Two of my favorite summer activities are running in the mountains and orienteering. So I always look forward to the Arctic Orienteering Club’s Mountain Orienteering event each summer. It’s like chocolate and peanut butter. Two great tastes that taste great together.

This year’s event was on August 16, held in Bear Valley above Anchorage. It was organized by Trond Flagstad. Trond was this year’s Alaska Mountain Running Champion, so we knew it would be a challenging course. Trond also recruited a few fast runners to show up as well. It was shaping up to be an great event.

The race started with a 1500 foot climb to the ridge above Bear Valley, where the first control was located. When we reached the ridge, I was in fourth place and had a perfect view as Ian pulled off one of the best orienteering moves I’ve seen. He and Patrick (a very fast runner doing his first orienteering race) were in the lead together, chatting a bit as they ran. The trail headed uphill, just above a small band of rocky cliffs. Patrick headed up the trail, while Ian knew from reading his map that the control was at the base of the small cliff. Ian skirted below the cliff, as if he was merely avoiding the excess elevation gain on the trail. In the few seconds he was out of Patrick’s sight, Ian swept down and punched the control, without hardly breaking stride. He then rejoined the trail, and he and Patrick began chatting again. Ian let a couple minutes go by before he kindly told Patrick that he already found #1. D’oh. As Patrick turned around and headed back to find #1, he said “I didn’t know trickery was part of this.” I was so jazzed up by the great fake-out, that I could help but respond with a little smack about how we weren’t “going to hold his hand the whole way.”

We all had a hard time finding #2. The ridge line was moving in and out of fog, and it made the navigation more difficult. Ian, Bastien, Andrew and I were all wandering in circles looking for #2 when Patrick came by and asked if I needed him to hold my hand. Touche, nicely played.

Eventually all those other guys managed to find the control and slip off into the fog, while I was left wandering. Maybe I should have held someone’s hand. It wasn’t until another group of orienteers including Karl, Jen, Eeva, and Lindsey arrived, ten minutes later, that I was eventually able to punch #2 and move on. By then I was way back in the pack and pretty bummed. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out I was in last place for men doing the long course. Ouch. I had been looking forward to chasing Ian and Bastien through the mountains, and now I was all alone trying to catch people I couldn’t see in the fog.

I picked off the next few controls cleanly and also passed a lot of people along the way. As I descended off the ridge towards control #7 on a mix of scree, snow and tundra, I could see Patrick at the control about 5 minutes ahead of me. Bastien was about 5 minutes in front of him, climbing back up the ridge towards #8. Maybe I could catch those guys! Ian was out of sight, well on this way to an easy victory.

The second half of the race was almost all nasty side-hilling. My shoes were filled with gravel from the scree descent, and now my feet were screaming in pain with every side-hill step. I could feel the blisters forming, as the skin on my heels and forefoot moved independently from the rest of my feet. I was envisioning a shredded mess of blood and skin at the finish.

I caught Patrick at the next-to-last control. We said a few words (no smack this time, I learned my lesson) and departed on different routes. He went down the valley and up the other side, while I decided to side-hill (Arrrrgh!) around rather than lose elevation. I was confident that my route was faster, but my feet were so painful that I was barely limping along. When I reached the last control, I thought there was a chance that I was ahead of Patrick. But that hope evaporated as I descended out of the fog towards the finish when I saw him about a minute ahead of me. Bastien was three minutes ahead of Patrick, and Ian was way ahead, winning by twenty minutes.

Oh well, fourth place for me. I had been hoping for second, or even to challenge Ian for first, but it was a pretty good recovery considering my bad start.

When I took off my shoes at the finish, my feet were indeed riddled with blisters. But shockingly, none of them had popped. Ten minutes before, I never would have believed that to be the case.

The day after the race, I could not walk very well. When I did walk it was like I was stepping on tiny waterbeds. Very painful waterbeds. As I write this, two days later, the swelling has gone down and I am walking again. The pain has been replaced by thoughts of a great day racing through the mountains with friends.

Who knows, I might even be ready to run in Wednesday’s orienteering meet.

Results Here
Watch Ian school me in RouteGadget (we’re the only two who put in our routes)

Every day when I drive home up O’Malley Road, I look up and see False Peak, with the higher O’Malley Peak hiding behind it. Well, not for this summer, because its been hidden in clouds every day. But in years past I’ve seen it regularly.

O’Malley Peak is a great day hike from Glen Alps, and I’ve hiked and skied on both sides of many times, but never got around to hike it. So when I woke up Sunday morning to unexpected clear(ish) skies, and I had a few hours to spare, I figured it was a good time to give O’Malley a go.

I hiked from Glen Alps up through the Ballfield, took a short detour to look down over Black Lake, then started up the scree gully to get to the ridge. The ridge had some fog on it, so when I got to the top, it took me a few minutes to figure out that I couldn’t go any higher.

Looking east on the ridge from O\'Malley Peak

Yes, that is fresh snow (and some hail) in the photo above. Is it still called ‘Termination Dust’ if its been falling all summer? Is there really a summer to terminate? I digress. My goal was to continue back along the ridge to Hidden Peak. I stayed just below the ridgeline on the south side, since the north side drops vertically for a couple thousand feet. It was good traveling (at least by Chugach ridgeline standards), until I reached the point where I started ascending to Hidden Peak. There was some fog, and I couldn’t see a safe route to the top. I traversed around at about the 4500 contour line, hoping to find a gully to take me up. But I kept getting pushed downward by small cliffs, and eventually I had gone by the peak without seeing a good route up. By then I was running out of time, so I decided to head straight down the scree and snow to Hidden Lake, then run the trail back to Glen Alps. The trip took three and a half hours of hiking and jogging.

Hidden Lake and the scree field I descended below Hidden Peak.

O’Malley ridgeline, viewed from the south. Click for panorama

Chugach State Park is so close to home that I often take it for granted and forget what a spectacular playground it can be. This was a great hike. Many people travel thousands of miles to hike through rugged Alaskan scenery like this. And I was home in time for lunch.

No doubt you’ve heard about the biggest sporting event of the year, which kicked off on August 8, 2008 (8/8/8). Apparently the organizing committee of this spectacular event, which was created to bring together the world’s best athletes in competition and celebration, chose the date 8/8/8 because eight is a special number that brings good luck. It’s sure to be a momentous occasion watched by billions around the globe.

I am talking, of course, about the World Championships of the World Summer Slalom, Extreme and Big Air XC Skiing Championships, the first ever on-snow xc skiing competition in Anchorage in August! You were thinking of some other event? Nope, this is bigger.

You know how extreme skiers have Powder 8 competitions? Well, this is the summer equivalent. The chance to ski some eights on 8/8/08 comes around once every millennium, so we had to take advantage. The event was Tim Kelley’s brainchild. He rounded up Benji, Tim M, Ian and I and we hiked up the Rabbit Creek trail to a nice snowpatch just before the lake. After the opening ceremony pyrotechnics, consisting of thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, the skies cleared a bit and the games began! Check out the photos below. I only had my cell phone camera, so my pictures aren’t very good.

Check Tim’s website for better photos and results from the big event.

P.S. I just realized that 3 of the 5 photo sets in my Summer ‘08 album are ski trips. Its been that kind of summer.

P.P.S. Tim also posted a video of the event, which you can view by clicking on the link to his website. It’s quite funny, in an embarrassing kind of way. We look like a bunch of old geezers feebly trying to ‘go big’ like the kids do. Which, my wife reminded me, is a pretty accurate description. Oh well, at least the music rocks.

Last summer, Ian and I tried to hike from Turnagain Pass to Spencer Glacier Lake, then packraft out the Placer River. I call this trip “Center² Spencer” (Center to Spencer) because the route is Center Ridge to Center Creek to Spencer Glacier. Its as clever as I could get.

Unfortunately, we had to turn back at the pass near Tincan Peak, above Center Ridge. The cliff was a little too high and we didn’t have the right gear. So its been on my list to complete this summer. Friday was a nice day, so we jumped at the chance to do it again. We also took along Bastien, an orienteer who is visiting from France.

This time we made it. It was a great trip, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that some parts sucked. The bushwhack up to the top of Center Ridge wasn’t fun, but it was only half an hour. And after that, the walking on Center Ridge was great. Going over the pass was a challenge, but was made much more doable by good snow conditions and the fact that we had ice axes. The walking on the other side of the pass was easy-going with spectacular views, except for one steep bushwhacking section just before Center Creek Pass. And then, of course, the descent from Center Creek to Spencer Lake was awful. Some of the nastiest bushwhacking I’ve done. If they ever build the proposed whistle-stop trail down this slope, this could become a classic packraft trip. But not until then.

The trip took a total of 11 hours. We hiked quickly, but didn’t push the pace, and we stopped for a few snack breaks. We had a great time and made the most of a rare sunny day. Check out the photos for more details. Thanks to Bill for giving us info from his ski trip on this route in June.

I was up near Rabbit Lake this past weekend, and I happened to notice that the creek was still covered in snow in some places. Rabbit Creek is really cool because the first few miles of it are in a U-shaped gully. When the conditions are right, it makes a sweet halfpipe. Was it possible that with our cold summer, the halfpipe could still exist in late July? I had to find out.

Tuesday evening, I ran up the trail about forty minutes and endured plenty of snickers when other hikers caught sight of my skis. But when I dropped down to the creek, I was the one laughing. I was amazed to find the creek completely covered in a solid layer of snow for as far as I could see in both directions! The halfpipe lives!

I quickly put on my skis and skied uphill to the end of the snowfield. Then I turned downhill and ripped up the pipe. It took me about 5 minutes to ski from top to bottom, so I’d guess that the snowfield was somewhere between one kilometer and one mile long.

Incredibly, the skiing was not terrible. It was extremely slow because of the embedded dirt, but it was relatively smooth and solid. Check out the photos.

I like to bike to work as often as possible.  Today when I woke up, it was raining and the temperature was a cool 46 degrees at our house.  I wanted to bike, but I was not looking forward to having my butt get sprayed with cold, grimy water for an hour or so.  So I decided to rollerski instead.  It was just as wet as biking, but at least I was working harder, so I was warm.

So there I was striding uphill on Arctic Boulevard at 7:30 AM, soaking wet and preparing myself mentally to do battle with the midtown traffic on slick roads.  From the sidewalk next to me I hear a man’s voice.

“Dude, you are out of control.”

I look up just in time to see the guy give me a quick nod and a smile.  I like to think he was saying something along the lines of “You’re crazy to be doing that, on a day like today, in a place like this.  But I like your style.”

It made my day.  I broke out in a huge smile.  The comment was perfect for two reasons:

1) It was in almost the exact same spot where recently I was biking, when a waste-of-flesh teenager in a pickup truck coming the other direction cut me off by taking a left-hand turn in front of me.  As I slammed on my brakes to avoid a collision, he swerved towards me, gave me the finger, and then yelled “get off the fucking road” for good measure as he sped away.  So now maybe I won’t think of that experience every time I pass through that intersection.

2)  These days I feel like I am under control a lot.  Not much craziness happening in my life as a family man.  And I believe that being out of control every now and then is good for me.

So if rollersking through midtown Anchorage on a rainy day brings me back a little bit of craziness, well, I guess I’ll take it.

Toby and I decided to go packrafting on Sunday. After looking at the weather forecasts (cloudy, chance of rain, same as every day this summer) and the river levels (high, from rain), and my recent luck (or lack thereof) on new routes, we decided to stick to a known entity.  Recently, a number of people have raved about Resurrection Creek in Hope, so we decided to head down there and check it out.

We parked at the Resurrection trailhead and walked upstream past the impressive river restoration project.  After scouting a canyon, and deciding that it was more than we were interested in tackling, we put in just below the canyon.

Wow, was it fun!  The restored section of the river had quite a few boulders that created big (for a packraft) waves and holes.  We had a great time hitting the drops and popping in and out of eddies.   After the restoration area, the river eases slightly, and the rest of the run (about 8-9 miles total) is fast and lively but without any major dangers until near the very end.  There was very little wood until the last half mile, where we encounted a number of strainers and sweepers.  Some were across the whole river and we had to portage around them.  I could have done without that part, but it was well worth it for the rest of the run. We completed the loop with a bike shuttle back to the parking lot.

The water seemed to be pretty high.  Where we took out in Hope, the river was above its banks and flowing through the willows.   There is no gauge on the creek, but nearby Six Mile was at 10.8 feet.  My best guess is that the restoration section was easy class III at this level, and the rest was fun class II.

Because the river kept us busy, I didn’t take many pictures.  So all I’ve got to show you is this one picture of Toby near the end of the run.

…from the ass-kicking I took on Saturday. I did the Knoya Ridge/Dome uphill running race. It is a simple, no frills race up a great single-track trail into the foothills of the Chugach Mountains. It is just over three miles long, and just under 3000 of climbing (according to my watch). Trond Flagstad, fresh off his Mount Marathon victory last weekend, was the winner in 39:27. He was a whopping seven minutes ahead of me. In truth, I am not disappointed with my performance, even though I barely squeaked into the top ten. It was a very tough workout, which is all I was looking for. I can’t say it was fun, but I am very glad I did it because intensity has been sorely lacking from my exercise recently.

Knoya Ridge / The Dome Results 2008

While I’m linking to race results… I haven’t posted any orienteering results in a while, so let’s catch up. Our traditional meet season has finished, and now we are into the “fun” events for the rest of the summer. I think I probably finished third in traditional meet season points, behind Ian Moore and Bill Spencer. That’s pretty good for me. Here are the race results since the last time I posted:
May 28th - 1st place RouteGadget
June 11 - 3rd place
June 18 - I missed this one RouteGadget
June 25 - 3rd place RouteGadget
July 9 Score - O - 1st place

Many of the outdoor trips I do are fairly standard. They are on well-defined trails, doing routes that many people have done before. But the best trips are always the ones that are unique. In Alaska, a land with an infinite number of outdoor opportunities, it always seems like a shame to do the same old, same old. So I constantly have the urge to step out and do something a little different. Sometimes these ‘different’ ideas turn into successful trips. Other times, not so much.

Recently, my batting average on successful trip ideas has taken a nose dive. I’m hitless in my last three attempts. I think part of the reason is that I am searching for adventures closer to home. With greater family responsibility in the past year, my windows for play time have become shorter and less frequent. The problem with this strategy is that I live in a city of almost 300,000 people, many of whom are avid outdoors men and women. Chances are, if there is a great trip to be found within an hour’s drive of Anchorage, it has already been discovered. But that doesn’t stop me from searching. It just means that my failure rate goes up. Way up. Maybe someday I’ll learn to stick to the tried and true, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The unsuccessful trips rarely make it onto this website, especially when they get stymied in the first few miles. But I am making an exception for this one, for two reasons:

1) Its the only thing I’ve done recently
2) It was supposed to be the first ‘adventure’ that Linda and I have done together (just the two of us) since our son was born. So I felt added pressure to make it successful.

But alas, it was not. My plan was a day-hike/packrafting route on the Kenai Peninsula. I estimated about 6 hours of hiking and two hours of rafting. The area is not remote by any means, but I did think I had selected a unique route that could potentially become a packrafting favorite. I’m not going to tell you where, but maybe you can figure it out from this photo…

… or maybe not.

I knew there would be some nasty bushwhacking, which I thought we could handle for a mile or two. But the vegetation was even worse than I expected. Additionally, I hadn’t planned on dealing with a steep side-hill while bushwhacking, and the fact that the creek was raging, which prevented us from being able to cross in search of easier terrain. Plus, it was raining. Eventually, I admitted defeat, and we pulled the plug.

As a consolation prize, we went to the Johnson Pass trailhead in Turnagain Pass and hiked into the bridge over Center Creek, and rafted out to the road. I did this a few years ago as part of another trip, and it was a fun, relaxed float with a few sweepers to keep us on our toes. But today the creek was raging (Six Mile was at 11.4 ft, ‘action’ stage), and there were a lot more sweepers, especially in the first mile or two. Center Creek, usually on the easy side of class II, seemed closer to class III. But after three portages in the first mile, it opened up a bit and we enjoyed a nice run to the road.

So not exactly what I had planned for the day, but it was still nice to get out and about with Linda for the first time in forever.

The rest of the family got their weekend fix of hiking yesterday at Summit Creek. But I wanted to do a little more. I had a few free hours this morning, so I headed down Turnagain Arm for a hike up Penguin Peak.

One thousand vertical feet into the climb, I encountered snow. From there on up (another 3000 feet) it was all snow fields, which made for good climbing, albeit a little slow. When I reached the ridge line just below the summit, the ridge was still covered in snow with a nice cornice. The pitch was a little steep, and without any poles or axe, I didn’t feel like pushing on to the top. So I turned around and enjoyed a 3000′ glissade back down. It took me an hour and thirty minutes to get up, and only thirty minutes to get down! At one point, I had been in my glissade stance for so long (probably about two minutes), that my legs seized up and I had a spectacular face-plant. After I picked myself up off the snow and untangled my calf muscles, I limped down the dirt section of the trail and back to the car.

It was an energizing way to spend a Sunday morning. My knees aren’t what they used to be, so I love hikes that offer a strenuous uphill and a snow (or scree) descent. Click the picture below for a 360 degree panoramic from the ridge below Penguin Peak. Penguin is in the far right of the photo.