Life is good right now. I am not responsible for any of this beauty but I would love for you to come and enjoy it with me.
These were all taken during the last two days, mostly from Tioga Road. The land is emerging sooner than usual after a mild winter.
A day of adventure with 2 incredible human beings.
Many photos and general awesomeness courtesy of Ben and Lindsey.
They travel a lot and write about it here:
Highway 12 over Lolo Pass eventually meeting up with highway 395. 1150 miles.
Cole and I climbed Moonlight Buttress. This involved a day to climb the first several pitches, a rest day, and then we did the route in a day. I don’t have pictures from the ascent day because my camera broke on this trip (again).
A chap by the name of Alex Honnold got famous by climbing this route without a rope in a little over two hours on April 1, 2008.
Last week I went for a hike. Hop Valley trailhead to Kolob Arch and back.
It was lovely. Here’s what it looked like sometimes.
We woke up and packed as a trio one last time on the nicest day we had seen in the last 2 weeks. Davy got on a train for Anchorage. His new plan was to fly back to the Bay Area and start a road trip.
Jeff and I put our bikes on the free shuttle that takes you to the end of paved section of the road that goes into the park. We biked 10 miles and dropped our stuff off and Sanctuary River campground. Ironically named, as it turned out to have the most-dense population of mosquitos we encountered in Alaska. Almost unbearable.
We fled the campground and spent the rest of the day biking 40-some miles into the park to Tolkat River. The bus system allowed us to throw our bikes on for free and get a ride back to where we had started.
We had 70 miles to go to get to the main entrance of Denali National Park. After about 10 miles of biking at the top of a large hill I looked back to see Davy riding his bike with one leg and instantly knew the bike tour was over for him. 🙁
Hitchhiking to the park entrance was our new goal. About 4 cars passed before Barry, an extremely nice manager of a golf course in Fairbanks, stopped in his Toyota Tacoma. We threw our bikes in the back and got a ride to an area outside the park called Glitter Gulch by the locals. Davy used his phone to plan his exit. I drank coffee and observed tourists trying to stay warm on a cold and rainy afternoon.
The next day was spent inside the park hiking. It was the first day of our trip that we didn’t get rained on. Denali itself remained hidden in clouds, but it didn’t really matter, the landscape was immense.
The quality of the rock was excellent. We traded leads and moved quickly as retreating if the weather got bad would be rather difficult.
We set our alarms for 4:30am but I was awake before then. We made breakfast in the dark and set out to find the base of the route. About halfway there it was light enough to not need headlamps anymore. Our plan was to do the Beyer East Face I, and we were at the base of the climb before 7am.
I spent the last couple days climbing the Grande Teton with my friend Conor. It was beautiful and humbling. Before you climb you hike 7 miles, gaining around 5000 ft of elevation.
A few days spent in the western part of the park last week. Dollar dollar billz yall.
You wake up in the morning hundreds of feet above the valley floor. Your day will consist of climbing. Your decision making energy is entirely directed towards climbing. For a brief period of time it is a simpler existence that reminds me of a main reason why I enjoy bike touring so much. Your objectives are clear.
