A GUIDE TO IMPROMPTU ALASKAN WALKS...UM HIKES…OR MAYBE MINI MOUNTAIN CLIMBS

My friend Shasta and I decided to go for a hike at Rainbow tonight. Rainbow is flat, easy, and follows the gorgeous Turnagain Arm…it’s really a walk. So I didn’t really think much of it, I’m still trying to get back some semblance of fitness from surgery, a simple walk would be fine…

…Anyone who knows me well knows there is no such thing as a mild easy walk. Somehow I haven’t been able to figure this out yet. Shasta has a similar attitude, “Hey let’s go there!” Fortunately we both had waterproof, wind resistant jackets. That ended the preparedness however, so I decided to go over what we should have done just so that you guys can not be quite so naïve as us…

A Backpack! With a backpack those little extra annoyance become so easy to just bring along anyways…
Like…WATER!!!...a sweatshirt/warmer thermal. Actually I was wearing a (cotton, oops) sweatshirt, it came off early which I then proceeded to carry to the top no longer leaving my hands free for balance (which for me ended up a good thing so I didn’t inadvertently bump my injured arm)

OK, back to things to put in the backpack…Gloves…We got to somewhere between 2000 and 2500ft and it started snowing sideways. Back on the main trail to the parking lot my only ailment was cold, numb hands. Granted my hands lose circulation easily, but if you think you can climb without gloves in snow and 60-80+ mph winds you’re either Ross Baldwin or insane...or maybe even Nick Weicht (…hmm that might still fall under insane 

Maybe I should make a slight segway into our adventure. At almost a mile down the trail we reached this little outlook over the arm, and realized that our straight nearly level trail had taken us up maybe 500 vertical ft. After that the trail started going back downhill, which is never a motivating aspect for two climbers such as ourselves. Completely contrary to my character (yeah right), I suggested maybe could scramble up the rocks on the ridge for a bit. For a better view, of course. Shasta, crushing my elation, pointed out a faint trail 100ft away. It was a sheep trail. So up we went. And of course who wants to be the one to say turn around. We got up to about 2800-3000ft according to the topo map (not bad for an hour, 10min hike) and standing on one of those false summits looking at top within our reach we had a decision to make. Crampons, Ice axes, and ropes no way…we are bold, strong, climbers who laugh at the wind desperately trying to push us off that ridge. We giggled (like the confident girls we are) and danced lightly and sure-footedly to the top of that peak in 17min and 48sec. Oh yeah!!

OK reality check…like a jerk I told Shasta it was her decision whether we went on or went down. I gave her all the reasons this wasn’t a good idea.
1.) Going down is more treacherous than going up.
2.) If the rain and snow picked up it would be too slippery to make it down the way we came up.
3.) We weren’t prepared…we didn’t even have water.
4.) No one had a clue where we were or what we were doing.
5.) It’s just ending the freeze/thaw cycles. The rock is the loosest right now.
6.) We had no idea what that steep section behind a cloud was.
I say I was a jerk, because not only did I not give her a way to say let’s go, but also because I just wasn’t going to say let’s turn around. And turn around we did…which may be why I’m typing this now. And back to stuff for your backcountry outing…

Headlamp! Didn’t have one of these either
An extra shirt that’s NOT cotton. Yup I climbed a mountain in the snow in a cotton T-shirt…only Ross can be proud of me for this one for reasons we won’t mention. Seriously, I bring an extra shirt every time I go backcountry skiing and change at the top to get rid of that damp one for a nice dry one. We all know that going down gets breezier and colder.
I also might now consider safety glasses for anytime the winds top 60mph (after that I have no idea how fast its going) I’ve never done this before, but hey my sunglasses came with clear lenses. I’ve only used them for chainsawing, however now that my cornea has multiple gravel scratches from airborne pebbles…

I still probably wouldn’t, but you could add food and rain pants. The brisk hurricane kept any moisture hitting my pants from saturating it anyway. And food maybe a good pick-up, however that’s hoping the weather is amiable enough to stop and eat.

Well here’s the picture at the bottom. You can’t quite see where we were, it’s back behind there a bit, but we were well above treeline. And as normal you can see the weather cleared up at little bit by the time we got down, but it stills looks better than what it actually was that moment.