ChillyChugach

Goat Rock Redux - East Ridge Freesolo     A fter summiting via the west ridge of Goat Rock this spring, I wanted to check out the east ridge. Brought my rock shoes cause I've never donned rock shoes in the Chugach before, and this seemed like a good place to start!     I t was mellow, if exposed going until the crux near the top. 5.6ish with big, yet suspect holds, OR 5.7/.8 with much smaller holds and a crack on climbers left. Rock seemed fairly stable throughout, but I was extremely cautious all the same without rope! It was all very Zen and I never felt afraid. Walked off west ridge.  Photos Goat Rock and West Twin (left) in the morning sun.  Eklutna on the right. Grassy ridge goodness to Goat! East Ridge Cheat sheet.   Me @ summit.  Trying out the wide angle selfie! Summit! Summit! West ridge walkoff route Beautiful day Beautiful day Fiery tundra colors Fiery tundra col...

   After a 13 hour day bushwacking Icicle Creek on Monday, a cloudy, windy, buttslide-y Indianhouse on Tuesday, and a hardcore Service bouldering sesh on Wednesday (OK, not THAT hardcore!) I needed one more peak to cap off the vacay.  Benign!     Benign has had my attention for a while.  It's a B peak, it's over 7k feet, and it seems straightforward with very rewarding sights on a clear day.  I also had the good fortune of reading recent beta regarding snow conditions on Benign - it looked good to go, as long as you got up and down early!  With a lot of snow remaining in the CSP, combined with hot June afternoons, the mountains are shedding.  Ie, avalanching!    With that I mind, I was riding my bike around Eklutna by 5:30am and ditching it at Serenity Falls by 6:30am.  Unlike Monday's misadventure, I had taken the time to have a good look at the route for Benign.  That meant I felt confident in climbing fast, and...

Baneful Peak 5/28/2018  10 miles bike, 10 miles foot, and 10 miles out on bike.  Bonus avalanche activity and alder rappeling! Bashful (left) and Baneful (right)    Ahhh - the beginning of a three day weekend.  And what better way to begin than by scoping out some B name peak approaches?  Given the nature of Chugach bushwacking, there's a high level of certainty that any given approach will have at least some routefinding errors, so it made sense to go get a taste of the "B Peak Area" before trying to summit its larger denizens.  Baneful peak, a 5500' (ie "small") peak in the midst of this area, seemed the obvious vantage point.  By 8am, I was riding around the shore of Eklutna Lake toward Baneful. Bold peak peeking boldly.  OK, kill me for that one.      Leaving my bike at the start of East Fork, I was pleased to find that trailside brush was still quite low.  It was earlier in the season than...

Total Time - Just about 9.5 hours. 46 minutes biking in, 7:59:37 hiking, 46 mins biking out. Civic DX ready to roll!    I left my house at 5:30 and was riding around Eklutna by 6:20. There was a lot of bear crap on the trail, so I did some extra "hey bear!" in addition to my two bearbells. After 10 miles, it was time to ditch the bike - but what was this? There were already some people here! A group of two declared their intention to climb Bold, and there was a group of three trying Bashful! Riding around the lake Trusty 9:ZERO:7 Whiteout with Bashful above!    The two were still busy with gear, so I started walking with the trio, glad to have some company for what I had anticipated to be a very spooky (bear-ie) walk to Stiver's.     Once we arrived, I bade farewell to the group and went on ahead. My Bashful Buds :)    Things went great until I took a very ill-advised wrong turn, and ended up missing the alder tu...