New Beginnings in the Eastern Chugach

On a fall morning before sunrise my bedroom door swung open. The sound and invasive light woke me immediately and I rolled over to see a tall figure standing like Ironman in the doorway. Fully dressed and with a climbing pack on, his silhouette filled the frame. This could only be one person for two reasons: he was huge and he had no problem barging into my room, which used to be his as well. I knew exactly what was going on here.

“Ah shit. It’s Stephen.” I frantically thought as I rolled over wiping my eyes and groaning.

“Get your ass up.” I glanced at the clock… 2:45 AM.

“Come on Stephen it’s two forty-five in the morning.”

“Don’t make me rip your ass out of that bed.” He said back to me with a stern tone.

The truth is, Stephen is not only a freight train of a man, but he’s also my close friend. Therefore I didn’t stand a chance. Realizing I wasn’t getting out of this, I grumpily edged my way out of bed before Stephen could use brute force to get me up. I walked upstairs to the living room and sat down on the couch. The day before, Valdez local and all-around Chugach Choss Boss Taylor Brown had posted about current conditions on a lovely alpine ice face 300+ miles away in Thompson Pass outside of Valdez on 27-Mile Peak. We lived in the Western Chugach, this thing was all the way on the other side in the Eastern Chugach. I used to live in Valdez and I knew of this ice face as I spent time guiding on the Worthington Glacier which it was a part of and I knew the approach well. Unfortunately for me, I had shown Stephen the picture Taylor posted and told him how awesome of a climb it would be and that conditions looked great. We both had the day off and we briefly talked about going, otherwise we’d get up later and spend our day climbing ice on the Matanuska Glacier. Stephen had never been on an alpine climb. He’d also never stood on an Alaskan summit, which is a special experience if you needed to use technical skills and gear to make it there. I didn’t think we were going to go, so Christina Elderkin and I had a brownie sundae party and I went to bed really late with a mean case of “Sundae belly.”

Stephen Staley arrived to our house in Girdwood, Alaska in June on a last second job offer after someone had to back out from the position. He happened to call at the perfect time and got the nod. He had absolutely no glacier experience, no mountaineering gear or even so much as a harness. But oh my did he walk in standing tall and bright eyed. Stephen was from Jacksonville, Florida and carried himself highly, he was intelligent, polite, social, and curious. Moving into my room, I felt an instant connection with him as I’d gone to school nearby in Savannah, Georgia and we’d both played football most of our lives. He reminded me of many of my high school teammates and it didn’t take long before we were throwing cheap half-tackles at each other and talking about how bad we wanted to run over one another like on the grid-iron. Possibly even more than that, I was drawn to his urge to learn about climbing. He was budding with curiosity for the world of mountaineering and made it clear right away that he wanted me to teach him a thing or two about the mountains. I remember being that same person so I was fully stoked on teaching whatever I could. By fall, our friendship had grown very strong and we’d climbed lots of glacial ice together on the Spencer Glacier (where we worked) and Exit Glacier. He learned at a surprisingly fast rate and I felt like he was ready for an alpine ice adventure.

So here we were, me half-awake slouching on the couch, him jumping up and down ready to run through a brick wall. Accepting my position with a hard sigh I said not much more than, “Ok Stephen. You win. Let’s go.” At that moment the stoke meter exploded through his face and he was a wild animal let out of his cage. Like we were used to in football, his obvious outright excitement, pushing, shoving, and shaking me had me no longer sleepy and the light-switch turned on. I too was fully stoked. Stopping by our office for my gear, quickly packing my trusty red Cilogear 30L Skipack and having a fill-up at the gas station, Stephen and I were a couple of bats out of hell flying down the highway. 300+ miles to go. He took the wheel and said he’d drive us straight there. I thought… “Fuck. Now I have to drive 300+ miles back tonight when I’m exhausted.” In those first moments in the car, the sky still dark as we drove down the Seward Highway along the Turnagain Arm in the Fjords, it became completely obvious to me that today Stephen and I were going to make a deposit to the Life Experiences Bank and share a meaningful memory together on the summit of 27-Mile Peak. We were in for a very long day.

I slept on and off during the ride and Stephen must’ve driven way too fast because by 7:00 AM we were in the parking lot at Worthington Glacier. I kept thinking, “This is insane. We are so far away and tomorrow I have to get up at 6:00 AM to guide an ice climbing trip.” The climb, including the approach, is somewhere around 1,100 meters (or 3,500-3,600ft.) in total and is in a beautiful place! We got moving at a quick pace up the trail and onto the high moraine ridge that rides above the climber’s left tongue of the glacier. The Worthington Glacier is pretty big and you can use this high ridge to bypass the steep tongue and gain access to it’s upper cirque which features an array of stellar mountains. 27-Mile Peak is the first peak as you come up the ridge so the approach is short. The ridge itself is gorgeous. The air was crisp and much of the vegetation was taking on it’s fall colors. The sun was out and a light wind blew across us. The views quickly opened up. Looking ahead, you are in awe of the mighty Worthington with it’s expansive coverage, it’s peaks, and it’s intricate icefalls and crevasse systems. To all other sides the mountains are seemingly endless and surround you. The valley is broad and it’s proud peaks line it’s walls. There are relatively no climbers here aside from a proud rugged bunch of locals and these mountains (there are seriously thousands) are for the taking. This was my favorite time of year in Alaska and Thompson Pass was a place very special to my heart- I was really happy to be here.

Leaving the tourists behind, we continued on past the end of the trail riding rock ledges to the base of the wall and sat down to put on our climbing gear. Stephen was booming with excitement and so was I. This face, like many in the Chugach, is a broad glacial ice wall coming up from the main glacial body. It’s not a frozen gully or anything of that nature, but rather a wall at least 100 meters wide making it’s way to the summit. These faces make for exceptional and fun alpine climbing in the late summer and fall when they melt off their snowpack and with pretty much no one here, you’re almost guaranteed to have the entire cirque to yourself. You’ll probably be the only ones climbing in the alpine for at least 100 miles making for a really special wilderness experience.

We ventured off up the wall which was really low angle for the first while. Once it steepened, I got the rope out, this can certainly be comfortable solo terrain if you’re a sound and frequent ice climber but being Stephen’s first alpine climb, it was time to rope up! Wanting to go light, we only carried a 40 meter Sterling Nano rope and that was actually really annoying as I wanted to run the rope out farther. The ice was bomber. The sticks and kicks were stellar and we laughed our way up the wall. The terrain had a long stretch of AI3 (with a short section of AI3+/4-) for several pitches in a row which was totally cruiser bread and butter and then a lot of AI2 to AI3-. Cresting the main wall, we gained the snowpack and ascended lower angle slopes to another steeper but much shorter ice section. We wanted to get more AI3 in so we went out of our way to get the steepest part of this area. These ice faces are relentless on the calves and foot muscles as there are no ledges available so when we found a nice flat ice crevasse we hopped in and got off our feet for a drink and snack, now only a few hundred meters from the summit.

The weather was pristine and I could tell Stephen was really enjoying the experience. I knew I’d love it. Alpine climbing is my favorite activity so that was a sure thing but I had hoped he would fall in love with it as well and he clearly was. He said his legs were feeling pretty gassed, mine would be too if that calf burner was my first alpine ice climb, as we’d just smashed out more than a handful of pitches. So we sat for a while talking about life and gazing out at the incredible Chugach Mountains. When you get your first rest in a crevasse on your first alpine climb- you’re certain to be enjoying your day! We took a slower pace after topping out the final ice pitch and now needing to ascend the icey lower angle slopes of the summit dome. There was no need to push the pace. We’d made good time and seeing as Stephen drove us all the way around the Chugach Mountains this morning, I wanted him to enjoy the final climb to the summit and not be miserable. We were both out of water and stopped briefly at a deep-cut stream in the summit dome’s ice slopes. The clouds were high above us in patches and some light snow fell for a few minutes while we crested the dome, clearing away again as we got closer.

Just before the summit I stopped to let Stephen hop out in front. There’s something special about being the first to the top and it was his turn to feel that. The snow dome ended on a rock pile extending just a few meters higher. On the other side, a vertical drop of at least 100 meters gave great exposure (And a reason to watch where you walk on the loose summit rocks!). Now with a 360 degree view, we hugged it out and yelled like we’d just won a big game. This summit sure did have a beautiful setting! It wasn’t even noon and we’d traveled all the way to this point. Taking Stephen’s summit photo, I saw a man filled with passion and joy and a climbing partner I’d also be willing to get after it with.

Knowing the way down would take us a while (it’s easy but a long time on loose rocks so it’s rather tedious), we got going. That’s when the stark contrast in opposition of our joy settled in. We kept saying to each other things like, “Oh my gosh we drove so far!!” And bursting out laughing. We made quicker time to the car than we thought and drove to the Tsaina Lodge just down the road for some fries and hydration before taking on the long drive home. I took to the wheel and settled in. The views of the Wrangells and the Chugach range were postcard perfect most of the drive until it got dark. The drive became an agonizing mission and certainly the hard part of the day.

On the final leg, again driving the Fjords along the Turnagain Arm, the stoke rose again as we turned up the volume on some good old Rock N Roll and sang our way home. A truly awesome day and one we will both cherish forever. 600+ miles driven, a long ice route climbed, a summit in the bag- Mission Accomplished. A pretty impressive first alpine outing for a Florida man. Safe to say he was hooked. It’d only be a couple days before we took on our next objective, this time, thankfully, it was a local one.