backcountry skiing in the Wrangells/St. Elias region of Alaska
Written: Dec 02 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: dangerous
Cons: dangerous
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| kristenulmer's Full Review: Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park |
The tent rocks lightly in the morning breeze. Excited, I sit up and contort out the flap straining to catch a glimpse of that vicious north face we want to ski.
"It hasn't gotten any less steep overnight" Dean Cummings interrupts in his slow Californian drawl, standing tall and drinking a mug of hot, sweet Tang.
Looking up, "Maybe it's not as steep as it looks?" I suggest.
"Naaah, it's the Wrangells" he smirks. "It's steeper than it looks".
The Wrangell/St. Elias Range is the largest national park in the country. An extension of The Alaska Range going hundreds of miles east and into Canada, it could swallow Yellowstone whole six times. Paul Klaus had flown us deep into this awesome world in a single engine Beaver plane. Twisting desperately to see everything, I was afraid to breath because I might sob out loud. These huge mountains are so opulent, a person couldn't possibly climb or ski them all in ten lifetimes. It (I)hurt(I) to watch.
It's late May. I've been in winter and on the road for 5 months solid. Shouldn't I be home rock climbing in the crispy desert? And shouldn't Dean, after a full winter working as a professional skier and running H2O Heli Adventures in Valdez, be powering his kayak down rivers choking with snowmelt. Renouwned photographer Tom would do better taking photos of snarling bears and earning wads of cash off the Japanese magazines. Instead we climb and ski The Wrangells, thank God, because none of us could come to terms with the end of the winter.
Now it's noon on the hot glacier. Is it true that in life, what really matters is Sex, Money and Power? Couch dwellers probably add Oreos, Pringles and Schlitz to the list. Tempting, sure, but right now I'm more interested on spinning in circles until I fall down giggling. Quiet, modest Tom Evans stands facing a wall of white snow, blue ice and black rock; uncharacteristically howling like a rabid dog. Dean wails "Purple Haze" into a scratchy radio like a hallucinating rock star.
All at once we stop. No sound or another living creature exists for 200 miles. These mountains are Himalayan; colossal, hard and mad-as-hell. I've been to some really serious places before, but standing here I feel someone has taken a baseball bat to my stomach. I wish I could claw the knot out with my fingernails…
Paul Klaus owns a lodge and backcountry operation called Ultima Thule that sits 100 miles by plane from the nearest road in Chitna, Alaska. A tall, hard looking man in oil stained clothes, Paul is rude and impatient the way any man would be living so far from civilization. With his eccentricity comes world-class talent; The National Geographic Explorer program yearly shows him pulling microscopic mountain landings without breaking a sweat. We had stuffed his pockets full of money and asked to be taken somewhere BIG. Loading gear that day into the plane I questioned "Are there many skiers out there?" He jerked to a stop and looked at me through hard eyes: "There's no one out there" was his blunt reply.
What does Ultima Thule mean? Why, of course, sweet Webster; 1. The most distant goal of human endeavor, 2. Land remote beyond reckoning, or 3. Any far-off unknown region., Ah, love of my life…
"What's the name of that mountain, Paul?" I had pointed to an awesome 17,000 footer, feeling like a chained dog straining for a Big Mac., wanting to jump out of the plane and be there NOW. Over the engine whine he belted, annoyed: "Doesn't have a name".
What?! If that mountain sat in Colorado, they'd name every little runnel, knob, and crevasse…Billy's blowhole, Nick's nightmare. But here, it's just another ham sandwich.
Fear freezes our mouths into a stoic grimace. Every morning, like a kid grabbing the juiciest strawberry from the basket, we decide which wretchedly steep, unnamed, unclimbed mountain we might like to ski that day. Skinning to the base, on with the crampons, two ice axes in hand, we start our chosen routes. It's bloody hard work; clawing to the top, but there's more to deal with than sore forearms.
Day one: Dean steps lightly on a 55 degree powder slope. It cracks under his feet down to solid blue ice and BOOM! A million pounds of snow crash 2000 vertical feet in under three seconds. Wearing a panicked grimace Dean powers 15 minutes trying make it just 5 feet back to the icy ridge top. Day two: We rappel onto a face so steep while standing a foot from the edge we (i)still(i) can't see the first turn. It's solid blue ice. Day three: Tom stands on a snow slope and watches the ground crack open in between his feet like a scene from a bad Hollywood earthquake movie. Day four: While Tom stands far away, strangely naked, Dean and I step over a narrow, bottomless crevasse on a 55-degree slope. We stop for a chat. Sunburned but rational, we decide no turn, no face, no photo is (i)ever(i) worth dying for. Back to the tents and a fresh box of poptarts to soothe our wounded inner child.
These mountains are melting and we're scared. The sun cooks everything; the snow becomes water, our faces (and Tom's whole body) are done medium-well, and our tents have sunk three feet into the glacier. We see more ice than snow, more bottomless cracks than solid ground. First thing every morning we check out that nearby north face, (i)hoping(i), but the wall just becomes more steep and streaked in blue. Today it resembles a melting berry Freezer Pop. Each afternoon, the dead silence is only broken by the perverse sound of our own heavy breathing as we ax our way up or around these moving mountains, or by the incessant, mad BOOMs of afternoon avalanches and ice fall. We tip-toe carefully, euphoric in our desire to worship these awesome mountains, but every night our low-rider tents are a grateful relief.
At night camp is horribly cold. Cold enough we play silly games to keep warm; smear the queer, scream therapy, snow saw sculptures, glacier soccer. Cold enough we don't pee all night so by morning our stomachs ache. While sleeping, our burning sunburns keep us warm. And yet for some depraved, magical reason we've never been happier in our lives.
And then, The plane! The plane! Here comes Paul, ready to take us to new land! The gear is bagged and we fly off into the mountains wrapped in a bumpy little pile of metal. SICK! These peaks, my God I can't even speak… SICK! That face is so colossal and we're flying just two inches away from it. SICK! I clutch my heart, hoping it doesn't explode.
It's a bit safer now, this new location. Only if you don't find daily first descents on 55 degree slopes littered with crevasses dangerous. Dean has devoted his life to wander-lusting rivers, mountains and deserts. Tom is unable to move through the beauty of existence without making photographs. I love excitement. Our big mountain euphoria is so intense we have to set the alarm for midnight or we'll never go to sleep.
Our first peak here is a 55 degree, 3000 vertical foot wall located 2 minutes from camp. Turning down steep sugar snow is sweet, but kicking steps for hours up a vertical collapsing wall of the stuff is more torture than a month tent-bound with Idi Amin. We name the mountain "Sugar Daddy" after high-roller Steve Casimiro, our personal Big-Daddy, for allowing us this trip.
The next day Dean whispers prayers while watching me ski a 55 degree chute two meters from vertical ice and over two crevasses. I hold my breath on day three while Dean rips a 60 degree, technical ice-chunky face while snow crashes down, not stopping until every hole and flat spot at the bottom is stuffed full. We name his run "Different Wavelengths" to commemorate the peculiar nature of Paul Klaus.
But we're losing our minds. Too much stimulation leaves us goofy and rolling around on the camp glacier every evening, choking on noodles and sauce. Random subjects, like zinc oxide, diaper rash and front end loaders make us dive silly into the snow in hysterics. Tom carefully asks: "How are you today, really?" Dean answers with a goofy sob "When I was five my dog died and it's just so hard trying to move on…". I add "mere words cannot explain how I feel, so let me express myself with this abstract modern dance", and off I go prancing down the valley.
When Dean pulled off Different Wavelengths, I soloed a nearby 55-60 degree face which Dean named Twisted Sister. After clinging on the front pitiful inch of my axes and crampons on the icy, exposed face for over two hours, no rest spots and no ropes, glancing sometimes at the cliffs and ice below, by the top I was shaking and scared. "I hate this, I HATE this!" resolving never to put myself in this exposed surreal position again. But after the descent I'm as happy as I've ever been in my life, and I can't wait for the next, the next, the NEXT!
We stink, our hair is greasy, and dinner won't be ready until midnight. We have 30 different coats of 45 sunblock caked on our faces. Our howls at the midnight sun are loaded with the power of adrenaline. Tom stops smiling for just a second, looks at Dean and me, and says in a quiet, emotional voice, "You guys go on a lot of trips, and, I mean…" he looks down and shuffles his feet shyly, "are they all as much fun as this one?"
No Tom, they're not.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kristenulmer
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Member: Kristen Ulmer
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 91 members
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