April 8th, 2018
The month in Magadan was enlightening and gave a closer look at Russian culture, at least for that in the Far East. I left about the second week of October with winter weather coming on. There were snow flurries while making a cold ride 60 km to the airport in Sokol. Magadan’s at about the same latitude as Skagway, Alaska. Friends in Magadan hooked me up with people in Kabarovsk where I laid over for a night. They drove me around the city and treated me to dinner, more music, tea from a samovar. At Vladivostok I boarded a ferry that took me to South Korea where I had 5 days of recreational riding across the peninsula to Seoul. The wilderness expanses of the Kolyma became unhurried tea house hopping in Korea. South Korean infrastructure I would have to say is better than what you find in the US on average. Manicured, shouldered highways, often bike lanes and paths; many tunnels through mountainous sections, all equipped with exhaust fans and lighting; Wi-Fi available automatically througout larger cities. People were friendly, things felt safe. From Seoul I flew to San Francisco and stayed with the father of my friend Neil Larson in Oakland and then Neil’s brother Paul (& Deb) in Pleasant Hill. After that I had a sublime late fall ride across the Sierras and the Basin & Range to home. After three months of sedentary existence, and corresponding adjustments, I was ready for another adventure and went to the Wind Rivers for a 10 day trip in late February. Below are a few photos and a link to some video. I went into the Titcomb valley area hoping to bag a peak, with sights on Gannett if the stars aligned. Turned out I had about 5 days of snowy weather, 2 of them in a full on blizzard, and didn’t climb anything. Those days, however, were spent in the luxury of a roomy snow cave, excavated each day a little larger, till I had a bench seat, a kitchen counter and could stand up in it. The only downside was that the entrance would drift shut during wind, and I had to clear it out during the night several times. Otherwise, the blizzard could howl all it wanted while you were cozy inside. Made it to the mouth of Titcomb Valley, then a shoulder of Fremont Peak from the Indian basin side (where the wind was definitely up). On the trip out I thought I’d get a booby prize of Mt Lester, but got turned around 200 or 300 feet short of a surprisingly difficult summit.
But it was still incredible as the Winds always are. I built the snow cave on the first day of the blizzard, knowing that the “1-season”, feather weight tent I had brought wouldn’t hold up at all in wind and snow. I had plenty of reading material, more fuel than I could ever burn, and days of hot drinks and soups; a Teton tea happy hour each afternoon. Had wine with dinner. Not bad being snowed in. One day I tried to write down all the Wind River trips I had taken over the years. I got to 55 with this one. Nine have been in the winter, 5 of those solo- tough finding partners for the winter stuff. Laurel and I made 19 trips that were mostly back packing but we climbed the N. Arete of Elingwood and Gannett together and made many long, trail-less tundra traverses. She was on 2 winter trips. Surprisingly, I only guided 5 trips there, but they were memorable enough to seem like there were more. The rest were climbing trips with many partners- Bert Stolp, Hal Gribble, Guy & Gleed Toombs, Pete Suci, Dave Lunt to name a few. We did hundreds of pitches and the climbs blur together. Those were some of the earliest trips and date back to the late 70s. I’m relying on images of a certain pitch or ledge or summit or camp or bear encounter or episode of gut splitting laughter and then try to tie it in with a given trip. I’m not sure I’ve gotten them all- or else I have too many. I climbed Gannett 6 times, once in the winter where an unplanned bivouac was necessary on the day we did the summit. We’re probably lucky to have lived through that. I hope to do 55 more Wind River trips before I die.
Below are a few pictures and an 11 minute video.
