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Local Events |
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Jan |
Willow Winter
Carnival |
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Feb |
Iron Dog Race |
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Mar |
Iditarod Days Festival
Iditarod Sled Dog Race
Sourdough Ball |
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April |
Baby
reindeer are born |
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May
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Salmon Fishing Starts! |
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Jun |
Colony Days |
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Jul |
Wasilla Water Festival
Moose Dropping Festival
Palmer Pride Picnic |
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Aug |
Alaska State Fair |
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Sept |
Aurora
Borealis start to become visible. |
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Dec |
Colony Christmas
Talkeetna Winterfest |
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Climbing
to the top of Mt. McKinley was an experience to say the least. The
next challenge on our month long trek...descend the north side of
the mountain and hike to Wonder Lake in Denali National Park. This
route is a “mountaineering classic”...at least that was what I was
promised.
Denali Pass at
18,200 feet is not to be taken lightly. Now our third trip over the
pass, we packed up all our climbing gear and carried it over the
pass, down the north side of Mt. McKinley onto the Harper Glacier
and through 16 miles of glaciers and ridges. The trip over
the pass was uneventful. However, as a geologist I was excited with
the rock transition from white granite to black granite. The only
visible life |
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forms were ravens and the insects dropping to the glacier from the
jet stream.
We walked late
into the evening and set up camp at Brown’s Tower, spending the
coldest night of the trip at minus 40 F, with clear skies followed
by a wonderful pink sunrise. I had to remind myself that it was the
end of June.
The climb down
Brown’s Tower was very steep with two or three feet of fresh snow.
We traversed past spectacular ice falls and started down Karstens
Ridge, knife like with thousands of feet of exposure on either side
and steeper than anything we encountered on our Mt. McKinley climb.
Working our way down the
(Continued on page 2) |
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