Monday, May 07, 2012

10 Years and bailing on Bellicose

In May 2002 I found myself driving my truck with all my belongings up to Alaska. I landed feet on the ground and had no idea really what the hell I was doing or why I just drove 3500 miles. Only that I was here now and I'd better start trying to figure it out.

Ten years later I've figured a few things out, but that's just a tip of it. I'm not much for all this introspective writing stuff so lets just say it's been a great 10 years living here. Thank you Alaska.
on with it.
 Bellicose. The Drool inducer. A haul from any trail access, big and bad. We've all had the itch for "someday" and can't remember the times in April's past where talk of a Peter's Creek mission has come up. JT as usual instigated pushing further so in light of a fickle forecast Tony, Becky, Toby, JT and I of us started skiing up Ram Valley Friday night for a glorified bivy camp over Bombardment pass, followed by a big day on Saturday.

The weather kept deteriorating. Our group of 5 turned into 3, we got high on the Schrod glacier in knee deep snow. Avalanche's resonating off the upper faces. White out. Reached a prominent notch where the "safe" options ran dry and the only way was to head right and onto the much larger loaded face which we could not even see, just not happening. away we went. down up down uppppp, down.

Stumbled down the Ram Valley road over 10,000 vert for the day later. she's a doozie. Making this a 2 night trip is a good idea.


Photo by JT, spindrift avalanches near Bombardment pass
Thanks for the great weekend guys.