Girdwood to Penguin Traverse

The arrival of snow in the high mountains of South Central Alaska is eminent but Karol, Jen and I managed to tag one of the area’s classic ridge traverses recently, sneaking a good one in before snow closes the door on running up high. Girdwood to Indian via the high ridgeline that looms above the Seward Highway spanning between California Creek to the South and Penguin Peak to the North is one of the best outings found here. Roman Dial, no stranger to Alaskan adventure, calls it THE best ridge traverse he’s done. Hyperbole? Perhaps. But it’s been on our lists for a while and we were psyched to have a look.

Click to read more ...

Summer Distractions

I haven't been writing much for the last few weeks as news worthy events have been slim. One interesting opportunity that came to pass recently was that two friends and I bought a small, dry cabin on the Kenai. It should serve as a perfect base camp for ski, hiking and mountain bike adventures. The drive from town has always been a bit of a buzz kill for me so now we can eliminate some of the commute for multi-day excursions. We're putting in new windows and cleaning up the yard but otherwise the place is ready to go. Stay tuned for more on that. One thing is for sure, if you told me a year ago I'd own a condo and a cabin in Alaska I'd have shot coffee out my nose (at least, if I was drinking coffee at the time). 

Click to read more ...

2014 Alyeska Climbathon

The end of the summer has been busy with work and moving into a condo I decided to purchase. I know. That sounds crazy. Many felt I would never stay in Alaska, being perpetually homesick for the Tetons. But I spend at least 50 hours a week at my job and I tend to like this one so I think I’ll stay for a bit. I’m not one to plan too far into the future but I decided that having my own place to base from makes sense. The other thing I noticed is that if I don’t go back to Jackson too often, I forget how great it is.

Click to read more ...

Wolverine - Mount Elliot Traverse

With MMR behind me I can finally relax a bit and get into the mountains for some fun and adventure. Alaska's been experiencing a pretty nice summer with dry days on end that encourage travel up high. Anchorage is close to awesome ridge cruising and trail running. I thought I'd do a few posts about some of my favorites to showcase what we have and give a sort of reference for others curious about what's involved.

Click to read more ...

2014 Mount Marathon Race Report

Eric Strabel cruising to his 3rd MMR victory, 2014It’s been three weeks since MMR. I’ve never felt so relieved to have an event behind me. Not that the experience was a bad one - far from it. But I’ve rarely experienced so much anticipation and, in a way, anxiety prior to a race. I think it was the unknown of the all out downhill portion of the course and the significant possibility of bodily injury with such an effort that caused a lot of the ruckus in my head. It seemed that nary a night passed that I didn’t think about some aspect of the race as I tried to fall asleep. And my sleep is the first thing that got better on the night of July 4^th.

Click to read more ...