth to get back to port.

There were so many highlights of the voyage.  We had an incredible sunset over the Drake with scores of icebergs hundreds of feet high stretching into the distance. The amazing Lemaire Channel, an narrow narrow gap with cliffs towing thousands of feet on either side of the ship is one of the wonders of the world.

The “White Party” was wild. Everyone dresses in white costumes, the bar was open, a passenger was a DJ and played EDM and people got down! Great dancing, fun costumes.

The next day was a powder day but no one was even close to ready for the first boat, except us, our group, and we scored first tracks.  My hero of the trip was a gentleman in our group, Otto Hub age 75, who has been backcountry skiing for 60 years from his child hood in Bavaria.  He was a ski instructor at Sun Valley lives in Tahoe.  Glen Poulson was our guide and was perfect for us.  He has traveled the world skiing on all continents but remains humble and soft spoken,  I really like him.

The true highlight of the trip for me was what I am calling Charlotte’s Chute which was an aesthetic couloir with 600 foot vertical and up to a measured 53 degrees steepness.  That is steep! The snow was a foot of soft pow that was stable and barely sluffed.  Good stuff.

It was called a once in a lifetime trip, but now I’m thinking more like every other year at least.  Will definitely go back.  Its one of the most amazing places in the entire world, and closer to traveling to another planet.

New Zealand is my favorite place in the world. We spent a month skiing New Zealand’s South Island.   It has great mountains, surf near at the ocean, cheap prices, clean places, nice friendly people,  picnic stops on the road every 20 k or so, holiday parks, snow covered mountains, streams.  Its just perfect.  We rented a Mercedes Sprinter Campervan from Alpha for $50 a day unlimited miles.  It had a stove, shower, toilet, fridge, dvd, heater.  The exchange rate pretty much gave us 1/3 off everything.  Hard to beat that travel deal.

We headed right up to Authurs Pass and skiied Temple Basin because you could walk up 3km up a steep icy snowy track to the base lodge where you could stay, and three big meals for $60 per person.  Kiwis are tough to be able to climb up like that, even the kids.  The weather snowed about 4″, then rained, and the promised snow was wet.  Got some skiing on interesting chutes and terrain. It was Sarah, me, one kiwi and 6 guys and 1 gal that worked there so we had the whole place to ourselves.  1 guy from Alaska, 1 from Canada, 1 from Kansas/Hawaii, and some Kiwi’s.  Great friendly bunch.

After a few days we skiied above Lake Tekapo at Roundhill side country and got a nice sunny day.  It has the longest vertical drop and its a big huge ridge with consistent 30 degree slope for miles The access road is the easiest of all the ski fields,  and with a camper I didn’t want to risk the gnarly ski field roads which are dirt, icy, narrow, one lane, and on cliffs. We skiied nice corn in the sun.  Then went to Wanaka for a few days.  The travel day was a big storm and dumped some nice needed cold powder, and the next days were cold, sunny, calm with powder, the perfect combination.  We got a great side country day at Treble Cone with about a foot fo powder after buying a 3 ride backcountry ticket for $18. Great deal.  We scored wide open bowls to ourselves with nice wind buffed powder and got three runs in.  The next day was perfect again, no wind, sun, cold, a 15″ fresh powder, so we went heli skiing and scored great nice powder runs up high. Our guide Chris owned a heli company in Alaska and was a great guy. Turns out his roomate is Freddy Varengo the famous ski mountaineer who does incredible tours and skis Mt Cook Mt Tasman, and Mt Aspiring.  Amazing stuff.

We met my friend Aaron Brown at Mt. Cook about 3 hours north of Wanaka.   Aaron wrote the book Chuting Valdez http://www.jagostreet.com/2010/12/chuting-valdez.html.  He’s one of the best ski mountaineers in the world, but is a modest guy and doesn’t promote himself.  We headed up to Murchison Hut up on the high glacier for a week of skiing.  The first day was nice and sunny, but bad weather was predicted.  It hit that night in force with 140 km winds and 70 cm of snow ranging from windpack to wet, crust, to dry fluffy powder on top. It was great skiing but super high avy danger so we hung close and just skiied the ridge. The next day we planned to ski down the ridge and up the Aida Glacier.  The ski down was a bit scary due to the huge open face in considerable avalanche danger above overhanging cliffs. We had to find the one chute through the cliffs, and couldn’t quite see it until you were committed.   We didn’t want to make any hard turns. There had already been a few point releases, but the snow felt slabby and the sluffs were heavy, and sluff management was the game on the first run.  It was the heaviest run of the trip with a solid 38 degrees and a 1200 foot straight shot to the glacier below.  Aaron looked very small on the bottom.  It was turn, turn, dodge sluff, each time.  Very gentle turns and constantly looking back up hill where there was another 1600 feet of 40 plus degress of slabby terrain above.  In good conditions it would be an epic 3000 foot line.  We headed up the glacier. I found a nice serac filled powder chute in a protected north aspect out of the sun and wind a got some nice powder shots.  Aaron headed up glacier, but wind slab turned him around.  He did a big line down a peak off the to the side.  Aaron is the fastest climber in the world, faster than Andrew McClean.  Aaron can easily do 8000 vertical in a day.  Not many people can do that.  He does about 3000 vertical feet an hour.

We skiied another two days of perfect sunny calm weather before the weather report turned south and decided to heli out.  We ended up in Twizel for resupply.  We skiied Ohau ski field which has some nice bowls and cliff bands.  We met Chris again that we met heli skiing who works there , and Aaron got to meet Freddy Varengo who also works there.  I wanted Aaron to meet Freddy, because the two of them could do some epic world class tours.   That night we went to the Twizel Barn Dance in a sheep shearing barn and met the locals.  What a blast. Everyone came up and talked with us and were real friendly.  They barbequed a whole lamb on the grill. The moon was full, the night was clear.  They played country music.   At the dance we met a heli pilot who gave us some beta on Cameron hut, and that there was snow on the ground there, so we decided to stick with the original plan and head up to Lake Heron and the Cameron Hut in the Arrowsmith Range.

The Cameron Hut is in HUGE terrain, with 1200 meter lines in all directions, all with 40 degree slopes and overhead objective hazard.  It needs rock solid avy conditions.  We got about 20 cm of much needed  snow that covered the rocks, but it was first soft, froze, got hard, then when the sun came out, it got soft.  On the way up, pin balls and cliff releases chased us off the route.  There was one “green” easy run up the “Carriage Way” a moraine that ran up valley.   A big slide closed it off from accessing the up Cameron Glacier, so it snot clear how to get up there.  To get to the some other mellower lines required a major slog over some massive moraines that are several hundred feet high requiring some boulder hopping.  With about a meter of snow, the area would be awesome ski terrain.

After that Aaron headed home, and I headed up to Craigieburn Ski Field, a friendly club field with the best terrain of any ski area in the world.  They have rope tows you clamp on to with a “nutcracker” and keep your hands out of the pulleys.  There are only a handful of skiiers, so there are powders lines all day.  We got about 10 cm the day before and it was sunny, cold and clear again, perfect conditions.   I found a great bowl and had all to myself for 3 runs.  I’m not sure why no one else came over to ski it as it was right next to the lift, right under the day lodge.  It was only a half hour skin back up.   Pretty amazing.  I’ll stay there next year at the clubhouse where you can get room and board.  I hitched up and the first car up and down picked me up.  Real nice friendly folks in New Zealand.

On the way home, Hawaiian Air announced at the gate, after the departure time of 00:30 am, that the pilot was sick, so there would be a 12 hour delay.  This caused missing all connections and a 2 day trip home.  Ugh.

It was a great trip.  Next year I think I’ll stay the whole season.

We spent 9 days kayaking up the West Arm of Glacier Bay National Park in a double kayak. The weather was sunny calm and warm everyday. We got about 35 drops of rain.  We were lucky. We had expected cold, wind and rain, and I’m glad it didn’t happen.  We saw 10 bears: 8 Grizzleys, and 2 black bears.  One black bear woke us up on the last morning smacking our kayak around.  I told it, “Leave the premises immediately.  Leave the kayak alone.”  It did.

I brought premixed pita bread with flour, yeast and salt. I mixed it with water,  kneaded  it, and let it rise.  We backed it in a pan, and some in a flat slate oven we built from stones on the beach and it came out very well.  Fresh bread in the wilderness!  It was a camping breakthrough.  The old time trappers used to bring only flour, sugar, salt, coffee and bacon (and a gun)  and live on it for a season.  So nothing is new, but its a break for us used to freeze dry, and crackers.  Flour carries well, lasts, light weight, tastes good.

We saw about 27 humback whales, some close as 50 feet away. They were all around.  Very cool.  We saw them fishing, eating, scratching their backs on the shallow rocks, lazing about.  We saw bald eagles.

The mosquitos and deer flies were vicious, aggressive, and dangerous.  If you were to lie out naked you’d be dead in about an hour. They would literally eat you alive.  Deet and a head net allowed me to keep my sanity.

We used the Hillegerg Nammatj GT and it was a godsend.  It kept out the bugs, the wind, the rain.  A really great piece of equipment and worth every cent.

We paddled with the tide and wind and went about 7 miles a day.  The last day the wind and tide were with us, so we put up a sail and covered 8 miles in an hour.

We went back to Alaska to ski the Tordrillo Range May 13-22.  Joe Stock, a friend from Alaska, gave me some beta and suggested Sportsman Air for ski plane pilots. I was a bit apprehensive because, first, I’d never been there before, and second, it was just Sarah and I, venturing out into the complete unknown.  Looking at maps doesn’t reveal the crevasses and conditions.  Ben, our pilot was a skiier too, and flew us on a De Havilland Beaver ski plane and  said “Pick a spot and we’ll land.” We picked out a nice spot from the plane, landed and set up camp and skiied for a week. The terrain was awesome for Sarah and I, mellow bowls and peaks with perfect smooth corn snow like someone had groomed it all night long for us.  After one weather day the sun came out and we had some great ski days exploring our glacier.  We climbed all the peaks around our camp and got some great skiing.  There is a lot of good ski terrain up there and we’ll go back next year.  There was no one up there for miles around us.  Its less “crowded” than Denali Park.  The logistics of flying out of Anchorage made the trip easier, as Sportsmans Air landing strip is 5 minutes away from Anchorage International Airport.  We left Hawaii at 9pm, arrived at Anchorage at 5am, head to Fred Meyer to shop, and flying into the glacier by 11am!! Pretty crazy. We really ate well because we brought a Coleman camp oven and baked fresh bread, bagels and made pizza, and Apple Tarts and cookies. Yum.  The Hilleberg Atlas kept us warm and safe. We brought a Mr. Buddy heater which warmed up the boots in the morning.  One day we found bear tracks along our skin track back to the tent, but it veered off just before the tent and headed down, thank goodness. There were many wet avalanches in the afternoon sun, but they were easy to avoid. The Crevasses were filled in pretty well and easy to see as long as the light was good.  I love climbing and exploring.  Its great to have some elbow room with no one around, no cars, no property lines, no roads.  Next year I hope Chris Lizbeth, and Stu come with us to explore new lines.

We had an incredible and successful expedition to the Alaska Range April 7-23, 2015.  Here’s the movie. The first 6 days were perfect sun, calm and stable snow and we got some big lines.

Stu Brown of Valdez joined us.  He’s rips big lines but is rather modest about it.  We all got along great and are planning more adventures. We scored really nice light powder, calm winds.  The snow was deep in the chutes, but it was super stable and the sluffs hardly ran.  We lucked out, at first, with nice weather because the group before us sat out 5 days of snow and bad weather, but it left great snow for us.  We lived in luxury on the glacier. Sarah cooked Apple tart, Pear Tart, Blueberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Chip Cookies. We had French Toast, Eggs Benedict, Pancakes, Huavos Rancheros for breakfast.

One perfect clear calm day, Paul and a friend flew in with little 2 seater Piper Cubs and were using the planes to land on the lower glacier and fly up to the mountain top where they landed and skied down.  Luckily we were able to hitch hike on their last run as they headed home and they flew us up to the top for a cool fly and run in sunny perfectly calm cold powder.  That was fun.

I skied my DPS R112’s and they worked well in the soft snow and held well in the steep couloirs.  The couloirs had amazingly thigh deep snow, but when skied did not sluff at all.  Incredibly stable Alaska snow which doesn’t appear anywhere else in the world that I know.  Stu got some first descents on a number of big lines.  They ranged from 37-58 degrees measured steepness.  I followed him up as far as time and my energy allowed and got to ski some very aesthetic steep big lines.  Its something I’ve always wanted to do.  We got the big main line in the valley, “Big Bird” Chute. Also Stu did a huge line I call Condor down the next valley.

I met Stu Brown thru his brother Aaron Brown in Valdez.  Aaron wrote the book on skiing the steep chutes in the Valdez area.  Stu picked us up at the Anchorage Airport at 5:30 a.m and we got some breakfast and headed north to Wasilla to shop, then to Talkeetna.  We were exhausted from our Daughter’s wedding 3 days before which we had at our house.  It was a happy wonderful wedding with all our and her friends coming from all over the world and helping. It turned to be a 7 day party.  We arrived in Talkeetna but the weather was cloudy and we couldn’t fly, but it was just as well as we were beat.  We got all weighed in and took a nice nap at the Talkeetna Air Service bunkhouse.  Talkeetna Air Servic e is owned by Paul Roderick.  He is a great guy, a fantastic pilot.  They run a super friendly, helpful welcoming operation.  They really helped us with everything, shipping, loading, staging, fuel, weather reports, wands.  I can’t recommend them highly enough. Great folk. Thanks to Vicky, Annie, Tom, Dennis, Richard and Paul for making the Pineapple Express Expedition a big success.

A big hit on the trip was the 1-K BTU kerosene heater which kept the tent warm and dry.  It was great having warm ski boots and dry gloves in the morning, and a warm place to relax after skiing.  We were running low, so Paul flew in several gallons of Jet A fuel which is in big supply at the airport and burned nice and clean in the heater.

After 6 perfect clear calm days of skiing in the Alaska Range, there was a 5 day snow storm which dumped over 4 feet of snow and we had to shovel to prevent the tents from getting buried. (Pika got 8 feet) The plane couldn’t pick us up on the scheduled day due to weather and when it did a day later, it couldn’t land in Talkeetna, the only airport when a front came through. Weather pushed the plane back into the mountains to the Ruth Gorge where we landed, but were stuck and out of gas. Paul had to fly up to bring fuel at 8pm. After trying to take off around 9 pm, both planes had to turn back again as visibility went to zero and we had to spend another night with 2 planes stranded on the glacier. I set up the group tent, melted some snow for water with the stove and luckily had some emergency supplies. Paul and Richard had to start the plane every 2 hours in the night so they would’nt freeze. We got out at 6 am the next morning in hazy conditions. Richard said it was the first time in 20 years he couldn’t land in Talkeetna. That was an adventure! Paul and Richard of Talkeetna Air Taxi are experienced, professional and very very competent Alaskan bush pilots who made good, safe, decisions, and made the extra effort to save us when we were stuck.

Still lots of great snow from big storm 2 weeks ago.  Hardly anyone up there.

NE Face is over 1000 feet vertical, steep

While we were in Japan, the same storm that hit there hit Hawaii dumping a meter or more of snow on Mauna Kea. It was the most snow I’ve seen up there in 33 years.  The skiing was great.

Great trip to Hokkaido. Not the blower powder as last year, but it snowed 5 feet in a blizzard so there was plenty of pow. Found a bunch of new lines and zones.

Deep Powder!

Top of Mt. Kemmel

We skied at Icefall Lodge in the Selkirk Range, Columbia Mountains, British Columbia Canada from January 24- January 31, 2015.  The fun Sandpoint Idaho gang was there again that week so things were sure to be fun.  The first day there was a storm with 30 cm of new powder, but it warmed up and became heavy.  After a couple of days it got cold and clear so we got some great runs in the high alpine in nice snow.  We even got to climb and ski Mt Kemmel and do the Ice Box chute, a big big line. The other guests at the Lodge were very friendly and convivial and everyone got along well.  Our guide Pierre Hungr is IFMGA certified and was a super great guy, and an excellent guide.  Highly recommended.  The last day we got a dump of soft fresh powder and sunny skies and got some nice pow runs before leaving. It continued to snow and snow.

The next week we rented an RV for 49 Canadian dollars a day! and stayed at Rogers Pass with Chris and Lizbeth from Sandpoint Idaho with their deluxe camper van Van Diesel with a super nice stainless steel woodstove, disco lights and all. At night we’d stay cozy and warm in their van and party.

We barely scratched the surface of Rogers Pass but got some great powder. It snowed for 4 days straight, when a snow storm was predicted to hit, so we had to high tail it out of there before getting buried.  There are huge lines up there.

BC is beautiful and the people are super friendly. So much less uptight than in the US. The currency exchange was really good so things were cheap.  We’re definitely going back next year or maybe sooner.