Iceland was insane. I mean, I've tried to write this post a few times, but I keep coming up with one word, "insane". I could try to write a long post about its unbelievable scale, its magical sunsets, or about our river crossing with the water up to the windows, but instead I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
I've always wanted to explore downtown anchorage at night, to see if I could sneak on to some rooftops and whatnot. I finally found some time to do it, and I ended up meeting some, well, interesting people and finding some sneaky rooftops to snap photos from.
Zach Basset, Gus Schumacher, and I drove out to Hatcher's Pass to stay in one of the cabins and ski a bit. It was 0 degrees, and in some stroke of unluckiness, we broke the key off inside the lock of the rocket box, where all our skis were. With the help of a lodge worker, we drilled out the lock and jimmied the rocket box open. By this time (6 pm), it was completely dark out, but we still decided to go skiing. After our toes warmed up, we took a break and took some night sky photos. The stars made an amazing appearance and we may have witnessed a UFO, We'll never know. Unfortunately, the aurora never showed up as more than a faint glow on the mountains, but we still had a great time regardless.
Dylan Moring, West High class of 2016
Greyson Adams, West High class of 2016
Sadly, I have to title this an attempt and not a summit, because due to time and daylight constraints we weren't able to make it to the summit. Not to say this will remain an attempt though, Bold Peak remains prominent on my list of mountains I intend to climb.
The plan was to bike out to the Serenity Falls Cabin on Friday night, sleep, then summit Bold Peak the next morning and bike back. Zach Basset, Brian Britt, and I met early Friday morning to load bikes and carpool to Eklutna. Unfortunately our other friends couldn't make it this time for various reasons, but we kept them in our hearts as we drove down the highway. We arrived at the Eklutna Lake parking lot as I realized I had forgotten both the parking permits and the cabin permit. I crossed my fingers that a ranger wouldn't come check the cabin while we were staying. It was well into the day as we loaded our packs and started the bike ride. It took about an hour and a half to reach the cabin on the other side of the lake and by that time our seats had become as painful as sitting on a metal rod, due to our lack of biking beforehand. We reached that cabin and immediately saw bikes leaned up against it. Other people had also booked the cabin (or just decided to stay there anyway), so we had guests for the night. The other people ended up being really friendly and even shared their food with us. We spent a great night of bullshitting and playing strange homemade pictionary games.
The next morning, we all forgot to set an alarm, but managed to wake up at a fairly early time. Our gear packed up and breakfast eaten, we headed out the trail to the foot of Bold Peak. When we arrived, we stashed our bikes in the trees, unloaded necessary gear, and started along the hiking trail. After walking along even terrain for a bit, we found a faint trail marked by a cairn heading up Stivers Gully to the left. A long scramble ensued, and after more than a few hours we climbed out of the gully onto a knife-edge ridge with fixed ropes. As we climbed higher, we came onto this slanted plain with tufts of grass and tundra that converged at the bottom over a very large cliff. It looked like something out of a movie. Our time was running low, so we pressed on. After 5 hours of hiking, we finally turned around at the end of a glacial valley at around 5000 ft. Our way down was much quicker, and we came back to our bikes in less than half the time it took to get up.
The ride back was a tired one, with our butts ridiculously sore and our bodies exhausted. We made it back to the parking lot as it was getting dark, and completely spent, we threw our packs into the back of the truck, loaded the bikes, and piled inside. Driving home, it was almost completely dark. All our energy was almost completely gone, but we still found the energy to make stupid jokes the whole ride home. That night's dinner tasted better than it had in a while, and that night's dreams were filled with even more adventures, each crazier than the last.
Video to come soon.
Alyssa Albright, West High class of 2016
Jian Evans, West High class of 2016
Flurina Boslough, West High class of 2016
Allie Epke, Dimond High class of 2016
Hannah Kim, West High class of 2016
It started as just an idea, but it quickly snowballed into an actual plan that surprisingly fell into place. Zach Basset, Canyon Tobin, and I loaded packs and gear into the back of my truck early morning Saturday and headed off on the road out to Matanuska Glacier. Unsure of our sleeping plans, we stopped at a Carrs on the way when we realized that we were lacking dinner and enough water for the night. After that however, it was just easy driving until the glacier. Pulling into the parking lot, we stumbled out, stretched out our legs, changed into Carrharts and running shoes (not proper glacial wear I know) and started out onto the glacier. We quickly realized that we couldn't walk for long on the slippery ice, especially as it started to get steeper and crevasses started appearing. The three of us decided it would be best to walk along the edge of the glacier where it had started melting enough to where there was a few inches of dirt and rocks on top of the ice. This helped enormously with traction, and by the time we decided to turn around we had made it a few miles onto the glacier.
The sun had began to set, and we realized that we should probably get back to the truck fairly quickly to avoid hiking in the dark. As we hiked back, we noticed that someone was having a fire in the parking lot that we were parked in. Earlier, we were trying to figure out where we were going to sleep at night, and we had figured we could just sleep in the parking lot. I had thrown a futon in the covered bed of the truck, along with a few sleeping bags, pillows, and a blanket. We hit the parking lot and saw some people standing around a fire drinking beer and doing general bonfire things. With some conversation, we figured out that yes, we could camp there, for a fee, and no, we couldn't have a fire that night. Unfazed, I asked them if they knew anywhere that we could drive to sleep. One of the guys gave me directions to an abandoned road a few miles past Sheep Mountain Lodge.
With the sun completely set and only the vague directions of some random valley dude, we set off to find this abandoned road. Luckily, the road was actually marked with a sign, riddled with bullet holes, that said "Abandoned Road." Tentatively, I drove past the sign, and after a few miles of some pretty rough terrain, we reached the high point and piled out. A fire ring was assembled and somehow, with the help of our fire master Zach, we got the wood we brought to catch flame. After taking some pictures, witnessing a sudden blizzard, and watching the stars for a while, we put out the fire and closed up the truck bed for the night.
The next morning, the truck was completely covered in snow except for the bed, which had apparently been so steamy that it melted all the snow. Zach and Canyon closed everything up, I started the truck, and we were on our way back. Other than a brief but much needed stop for warm pie, the drive back was relatively uneventful. We all talked about what our next adventure would be, and when we all parted ways, we were still stoked on our impromptu but exciting trip.
That night, I had already started the next trip.
