Summer in Washington!

Well at least maybe it is Spring, but at least it is sunny out and I was wearing shorts all day yesterday!  My return to Washington brought me right into a massive rain cycle.  Kind've a bummer when you have made all sorts of plans in your head.  Rain is really the least conducive element to outdoor activity.  Sure, you can run, maybe bike, but you are always working around the weather, hoping to get something fun in.  Thankfully it let up over the last few days and I have been able to really enjoy being back in Leavenworth.  

We spent the last few days ground launching our speed wings out at Aerial Paragliding in Cashmere.  It is great to have a toy that can be used when the winds are too high for breaking out the big wing.  I am super psyched to be flying on the new 10 meter wing I got.  It is definitely faster than the 12 that I was on previously.  

Today  I am doing chores around the house, but still managed to get a good run, a bouldering session, and some work done by 3:00.  It is great to live somewhere that has such good access to so many things.  

Some Pics from the Exam...

These are just some interesting pics from the exam.  I am still working on getting the movie put together.  Between coming home, unpacking, repacking, and getting some skydives in, I have been busy!

What goes in a Ski Guides Pack?

Jayson and Jamie working on the sled.  One of the less glamorous 

Parts of Ski Guiding.

Marc leading us down the Cherry Couloir.  There is a pic of this from afar in

another post.  Funny enough, I got some radio transmissions from my PNH buddies across the pass as they were speedflying around Girls Mtn. just before we skied this!

Passed my Ski Exam!

So I am now a certified Ski Mountaineering Guide!  One step closer to getting my full IFMGA mountain guide certification.  The exam went well.  Everyone showed up prepared and the energy of the candidates was really good.  Cheers to the examinars as well, you guys really made it go smoothly.  I really thought that I was going to be able to blog my way through the exam, but it turned out to be so busy that I really couldn't be bothered to keep up. I will put together some photos and post them. 

At the moment it just feels really good to be home.  I am hanging, watching it rain and packing stuff back up to head up to Leavenworth and get settled into my new home!

Great tours, hammering winds, and broken down cars...

It has been a busy week of skiing and training.  On Wednesday we went up to the 27 mile glacier and toured up to Tomes Temple, across the north side of Tomes, and back onto the Worthington Glacier.  We finished up the day with a ski of Acapulco and back to the road.  Just over an eight hour day.  

The day began with a nice warm tour up to the icefall on the 27 mile glacier.  The snow was firm, and about as steep as we wanted to be skinning, even with out ski crampons on.  Towards the top we switched to booting and finished out the approach to the glacier on foot.  It is amazing how warm you can get up in the alpine, those glaciers just turn into ovens.  

We gained the southern ridge of Tome's Temple and cruised to the summit.  The decent was a bit exposed so we did some belayed skiing off the top and through some old debris.  The day finished as we accessed the Worthington glacier and Acapulco.  It was firm skinning again and short-roping to the summit.  A great tour overall.  None of the skiing was amazing, but still fun.  The tour really had a lot of transitions, from skiing to skinning, to booting and shortroping, which made for great training for the exam.

On Thursday Julia and I tried to ski from behind the Tsaina lodge up to RFS.  It quickly turned into a mission as we slogged through isothermic snow and avoided the countless willow trees.  At least we learned the lesson that we certainly would not be taking that approach this season. 

Friday we broke down.  About a mile or so from the pass Julia's borrowed car started smoking.  We pulled over, luckily facing downhill, and checked under the hood.  A belt was broken wrapped around the fan.  For someone as car illiterate as me, that means take it to the shop.  So we coasted all the way back down from the pass and the car is in the shop now.  That makes having car trouble in AK 100% for me over the last three years! 

Thanks Leki!

I wanted to throw a huge thank you out to Leki for their scholarship.  There are several companies in the outdoor industry that have set up scholarships for guides working towards their AMGA/IFMGA certification.  This season I was fortunate enough to receive the 2009 Leki Scholarship.  These scholarships really help us get through the programs and I really want to thank Leki for their help.  Thanks guys!

Pics from Sarah Jones!

Thanks for the Pics Sarah!  Sarah is one of the in-house photographers at PNH, she was able to get these shots on a few days when she was out shooting my groups.

Taining days

I have settled into my new home for the moment in Valdez.  It is good to get back into Anna's B and B.  She is the sweetest lady who houses and feeds all of us in the AMGA courses and exams in Valdez.  It gets to be a pretty busy house when somewhere around 20 of us are all staying on the same block and she is cooking for all of us.  

We went up to ski at Cracked Ice two days ago.  Found great skiing on the North aspects.  It was good to be out doing a nice tour.  I certainly missed the heli and my heavy alpine ski setup, but there is also something great about touring up and earning your turns.  It is also pretty exciting to be out training with the other candidates for the Ski Mountaineering Exam.  Practicing everything, discussing everything, everybody's nervous energy is great.  It really seems like a good, solid crew in the exam.  

View of Cherry Couloir on Python

From Cracked Ice

After our tour on Cracked Ice we went and practiced our crevasse rescue drills.  It went well for everyone, but I am sure we will all run through it a few more times before Mon.  It is interesting how all of us have all trained a ton for this specific test, and most of us have all pulled people out of crevasses in real-life scenarios, but it is still stressful to do the drill with someone standing over you with a little notebook to grade you. 

Yesterday we toured up to the Berlin Wall.  We picked the North Ridge approach to make it a little trickier and ended up battling our way up through rotten snow and howling winds.  There was no question that we were going to take the simpler approach from the south col for our second lap.  All in all, settling in well.  Looking forward to the rest of the week training and sending this exam!