Rhythms Of Gravity

MT. Blackburn Alaska

2010-09-21T09:36:00.004-07:00

Story by Clark Corey of our May 2010 trip to MT. Blackburn Alaska

Alaska seems to have a strong pull on guides from SMG. Kirk heli ski guided there for years, Erik has done numerous trips, Marc H. has done guide training on several occasions, Hatch did a trip a couple years ago…and this year it was calling name. 3 months ago Evan Ross, a friend from Colorado, and I started planning our trip which would take us to the Turnagain Arm, the legendary Chugach Mountains of Thompson Pass (Valdez) and the Big Peaks of the Wrangell Mountains. Our itinerary: the whole month of May!

MT Blackburn 16,390ft

Our main objective for the trip was to climb and ski Mt. Blackburn, which at 16,390ft, is the highest peak in the Wrangell Mountain Range. Blackburn doesn’t see much traffic, especially ski descents, and we didn’t see a soul during our 17 day stay. Our base camp was at 7200ft and we had 1 high camp at 9900ft. Skiable vert?, you do the math. We chose to go alpine style, light and fast, so we could enjoy skiing as much of mountain as possible.
At high camp we got rocked by weather, stuck with a dwindling food/fuel supply, completely buried by snow and skunked on the route twice due to avy and weather conditions. Things were looking grim as we sat snowbound in the tent for yet another couple days, pondering the the deeper things in life, while mainly cursing the weather. However, on May 17th after wallowing through waist deep snow, weaving gaping crevasses, seracs and climbing alpine ice, we were finally rewarded with a beautiful summit view and a 6500ft descent. With a meter of new snow from two days before, we had the bottom 4000ft to high camp in perfect boot top to knee deep powder! Ahhh, now we can go back to Anchorage and binge on food…almost as good as the freeze dried!

Evan shralping the goods. Photo: Clark Corey

Evan at 14,000'ish feet Photo: Clark Corey

The author in heavin on an against peek surrounding Blackburn. Photo: Evan Ross

Altos de Copalita -- Carnage in Five Acts

2009-11-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Brown Water.
The kayak floated out, but I still couldn’t see Ryan. “Fuck the boat!” I yelled to Matt, who was still in his kayak. He floated in the eddy, alert. I threw my heavy boat on shore and scrambled up through vines and loose dirt and spiders up to a cliff outcropping. I was on the wrong side of the river, but on river left where I had last seen Ryan, there was nothing but sheer granite, and I didn’t see any way to get out of the river over there. I hoped, at least, that I might be able to organize something from this side.
A moment ago, Ryan was chocked up against the river-left wall, upside down. The heavy boil from the steep, narrow rapid buried his kayak, then receded. I tried to pull his boat free as I was flushed down behind him. It didn’t budge. The current swept me downstream. I saw him pop up, swimming, free from the wall. Then he disappeared again.
This was the beginning of our misfortunes on the Altos de Copalita—the first day, the first real rapid. It was late. In this part of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, the pine-oak forests that descend out of the cloudy mountains meet; here, jungle, but becoming a desert coastline in only 40 miles. It had just started to rain, hard and lucent, like at the beginning of a heavy storm. The water was already brown, but hard to tell if it was any browner than when we put on.
I was feeling useless, wrapped in thorny vines, trying to squeeze myself up through a dark crack to get to where I could come up with a plan, when I heard Ryan’s “Yipp”. He had made it up onto the gorge wall on the opposite side of the river. His kayak had gone through the next set of rapids, and we wouldn’t find it until the next day, after Ryan had hiked through the night to catch a ride back to Huatulco.

Eddies.
Eddies are a critical part of Expedition style kayaking. For the next two days, there were very few eddies where one could both get out of his kayak and get out of the gorge to scout or portage. In one such eddy, we found Ryan’s boat, its nose split wide open.
Another was a very small Last-Eddy that Evan and I got lured into. He stood waist deep in the water and held our boats, trying not to get hit by the falling rock I let loose as I climbed up the ravine. The rapid was unrunnable, but for a while we clung to our hopes of escaping the canyon that day. First, Matt lowered me on live bait to check out a river right semi-portage that was hazardous but possibly much quicker than the ravine route. That being no good, we made an intimidating ferry back across to Evan, who held a throw-rope that was small comfort. After two hours of hauling up the ravine, we were cutting beds into the jungle mountainside with hands raw and pulpy from rope-hauling our heavy kayaks. We left ourselves just enough light to find a spring in the ravine, and filled our bellies with water.
That night, in the dark, much was left up to the imagination; the jungle was as loud as the rumble coming up from the river. During the day, I wore a drytop and pants tucked into socks. I spend my days hot, but heat never attacks like ants. Similarly, to sleep, I zipped up tight in my bivy-sac and traded heavy sweat for unmolested skin.

Jungle-Desert.
Henrys 5 Star Accommodations

When we woke up in the jungle, it was late when we broke from the jungle camp—it took a long time to do the little things like make coffee and take shits when vines impede every movement.
On our way back down to the river, we were rested, and in the light the first thing I noticed was the life: there were these amazing spiders, with brilliant colors, and especially brilliant webs, which were gold and iridescent. There were caterpillars that to the naked eye couldn’t have been told from a stick, and some that look like what kids make in art classes, clownishly huge and colorful. There were ants that had a fiery yellow on their backs and behind, and Evan—in a loud panic—had to pull one of those from his neck.
Toward the end of the day, we had another very hard portage. We had been running some heavy but very good whitewater when we got to a rapid in which up, through the jungle, was the only option. There—or at least at that elevation—it wasn’t just that the vegetation was so thick—it was the vines, which grabbed feet and necks and paddles. They made you trip and drop your boat, and some of them had big hard thorns that made you bleed, and some had little ones that left your hands with fifty little prickers that stayed in until they festered and swelled. At the river we ran a big rapid that we wouldn’t have if we could have kept portaging. It was a big hole. Trashing likely, we count on our heavy boats for momentum. “Fire it up, Edog!” I said to Evan, trying to convince myself as well. Matt and I ran out front, together, and we both get hammered—but the good kind of hammered, the getting out of the hole-hammered. Evan did the same.

Gringos Perdidos.

One omitted detail here is that the previous parties to kayak this stretch of the Copalita—at least two—have done it in one, long day, with unloaded boats, and—we think—at much lower water. We had packed for three days just in case, but really were fixing on two. After our third night in the gorge, we had plenty of food, but we were getting late for our pickup, which we hoped Ryan had gotten out to.

Matt Willson trying to get himself and his 90lbs watercraft, back to the water. On one of many hellish portages

Our plan was to call on the satellite phone. This was the kind of trip where plans go to die—the phone didn’t work.
Early the next morning, we emerged from the gorge, and found our friend Ariel bushwacking upriver with a machete and a partner. Ariel was one of a group of river guides from the Rancho Tangolunda that had come out to help Ryan look for us. The Rancho guides work the Alemania stretch of the river just downstream, which was still way too high for commercial trips.
Waiting by the river, I found myself staring at the river and making up forms. Every butterfly turned my head, and I heard voices and yelps coming from the rumble of the river. I pulled ticks and brushed flies to pass the time, and hung out with the group of guides, and Lino, one of the owners of the raft company. We ate tostadas and sardines by the big concrete structure and a big tube that came out of the river bank, with two thick powerlines coming down the hill from above. Lino took Ariel and the others back that night, and left us with our Suburban, to wait for Ryan and company.

Palo Malo.
The next morning, we were sitting in the suburban. Matt looked over at me, his face ballooned from either bee stings, which he had gotten setting safety the second day, or else the mysterious palo malo—the bad tree whose shadow, the locals say, is enough to infect the skin.
Matt said, “I’m going to start it up.”
I said, “OK.”
Matt said, “Just to see, you know.”
The suburban wouldn’t start. The fuel pump was bad, which we didn’t know, but we did have reason to believe we were out of gas. Later that morning, as I was failing at catching fish in the muddy water, two electrical workers showed up in a new white Ford. At the little compound at the top of the hill, where we were buying our food now, Matt borrowed a mangera—a hose, and they let us try to siphon some gas. On the first few sucks, the acrid fumes went straight up the hose to my brain. Mexican Fords have a little grate to keep out siphon hoses. I kept trying, and got a big mouthful of gas, although not enough to get a flow. I coughed and spat, but saved a little face by smiling and saying how sabrosa es la gasolina—how tasty. The electrical workers, who came to the pumping station once a year, thought this was hilarious.
It wasn’t long after the white Ford left that the Ryan, Guara, Gabo, and Burre—the rescue party—came into view at the upstream bend in the river. They had hiked into the bottom of the gorge and had spent two days walking down the river—much like we had only nonstop, no kayaks. Together, we drank all the beer the old lady in the tienda would sell us, and ate them out of their green-corn tortillas, eggs, and sardine cans. In the middle of the night, Lino arrived with a mechanic, who got our gas going in the dark. Ryan drove out the suburban, to meet us the next day at the Alemania-section takeout, where we could get Matt and his swelling skin to a hospital and our team and all our ticks, parasites, and blisters, back together again.

Story By: Henry Munter
Photos By: Evan Ross

Skiing The Beautiful Twin 3/11/09

2009-04-02T16:55:00.014-07:00

The Upper half of the Beautiful Twin 3/11/09

Twin Peaks, Indipendince Pass, Sawatch Mountains, Colorado

I’ve been staring in awe at Twin Peak and the direct ski line off the summit this winter. Every time I’ve driven up Independence Pass my body’s entered a natural high as I visualize myself ripping turn on the upper face. Meanwhile, hands shaking and a case of shrinkage… Of ones size relative to this earth that is. Wile wondering just how steep the upper face was and the uncertainty if two blind pinches in the lower couloir. Would they go free, or turn technical with steep ice and rock?

The constant 100mpr Sawatch wind all winter long. Combined with lack of snow at lower elevations made me wonder if there ever would be a window of opportunity to satisfy my growing desire for this twin, or would it grow into an increasingly distant dream of mine?

Skiing in the last several days was turning out surprisingly good. Thanks to two winter storms that deposited a whopping 8 inches on average in the area. Most winter recreationist would wine about the snow reports and search for some other sport to pursue. Yet for the lucky few of us not pulling our mountain bikes out of storage, we know something they don’t. This type of snow setup, a few inches of pow on top of a hard and bomber snowpack, is perfect for summiting bigger peaks and pushing yourself on those burlier lines you’ve been dreaming about all winter. Skiing a little powder off the summits that make up our beautiful Rocky Mountains? Sing me up!

Thanks to this slow economy and my friends at work taking shifts from me left and right, I find myself forced to go skiing most of the week. Bummer. So the start of this past week started off with 3 days of superb sherralping, and three different lines on Star Mountain.

Tiff on Star Mountain earlier in the week

Myself on another line off Star Mountain earlier in the weak

These days of superb riding were leaving me giggly with the possibility that my day with the Beautiful Twin may be arriving.

So there I was, lying in bed sore from the last few days of skiing. Selling myself on the fact that tomorrow is that weather window I’ve been waiting for all winter to ski the Twin. Although you do have to be to work tomorrow at 4pm and getting up any earlier then 7am would be ruff on my 24 year old bones, the voices in my head were arguing.

So there I was, sitting on the East Ridge of Twin Peek. 600ft below the summit at 1pm. Having spent the last several hours slogging through thick, steep trees in knee deep, low elevation sugar snow, and making extremely slow and tiresome upward progress. So I turn on the cell phone, amazed to find service to call in late to work. I still have an hour and a half drive to work and am uncertain how long the decent will take me. If it turn technical in its hidden lower reaches, it could be hours I don’t have.

The phone beeps “one new message,” seeming eager to tell me that my manager to be that night is home sick. So there’s no one to cover if I’m late and the current employee on, needs to go early. Not being able to stomach the idea of retreating down this swag ridge, back to my car so I can make it to work on time. I stumble like a drunken man with a purpose, through loose scree to the summit of Twin Peek.

Finally atop twin peak and amazed to find deep, soft powder off the summit wile looking 4,000ft to my car waiting to break a few traffic laws to get me to work on time. I found true bliss in those first few turns off the summit. Steep hero snow above an uncertain line, will render anyone with an unforgettable natural high.

The quality snow and the Beautiful Twin led me on a path to one of the most aesthetic backcountry ski lines of my career. A steep and exposed upper face leading into a rollercoaster of a lower couloir, will stick with me as one of my greatest natural highs in life.

The lower line on the Beautiful Twin

Looking back to the last pinch

Four days Of Skiing In The Weminuche 3/28/09

2009-04-01T12:22:00.013-07:00

View of Upper Noname Creek Drainage

Tyler (aka sickbird) and I just returned from a four day ski trip in the Weminuche Wilderness of the San Juan Mountains. We started our tour by skiing to the Animas River from the East side of Snowden Peek. Followed the unfortunately, mostly dry rail road tracks to Noname Creek and spent our days skiing at the top of the Noname Drainage on Animas Mountain and Peak 14 (Scepter Peak). Unfortunately the lack of a good snow year left us short of reaching our skiing goals and we'll simply have to return another year in more favorable conditions.

Photo summery below:

Tyler skinning toward Snowden Peak

Looking down to the Animas from near the east side of Snowden

Crossing the Animas River
The top half of the Scepter Coulair. A lack of time and snow left us short of this beauty. Has anyone out there had the privlage to ski the Scepter top to bottom?

Bottom half of the Scepter

Tyler in the Gash Coulair off Animas Mountain

The long walk to meet the Train at Cascade Creek

Madagascar

2007-05-23T17:49:00.001-07:00

A short flight form Denver International Airport, up and over the Atlantic Ocean will land you in Paris France. Where I must say the Flight Attendants become very attractive! Another leap South from Paris will send you and your dream girls over the African Continent to the 4th largest island in the word and your final destination, Madagascar.

Here you will face one of Life’s biggest dissensions, do I stay on the plane and try to make eye contact with Pènèlope the Flight Attendant, one last time… or do I go kayaking? I voted for Pènèlope but my companions, Matt Wilson and Henry Munter won the vote to go kayaking, sending us into one hell of an adventure.

Madagascar will certainly change your life and I would highly recommend it. The Malagasy are by far the nicest people, beer and food are dirt cheep, the crocodiles are huge and the exchange rate is $1US to 2,050 Malagashie. Therefore, total group funds will probably land you in the millionaire range.

Matt, Hennery and I had 40 days of unforgettable experiences in this whitewater paradise and below you will see a small summary of our trip, through the lens so to say.

Sunrise

Country side

In Mada even you shuttle bunny needs to be ready to giver!

Once the truck is stuck in the mud and you’ve spent the night sleeping by its side in a downpour, its time to continue the trek by foot.

The Goods

One of the small channels of the Manangar River

Mat and Henry drying out at camp on day 3 of 6 on the Manangar River

The west coast of Mada is much drier then the east coast which you’ve seen above. Here on the Ikapo River, the whitewater is warmer then your Sunday bath, the air temp is nearly unbearable and the crocodiles are nothing like the big furry teddy bears we have back in the states. Peddler Henry.

When we arrived in Mada we saw ourselves as the cocky bad-asses from America, that could run anything and everything she could offer. So for are fist of many self-support trips, we pored over the maps and found the largest, steepest river we could. It was in the 100k + length, so we packed breakfast for 2 days, dinner for 3 and one big bottle of Whisky. Here Hennery is seen givenr on day 3 of the unplanned 6 day first decent on the Onive River. In the end we lost the cocky attitude and learned a lesson.

Henry seems to be pondering why he didn’t get any sleep the night before, as he stairs down the pointy rocks that made up his bed. This portage took us somewhere around 10 hours, with way to many huge spiders, two rappels, one pendulum and a section where we lined kayaks? Ya, I too thought you only did that with rafts.

The Mada shuttle rig. Partying with the loc's.

As I was looking through these photos I just wanted to see more whitewater, so here’s one last pic, of your day to day ledge drop action.

The Pinner, Grand Teton National Park

2007-01-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Starting the new year off right!

Sunrise and the line, “Pinner.”

Summit Push

The joy of anticipation.

The Views of the Middle Teton.

A little tummy in your throat action.

Freedom

5000+ feet later it is certainly time for a celebration.

Billy Goating in the Tetons

2006-12-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

Most likely a first D on the North West face of Treasure Mountain, and if not I hope the people before had as much fun as we did!

7:am we skinned our way through the Treasure Boy Scout camp on a new route to the summit of treasure mountain.

12:00: After to many switchbacks and a couple boldering problems later we arrived at the summit.

1:30: Lunch in the belly and completion of our Northerly snow pit analyses we where scared and disappointed at our results.

So instead of this bad ass line!

We opted for this more easterly Bunny Slope.

Brady Johnston descending into the unknown goods!

We soon found ourselves looking into some early season hucking or the start of rappel number one. After completion of the first rap, we had cruiser turns down to the next cliff band of uncertaindy.

Here we found rap#2

Standing ontop of rap#3 wishing I had more webbing and looking back at rap#2 with Brady at its base.

With dark swiftly approaching, we found ourselves beet down and still cliffed out. Rap#4

Sever thousand feet later we where looking up at our seemingly impossible descent, and yes I did learn that there is often much more snow at higher elevations than there is at lower elevations.

One random photo that I'm stoked on

2006-06-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

Warren's haven too much fun with the Fuzzy Bunny on Vallecito Creek

2006-05-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

Subaru’s and Waterfalls

Six days, 5 river, 3,000+ miles and plenty of goods to go around the table. Eleanor Perry, Kevin Driscol and myself had just gotten out of school for summer brake and where eager to get our first road trip under our belt for the summer. Eleanor needed to get to Eugene Organ where she was to pick up her new 06 Dagger Subaru.

It was Sunday afternoon when we set out to paddle new rivers every day, until I had to be back at work Saturday night at 5pm. We didn't have much time but felt we could make the best of it.

We alternated behind the weal every two hours squealing around turns at our top speed of 55-60mph. We drove all night until we arrived in the land where big water class 5 is just another pebble in your shoe.

We broke our first rule of paddling a new river every day right off the bat by spending 2 days on the North Fork Payette in Idaho. This river is to amazing to describe and I wish I could spend every day of my life here.

Ryan Casey sticks the line in Jacobs Later at 3000cfs

After growing gray hairs from fear and stress on the North Fork we drove through the night for the 2nd time. Arriving in Eugene Organ, we picked up Eleanor’s shiny new car which made me consider giving up everything I had in life to be her driver. This car was an automatic but had a spots mode that would allow you to shift gears manually via panels on the steering weal. All wile not having to use a clutch. Once the turbo kicks in around 3000rpms, all life’s troubles are left in your wake.

Unloading the huge wing of boats from one car to the next, looking for a little better gas mileage.

After picking up the new car we continued driveling for another 3 hours to the Little White River in Washington. I was so exhausted by this point I didn’t even take me camera. In short the day went kind of like this. One waterfall two waterfall yeeee. Three waterfall getting tired. Four waterfall I'm going backwards and am to tired to turn around. 4 5 and 6 all went painfully down hill from the last.

Day 4 we found ourselves with big juicy waterfalls and high water one the White River WA.

Kev dog flying into the white room. Kevin was stuffed into a cave for awhile after landing this waterfall leaving me to my limited vocabulary off oooo, eeee, ouch, ooo that sucks, as I was to far away to really help. I had fun watching at least and I think that’s what matters, right?

Day 5: We didn’t have much time so we decided to rally for a few more driving hours to Canyon Creek WA. We had low water but had a grate time and some supper fun class 4.

Eleanor at the bottom of the first of many waterfalls for the day.

After Canyon Creek Kevin and I drove non-stop from Washington to southern Colorado so I could be to work on time. We had lots of drive time on this trip but I still had one hell of a time and cant wait to get back to the North West

A huge thanks to E-nor for letting us drive her car from Durango to Washington and back so we could safe on gas by not taking any of our gas guzzling trucks.

Eleanor basking in the sun, thanks again.

Playing With Pandora’s Box

2006-05-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman, fashioned by Zeus. Zeus forced all the gods to give Pandora a gift in a plot to punish mankind. She was given blond hair and beauty, to curiosity and the power of healing. Which leads to the definition of her name (all gifted). Pandora was also given a box that she was told to never open.

One day, Pandora’s curiosity got the best of her and she peeked inside the lid of her box. Immediately all the misfortunes of mankind (plague, sorrow, poverty, crime, etc) come rushing out. Until now mankind had lived a life in a paradise without worry.

However there was one good thing that came out of Pandora’s box “Hope,” so now in times of evil mankind will still have hope.

My curiosity also got the best of me when it came to the granite wonderlands of the Animas River outside of Durango, CO. This curiosity began one year ago and here are the gifts, not evils that I’ve found in my little box.

Staring down the gauntlet at the put in for Pandora’s Box

Finding a little peace over uneasiness, through the art of photography at the put in.

Shawn Fullmer getting a little off kilter in the 5th drop, Swollen Member.

Contemplating the consequences of a swim in one of the few carved out eddies. (Photo by Keven Driskal)

Eleanor Parry seems to be a little to getty, not realizing what lays downstream. (photo by Kevin Driscol)

Overwhelmed to finally find light at the end of the tunnel. The crew emerges from gorge #1.

Luke stomping Long Rapid. (photo by Kevin Driscol)

Warren making the final moves in Long Rapid

Luke entering the turbulence of good old Rectiling.

Pandora throws one last lock at you before reaching salation. The key is finding the line that doesn’t land you in the sive on the right and the death hole and the left.