That noise you hear is me letting out a loud, contented sigh.  Finally, after five long months, I made it back into the mountains of Alaska.  My main goal as I was rehabbing my Achilles tendon was to heal well enough and quickly enough to do some peak-bagging before summer was over. If I could just bag a peak or two, summer would not be a total loss.   By early August, I was feeling ready and the weather was looking good. So Tim Kelley and I got together for a hike.

Tim suggested Bard Peak, which he had done before.  If you’ve ever gone to the Portage Glacier Visitors Center and looked across Portage Lake, you’ve seen Bard Peak. Here’s a picture of it in winter time. Bard Peak is the pointy one on the left.

Bard Peak is fairly close to home and seen by hundreds of people every day, but rarely climbed.  It would provide enough vertical gain, bushwhacking, and rock scrambling to give my legs a good test without too many unknown-territory variables.

We accessed the peak by paddling across Portage Lake. The paddling made for great bookends to a spectacular hike.  Check my photos below, and of course also check Tim’s trip photos.

It feels good to be back at home with sore muscles and a few scrapes on my arms and legs, enjoying the afterglow of a long-awaited peak-bagging outing.

April 29: This was one of those ski routes that I have drooled over for a couple of years. Always wanted to do it, but needed to go with guys who know more about glacier travel than I do. Tim Kelley and Tim Miller gave me that chance on Saturday. As always, you can also see Tim Kelley’s pics from the trip on his website.

On August 22, Scott, Brian and I finally tackled the Whittier Ridge Run that I have had my eye on for over a year.

On August 14, Tim Kelley invited Colin and I along on a peak-bagging hike in Prince William Sound. You can also see Tim’s photos and comments on his website.

On July 23, we joined a group of 11 other people on a charter boat to Blackstone Bay, which is 20 miles from Whittier.

April 21. Linda and I took the two dogs (Anouk and Taz) and did the ‘classic’ Anchorage-area crust ski across Portage Lake to Portage Glacier and Portage Pass.

A quick overnight trip from Whitter. We would like to do a longer trip further from port, but since we don’t have a boat and the shuttles are expensive, that will have to wait a while.

Linda and I had been planning to head south to Homer, Alaska this weekend. Homer is at the end of the Kenai Peninsula. We have not made it that far yet, but based on reports we have heard and our fondness for Seward (also a fishing town on the Kenai) we have been looking forward to going.

Our plans began to change when I checked the weather forecast on Thursday. It was supposed to be an absolutely perfect weekend in Prince William Sound. Sunny, 80 degrees, very little wind near Whittier (the closest access point to the sound). That kind of thing happens once, maybe twice a summer. If you have read some of the old journal entriesand my top five lists, you know that Prince William Sound is one of my favorite places on Earth.

So with perfect weather on the horizon and autumn looming only a few weeks away, we put our trip to Homer on hold, rented a double kayak, and headed for Whittier.

As soon as we arrived in Whittier, I knew we had made the right decision. It was indeed a spectacular day. We parked the car, loaded the kayak, and shoved off into Passage Canal. It was pretty slow going as we headed the six or so miles to the end of the canal, where the sound begins to open up a bit. We were paddling against the tide, which would become a theme for this short trip. When you are trying to squeeze a weekend sea-kayaking trip into about 30 hours, you can’t sit around and wait for tides to change.

When we rounded the point at the end of Passage Canal we looked across the mouth of Blackstone Bay and immediately saw where we wanted to camp. A mile wide beach at the foot of a retreating glacier. The rough topography of the shoreline in PWS makes camping spots hard to come by. This one had been marked on our map, and when we didn’t see any tents set up on the beach yet, we knew we had found our spot.

Crossing the 1.5 mile wide mouth of Blackstone Bay was a bit tricky. The water was a chilling aqua-marine color thanks to the many tide-water glaciers in Blackstone Bay and the wind was whipping out to sea. The waves were not too bad, but we were nervous that they might pick up. If we flipped over in this water, without another boat around to help us, we would be in real trouble. Fortunately the double kayak was very stable and the wind remained manageable.

We landed, set up our tent, ate some lunch, and planned our afternoon. The stream next to our campsite seemed to have more salmon than water in it. As we sat, a family of sea otters swam in front of us and played on the rocks nearby. We could have just relaxed on the beach and seen plenty, but we were itching to explore. Linda wanted to continue into Blackstone Bay to catch a glimpse of the tide-water glaciers, and perhaps a few small icebergs or calving glaciers. I wanted to continue out towards the open part of the sound in hopes of seeing some humpback whales. Life is tough when this is your big decision of the day.

Eventually Linda convinced me that we were still in a high traffic area of the sound and that seeing whales was unlikely. So we headed down Blackstone Bay, once again fighting the current. Along the way we saw an American Eagle perched high in a tree, surveying the salmon jumping below. After a couple hours of paddling we were about halfway down the bay and glaciers were just starting to come into view a few miles away. We would liked to have gone further, but we were getting tired and the tide was going to change soon and we didn’t want to fight it on the way home also. So we used the binoculars to get a few looks at the glaciers, then turned and rode the tide back to camp for dinner.

Sunday August 7

The next morning we were greeted by a seal who was doing some fishing near our beach. We cooked our breakfast as he looked for his. We thought about doing more exploring along the shoreline in the other direction after we packed up camp, but instead decided to enjoy a leisurely morning in camp, then pack up and paddle home.

It was a short and fairly mundane trip as far as kayaking in the Sound goes, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and enough to satisfy my Sound craving. For a while, anyway.

Our plans began to change when I checked the weather forecast on Thursday. It was supposed to be an absolutely perfect weekend in Prince William Sound. Sunny, 80 degrees, very little wind near Whittier (the closest access point to the sound). That kind of thing happens once, maybe twice a summer. If you have read some of the old journal entries and my top five lists, you know that Prince William Sound is one of my favorite places on Earth.

So with perfect weather on the horizon and autumn looming only a few weeks away, we put our trip to Homer on hold, rented a double kayak, and headed for Whittier.

Pictures from this trip are in the gallery.

As soon as we arrived in Whittier, I knew we had made the right decision. It was indeed a spectacular day. We parked the car, loaded the kayak, and shoved off into Passage Canal. It was pretty slow going as we headed the six or so miles to the end of the canal, where the sound begins to open up a bit. We were paddling against the tide, which would become a theme for this short trip. When you are trying to squeeze a weekend sea-kayaking trip into about 30 hours, you can’t sit around and wait for tides to change.

When we rounded the point at the end of Passage Canal we looked across the mouth of Blackstone Bay and immediately saw where we wanted to camp. A mile wide beach at the foot of a retreating glacier. The rough topography of the shoreline in PWS makes camping spots hard to come by. This one had been marked on our map, and when we didn’t see any tents set up on the beach yet, we knew we had found our spot.

Crossing the 1.5 mile wide mouth of Blackstone Bay was a bit tricky. The water was a chilling aqua-marine color thanks to the many tide-water glaciers in Blackstone Bay and the wind was whipping out to sea. The waves were not too bad, but we were nervous that they might pick up. If we flipped over in this water, without another boat around to help us, we would be in real trouble. Fortunately the double kayak was very stable and the wind remained manageable.

We landed, set up our tent, ate some lunch, and planned our afternoon. The stream next to our campsite seemed to have more salmon than water in it. As we sat, a family of sea otters swam in front of us and played on the rocks nearby. We could have just relaxed on the beach and seen plenty, but we were itching to explore. Linda wanted to continue into Blackstone Bay to catch a glimpse of the tide-water glaciers, and perhaps a few small icebergs or calving glaciers. I wanted to continue out towards the open part of the sound in hopes of seeing some humpback whales. Life is tough when this is your big decision of the day.

Eventually Linda convinced me that we were still in a high traffic area of the sound and that seeing whales was unlikely. So we headed down Blackstone Bay, once again fighting the current. Along the way we saw an American Eagle perched high in a tree, surveying the salmon jumping below. After a couple hours of paddling we were about halfway down the bay and glaciers were just starting to come into view a few miles away. We would liked to have gone further, but we were getting tired and the tide was going to change soon and we didn’t want to fight it on the way home also. So we used the binoculars to get a few looks at the glaciers, then turned and rode the tide back to camp for dinner.

Sunday August 7

The next morning we were greeted by a seal who was doing some fishing near our beach. We cooked our breakfast as he looked for his. We thought about doing more exploring along the shoreline in the other direction after we packed up camp, but instead decided to enjoy a leisurely morning in camp, then pack up and paddle home.

It was a short and fairly mundane trip as far as kayaking in the Sound goes, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and enough to satisfy my Sound craving. For a while, anyway.