Summer Is Not For Blogging

A few scattered photos from the summer, which should serve as a primer for me to bring back the blog.

Canoeing the Clearwater with a large group of friends.  Mighty Mt. Hayes in the background.

While visiting Andy in the hospital in Anchorage, Erica and I took advantage to ski a day at Turnagain Pass with the indomitable Jesse Bear.

My old friend Blaque with our new friend Hege at Merrick's wedding at Sheep Mountain Lodge.

Blaque and I of course took advantage to visit Jesse Bear, since twice a month is not enough for me.  The camera was accidentally set to use the maximum (minimum) aperture, but I was much too hungover to notice at the time. 

Neale and I flew into the Ruth Gorge with big plans.

We wanted to climb the slender grey buttress of the right-most peak.  I could write an entire blog post just on excuses of why we didn't send.  

We quickly realized we had made a mistake, and expressed our emotions thus.

The Moose's Tooth, seen from the summit of Mt. Dickey.

We did some local cragging.

Constructing a sauna dominated my thoughts and plans for the summer, but was not completed all the same.  Eric and Liam helped me get it square, which can be the hardest part.

Laura and I packrafted the Jack River.  I have a disproportionate number of photos from that trip since it was so photogenic.  However, since I do not have a waterproof camera, there are no picture of rafting.

Dogwoods.  I took lots and lots and lots of flower photos on the trip.

A tarn at the high point of the hike that was just too fucking pretty to believe.

  

There is the misconception that you can packraft in nice weather.  This is not true.  If you're not cold, wet and miserable on at least some portion of your trip, you're not packrafting.

I went to Squamish for a month.  I took very few pictures of actual climbing, though I did climb quite a lot.  Colin sends a high, scary and hard boulder problem.  I did not do it.

Susie plays in a puddle on top of the Chief.

Every shot is a glamour shot.

Susie and Mandy rock out to - what else? -  I'm on a Boat on Capt. Rich's sailboat on glorious afternoon.

Back in Alaska, Erica and I packrafted Brushkana Creek.  No pictures of the actual packrafting, of course.

The Brushkana. 

The sauna refused to build itself, and so I worked at it, slowly and as time would allow.

We got a short-lived mid-September snowfall.

It wouldn't be September without a trip to Prindle.

Erica hoofs it in.

Andrew, Erica and I.

Then the notion of summer became dubious.  Matt and I went moose hunting, during which trip I managed to shoot this photo.

And now these pictures are really from winter - an ice climbing trip to Nabesna on my birthday weekend.  See Vaughn in the photo?

Stuckey leads the first pitch of Spring Fling.  We party climbed as Vaughn and I chased Chad, Jason and Angie up the route. 

It's winter.  If you make it back to this blog, I'm sure you'll hear more about it.