Dear Splitboard.com,

Like many folks I visited the forum rarely over the last year. I apologize.

After seeing a hard vs. soft debate pop up it’s clear that splitboard.com will live again!

Always,
Chris

The Alaska Range was great this past season. There was a large splitboard presence at basecamp and several lofty goals were reached. I would like to congratulate Ryan Irvin and Zak Mills on their descent off Mt. Francis’ Southeast face, Zach Clanton for his ascent of Bacon & Eggs, and Reese Doyle for solo birthday descent off the Cat’s Ears on Mt. Hunter.

I was able to climb Denali by the West Buttress and snowboard back down the route. I had good snow off the summit ridge, and through the lower angle glacier from 19,000 to 18,000 feet. The headwall above the “autobahn” was soft but had lots of wind deposits that you had to dodge and dictated where you could turn.

Here are some photos and captions.

None of these photos were taken by me. All photos were taken by @ryanirvinphoto, @zachclanton or Rusty and Celine.

Ryan Irvin had flown out earlier to help with basecamp for Sheldon Air Service, Zak Mills and Zach Clanton had flown in from a week or so on the glacier near Haines, and Reese and Emily came from their home at Thompson Pass. I flew in to the glacier a couple weeks after.

Sheldon Air Service is a great family business and deserves your money.

Original Sheldon plane-

@ryanirvinphoto

Ryan spent something like 7 weeks on the Kahiltna Glacier this summer.

Congratulatory descents and climbs,

Zak Mills’ and Ryan Irvin’s line on Mt. Frances. Steep and big, we went a bit up this last year but found conditions not good for riding. Awesome they rode it this year.

@ryanirvinphoto

Zach Clanton’s ascent of Bacon and Eggs, a basecamp ultra-classic with around 12 pitches of hard alpine ice and awesome granite walls.

@zachclanton

Reese Doyle’s solo birthday descent off of Mt. Hunter’s west ridge,

Ryan Irvin and I started up Denali about a week later, with too much food, clothing, crap, and everything else. Clanton saw us off the right way down at the bottom of heartbreak hill. Later that day we ran into the rest of our group who left earlier for a day trip up to 12,000 feet.

It went pretty routine and easy getting up to 14k camp, some highlights were;

Riding down ski hill between caches
2 days in a storm at 11,200
Cache day at squirrel hill in 60 mph winds.
Endless amounts of gaper climbers who shouldn’t be up there.

Once at 14k camp we took several days of ski runs, stormy rest days, and acclimatization hikes.

@ryanirvinphoto

@ryanirvinphoto

@ryanirvinphoto

@ryanirvinphoto

@ryanirvinphoto

On summit day Ryan unfortunately got altitude sickness at 18k. He had to turn around but got down safe, and snowboarded the rescue gully during his descent. He did not recover until the next day when we descended to 11,000 feet.

Summit day for me was a long one, about 15 or so hours start to finish. I took a long break at 17k on the way down and enjoyed the sunlight and some water.

We left 14k around 5:30 with a large group of new friends, the Outward bound guys from CO, Jeff and Alex (alex also snowboarded from the summit that day) from MA, and Rusty and Celine from AK.

On the summit with Rusty and Celine;

About to ride from ~21,000 feet on the summit ridge

The next day Ryan was still not feeling better at 14k, so we had to make a quick escape down the mountain. We gave away 1/2 a gallon of whiskey that proved to be a great mistake.

Once down the hill he felt much better. I really figured out snowboarding with a 80lbs sled and there was great corn snow. I would ride either using “the dog on a tight leash” or the “wakeboard” method to handle the sled.

The “wakeboard” method you tie rope to the back of your sled and hold onto it like a handle. The sled goes first down the mountain and it pulls you behind. Just like in wakeboarding you don’t want to get slack in the rope.

The “dog on the tight leash you ride with the sled right on you toe edge, with rope at the front. Hold rope with about 1-2 feet space to the sled., and direct it where to go.

On the final slog out;

Once back at basecamp we kicked around ideas for our remaining 12 days on the glacier. We wanted to rock climbing in the Pika area but a 10 day storm opposed that idea. We ended up sitting around in camp, bouncing in between the artic oven at the top of the hill and the basecamp at the bottom. In between was fun Pow surfing on Clanton’s pow surf. There were some dejected folks there in that 10 day storm, mostly the groups who planned too much and cut out lots of food and had pre-pakaged meals, in tiny alpine tents.

Reese is bummed;

We did get to climb a few pitches up Mt. Francis’ climb “midnight ranger”

Then it socked back in;

We flew out and enjoyed several days of partying in Talkeenta. The night we were supposed to leave the road was closed from a forest fire, so everyone was stuck in Talkeetna. A late, drunken night turned into an all-nighter for Ryan as he soaked in a homemade wood fired hot tub on the banks of the Susitna. The locals, crusty as they are, are a great group of people and provide lots of great and interesting entertainment.

Thanks For reading.