Mountaineering

Since my theory on life is pretty much: do what you love, dream big dreams, and do whatever you need to do to make your dreams into reality. Because you only live once, and you ain’t getting any younger (or skinnier), so do what you really want to do now.

This way of thinking caused me to decrease the ‘rainy day’ savings fund and enroll in a 12 day mountaineering guide and leadership course in SE Alaska with Alaska Mountain Guides starting April 28^th, 2012.

Day 1:

Forget what day of the week it is. Forget about what time it is. The days are now counted in numbers and the hours are counted by the sun rising and the sun setting.

After enjoying my free time and unemployment bum-bum land time in Utah, I drove up to Montana, then departed to Juneau, AK where I embarked on a ferry ride up to Haines, Alaska.

Throw together several 20-somethings from Sitka, AK, Wrangell, AK, Seattle, WA, and Fairbury, IL; along with a few 30-somethings from Fiji/Singapore, and Boston, MA and two mountain guides named Tim and Caleb and now you have six individuals not even attempting to realize what they are about to get into to.

We arrive at 8 AM with our backpacks loaded and ready with our personal camp gear at the office. At least seven large duffle bags are packed with other gear such as: ice axe, crampons, snowshoes, climbing ropes, food, pots, pans, stoves, etc…

After viewing the skies (cloudy), the mountains (covered in those clouds), our pilot, Drake, was not comfortable with the weather situation for us to fly out at 9 am. The waiting game begins. Ugh, a feeling of disappointment falls over the group. We killed some time with rope work and ascending/descending skills. Lunch rolls around and the clouds were still sitting ever so lazily in the mountains. Ugh. Just as we were finishing up our warm grilled cheese sandwiches, we get the word from higher above that the skies are clear enough and the ski plane can fly in to our destination!

The group gets hit with a wave of excitement and a whispered sense of rush beacons. We have to move quick and get down to the small airport runway before the weather decides to change again. No way do we want to be camping in town tonight, we want to get into those mountains! We hop into the van and then again patiently wait our turn to get into the ski plane.

First, the guide went into the plane with some gear and took some time scoping out if the plane could fly into our initial destination. We watched the plane very, very carefully, as we were hoping we could get dropped off near Mt. Emmerich. The plane drifted to the East. That’s not a good sign. What? Where was it going? Were we even going to be able to fly in today?  Then we lost sight of the plane and then it appeared again and landed. Our initial site was not appropriate for landing, but another site was do-able. 
 

 

The pilot was ready for group number two, followed by group number three, and finally group number four. It was just me and one other with the final gear, so I was lucky enough to grab that front seat and get a first class view for the best airplane ride of my life!

A quick liftoff and the river flood plain starts to turn into an intricate pattern of beautiful earthly design. Civilization floated away, along with my worries of normal life. The plane smoothly floats into the Chilkat Range, snowy mountains surrounded every direction you look, and you can’t even begin to imagine what it looks and feels like from the air. Just as soon as we took off, it felt like we landed. It almost felt like a video game to be floating and coming so close to the mountains and weaving in and out of them. I couldn’t help but think what a cool job a bush pilot has to be.

The pilot dropped us off ever so quickly onto an un-named glacier. This was going to be our home base for nine nights. I got a quick picture with the pilot and he jetted off. Just like that, life changed from comfortable and cozy to true mountain wilderness where it was us vs. the elements.

THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!