the past two weeks (click on pics for big)
so the past couple of weeks joe and i have made the most of the alaskan summer that we could. last weekend joe and i covered more than 30 miles in one day by hiking a long ways and then packrafting down a river about 12 miles. it was pretty brutal rafting; we had to get out of the boats every couple of minutes to walk around trees that have fallen across the river. there were, in fact, a couple that we couldn't get around in time and got caught up and flipped over. this proved fatal for joe's paddle and he ended up doing almost the whole of the paddling with his HANDS. it was one of the craziest things that i have ever seen. i would go ahead and if there was anything crazy coming that i didn't think he could manage with his paws i would signal for his to get out of the boat. this made the floating very long and tedious, but not nearly as long and tedious as bushwacking our way back along the river.
the hike up to that point was incredible. we hiked up one valley to the very end of it and then climbed up and over a pass to the south and hiked down that valley into the river. the worst of it was at the very end when we got off the river a mile too soon and had to bushwhack our way up to the trail at 2am. it was pretty dark and we were very tired. in the end, we ended up trekking, rafting, etc. from 9am till 3am - a very long day.
yesterday was the opposite. two of joe's ice climbing buddies joined us for an awesome climb. we did a peak that is called "East Twin Peak." we spent the night at the base of it to get an early start and made it home by 8:30pm last night. we climbed from 1000ft above sea level to 5873' in only a couple of miles. it was, by far, the narliest peak that i've ever climbed. i never felt in danger, but there were a couple of spots that were pretty exposed and with the strong winds it was pretty uncomfortable in a couple of spots.
the decent was pretty rediculous. we ended up coming down a really narrow couloir (fancy french for scary ass gully) that taught me in a hurry how to deal with really steep scree (loose rock) and snow (snow). it was so steep and hairy that it took us way longer to get down than to get up.
