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 don’t like racing when I am out of shape.  After years of training being priority #1, its is hard to come to terms with no longer being at that level of fitness.  It is frustrating to ‘push the button’ only to find out that the button is broken.  Or even worse, to lose the button completely.    So I haven’t done much racing the past few years, except for the really fun stuff (orienteering, Tuesday Night Races).  I keep saying “Once I start getting back in shape, I’ll start doing some races.”

Well, I’m starting to realize that racing needs to be part of journey to get back in shape, not the destination.  Races provide the motivation to get out and train, even in the face of all the other life responsibilities. And nothing is better training than hammering on yourself for an hour or two, which I rarely do unless I have a bib on.

So to that end, I entered my first running race of the season - the Turnagain Arm Trail Run - on Tuesday night.  The race starts with about 12 minutes of uphill, and I was pleasantly surprised to be feeling pretty good at the top.  Then the wheels fell off.   The downhill pounding, the fancy footwork to avoid rocks and roots, the mental battle to keep pushing even though I was careening slightly out of control - it was exhausting.  It was also embarrassing.  This stuff used to be second-nature to me, yet I felt like a road runner on his first trail run.  Am I out of shape?  Yep. Getting old?  Yep.  Not much running off pavement this spring?  Yep.  Mentally, I packed it in and decided to just enjoy the run.  Towards the end, when the trail got smoother and went back uphill, I picked up the pace just enough to avoid getting passed by the first couple of women.  yeehaw.  congratulations.

After all that, I was surprised to find out that my time (1:03:34) was only a minute and a half slower than last year.   I guess I was out of shape last year too.  No matter, it was a good workout and it provided plenty of motivation to improve.

2008 Turnagain Arm Trail Run Results

I bounced back with a pretty good showing in this week’s orienteering meet on Wednesday.  It was a fun course with more controls and shorter legs.  I finished second, only 1:18 beind Ian.  Of course, Ian raced without a compass, just to keep things interesting.

Dan and Anne’s O Meet

Flashback to April 20, 2008: After a great weekend of crust skiing to Grandview, Skookum, and Bear Valley, with tons of snow and plenty of sun, it appeared that our crust ski season was finally kicking into high gear. I was looking forward to a few more weekends of great crust.

Now, here we are a month later, and I haven’t been crust skiing since (other than at Glen Alps) . What happened?? Our 2008 crust season was largely swallowed up by a freak two-foot snowstorm in late April, and subsequent cloudy weather. You just never can tell what the crust gods have in store.

As early May turned into mid-May I was finally coming to terms with the fact that the crust was not coming back and it was time to move on to summer. Of course, the crust gods threw another curveball last night: a clear, cold night followed by a sunny day. So, back on the horse.

This morning, Tim, Tim, Benji and I attempted to ski a place we hadn’t been before, but were thwarted by poor snow conditions at the trailhead. To be expected in May, I guess. So instead, we hit Turnagain Pass, which was as good as I’ve ever seen it. You know the day can’t be too bad when when your backup plan looks like this…

[Click the photo above to view this photo album. I didn’t take many photos, so I borrowed some of Tim’s. You can check out all his photos here.]

June 18: Linda and I have really been hitting the packrafting hard this summer. They really are the coolest things ever. With snow still in the montains, we’ve been doing a few short, road-accessible creeks to practice our skills. Still can’t figure out how to snap photos in the rafts without soaking the camera, so all I can show you are the maps.

June 3: Last weekend, I saw that there was still a lot of snow in Turnagain Pass. So even though it only got down to 45 degrees last night, I decided to go skiing - just so I could say I skate skied in June.

April 15: Bill, Toby, Andy, Seth, Erika, and I headed to Turnagain Pass to see if the snow had yet transformed to a skate-worthy crust.

On Sunday Sept 25, Linda and I mountain biked the Johnson Pass trail.

July 30th & 31st was forecasted as cloudy with some rain. So it sounded like a good weekend to do a sport where you are going to get wet anyway - packrafting! I packrafted on the 20 Mile River and 6 Mile Creek. So I guess you could say I did a packraft marathon (20 + 6, except that I only floated about 18 miles total).

On Sunday April 17, Scott, Bill and I planned to explore the crust skiing in Center Creek. If only I could get us there…

After weeks of waiting, the Anchorage area crust ski season officially began today.