Recent News



Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens--June 23-30, 2010


Matt Walsh and I climbed Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens during our recent Cascaces trip. Rockfall, a lost water bottle and camera (both down 3000 feet onto a glacier), and a late night chain saw incident are just some of the highlights. Too bad there are no crater pics from Mt. St. Helens--we were in cloud cover and the huge cornice made it unsafe to get close enough.

Here are the galleries for Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens:
Mt. Hood Gallery

Mt. St. Helens Gallery


Mt. Princeton--July 6, 2010


I climbed Mt. Princeton taking advantage of the cardio and leg conditioning from The Cascades trip. I summited from a 10,700 foot start in less than three hours--pretty good for a fat guy like me. I also hiked over the 13er subpeak named Tigger.

Mt. Princeton Gallery

Tigger Gallery



Dead Dog Couloir on Torreys Peak -- May 29, 2010


Matt Walsh and I climbed Dead Dog Couloir as a training climb for our Cascades trip in three weeks. The weather was great and it felt good to finally be back in the mountains. Dead Dog Couloir Gallery

North Star Mountain


Glenn and I climbed North Star Mountain on Sunday February 22. He camped the night before, and I met him near his camp the next morning. It was my first real attempt to use my AT gear for the descent. There just is not much snow this winter, so there really wasn't much skiing to be had. The ridge to the summit was awesome, though. Click the link below to go to the gallery.

North Star Gallery

El Diente Peak (14,159 ft.) -- August 2008


Matt Walsh and I headed out to the Wilson Group in August to check off his penultimate Colorado 14er--El Diente.
We were hoping to traverse from El D to Wilson, but the weather did not cooperate. Here is the gallery.

Atlantic Peak(13,841 ft.) -- March 1, 2008


Matt Walsh and I finally completed our summit of Atlantic Peak. It was a very windy day with sustained winds of nearly 50 mph.
The temperature was not bad for a winter ascent, but the wind chill was quite bitter. Check out the gallery.



Mayflower Gulch Igloo


Glenn, Matt, and I headed up into Mayflower Gulch to construct the largest igloo possible with the ICEBOX igloo tool--the 11 footer!
Glenn used the time lapse feature on his camera to capture this series of photos. Time Lapse Gallery
Here is another gallery of photos from Matt and me from the trip as well. Igloo Gallery


ICEBOX Igloo Tool Success!


Glenn Strouhal and I hiked up the road from Bakerville and into the Stevens Gulch Basin looking for good snow to practice building an igloo. We found great snow near the trailhead and built our first igloo. Check out the igloo.


High Winter Camp


Matt Walsh and I hiked up the road from Bakerville and into the Stevens Gulch Basin for a high winter camp at 13,000 feet.
See photos of the -15 degree adventure: High Camp Gallery


Denali Training and Fun


Chief Mountain
This was the site of two training outings in December and early January.
See the photos in the galleries below. The second trip was the first igloo ICEBOX tool practice.
We did not get the final three layers on the igloo, so Glenn slept in it without a roof.

Chief Mountain December
Chief Mountain Igloo Attempt

Mount Princeton Road
Matt and I made our first attempt at using sleds like we will on Denali. We only had Megasleds from Walmart, so the test was exciting.
The sleds wanted to do their own thing, and we battled them all day. We eventually camped around 12,000 feet, but there was not enough snow for an igloo.

Mount Princeton Gallery