Fairy Meadows

It turns out loading a heli is a lot like packing a Uhaul, but way more fun.


The Fairy Meadows Hut, our home for the week. The snow on the roof gives some indication of how awesome the pillows are in the area.


Heading up the skin-track into the crisp morning air.


Graham Jackson on the king of all pillow lines. I styled this one the day before and Graham just had to go back and ski it.


Looking across to the Rockies. The Colombia River is under all of those clouds.


Yep, we skied that Couloir. Beam Me Up Scotty is a 2000' fifty five degree couloir of awesomeness.


The money shot. Thank you Andreas.


The Adamants at night.


The group in the skin track headed up Colossal.


Icefall on the Granite Glacier.


Filling everyone's thermoses each morning.


Sentinel in the morning light.


Even with the camera strap this is a great shot.


Black Diamond really has excellent logo placement.


Check out our previous day's work on the East face of Sentinel.


Graham Jackson won the "Best Skier" award.


The group with Unicorn Peak in the background.

Ski Season!

Holly demonstrates the Mexican Poinsettia.

I love to ski! This year has been a bit of a bummer, but I already have over a dozen days in with lots more to come!

I discovered Silverton Mountain Resort a few weeks back. I only got one run in before they closed the chairlift due to high winds, but it forever changed my perception of what a ski area should be. One slow double chair with 2000' of vert, no groomers, hell no runs, $50 lift tix (it seems cheap compared to the $97 at Vail), mellowest terrain is a rowdy 34 deg, and best of all they check your beacon when you load.

I had one great morning of skiing at Meadows with Jake before it started to rain. One notable thing about that morning was the fact that I was breaking in a new pair of skis, or maybe they were breaking me in? I got a pair of BD Zealots this year and at 192 and mounted tele they sure are a handful! The learning curve was rough, but I think I have them figured out now. They sure do like to mash me headfirst into the snow at 45 mph.

Yesterday was the best day of backcountry so far this year. I have to admit my expectations contributed to the greatness of this particular day. You see, the base at some local ski areas is a paltry 15" and it hasn't snowed in weeks, so I was mostly expecting a workout and some pretty vistas. Boy was I surprised when we found a sweet 32 deg NE facing gully above Brainard lake filled boot high with recycled sugar pow! We also had an extremely funny group of six that hit it off instantly. We spent most of the day doubled over laughing, so how we made four laps is totally beyond me. Days like this are why I ski, I love hanging out with friends outside.

Back from Vacation

I have been taking a little break from the whole blog thing, which didn't go over too well with many folks and they let me know about it over the holidays. I miss it too, so I am going to do a better job updating this page. The evils of FB and my whirling dervish of a social life make finding time to sit in front of a computer, which quite frankly is the last thing I want to do when not at work, a bit challenging. Anyway, I'm back.

What have I been up to for the past four months? Not boating. Lots of time with friends and family over the holidays which was spectacular! I have gotten back into climbing, particularly ice. My rotator cuff seems to be fairly well healed from one of the swims I took on Gore this summer. I am trying to make the most of a ski season that has been sub-par on all accounts. I hosted a friends Thanksgiving here in Boulder. Dated a wonderful woman by the name of Edyn for a couple of months. Went on a run with my sister, rafted with Jake, skied with Josh, paddled with Phil, and climbed ice in Ouray with Brad, Dane, Rainbow and many new friends. Worked a bunch, and am still loving my job. More or less the same old, same old.

Upcoming, I have a couple of awesome trips in the works. On Thursday I am headed up to British Colombia for a two week ski trip. The first week will be spent at the Fairy Meadows Hut in the Adamant group of the Selkirk range. We get dropped of in a heli for a week of backcountry skiing, then it hopefully comes and gets us the following Saturday, or maybe they will just be able to drop food? I am stoked on the group for this trip. Graham and Edyn are joining from Boulder, Andreas is flying in from Germany, Brad is coming up from Salt Lake, Ted Day is cruising up from Boise, and Jake and Graham Melvin are making the trek from Oregon. November of this year will be spent on the Grand Canyon! I couldn't be happier!

Gore Race 2009

The Gore Race takes dirking to a whole new level. Everyone is a Class V boater so they can take care of themselves, but any time you get that many people together things go slow.


I set safety for the Gore Race this year. I saw a lot of this sort of thing.


I bring you... Behind the 8 Ball... the best R4 in the world...in all black.


Who doesn't want to paddle long boats down Gore in 18 min?


Pretty colors!

THE North Fork

Dropping into one of the easier Vs followed by Morgan from WA, Mike Reid Photo.

I have to admit, this section of river has been at the very top of my tick list for a few years. Deep inside I knew my skills were up to the task, but still I have been hesitant to run this classic test piece. I definitely wanted it to go well when I finally did commit. Labor Day weekend I finally took the plunge and experienced first hand the rapids I had been visualizing for a long time. It went great and I couldn't be more excited. On Friday I just ran the lower seven miles, which contains some of the easier Class Vs like Jaws I to III, Hound's Tooth, Juicer and Crunch. It went great and gave me a chance to get used to a borrowed set of tubes and frame. Although, I did end up in a rather large hole on river right in Jaws II. I battled my way out without incident and swore I would never go in there again, because the odds of a repeat performance ending as well are not in my favor.

Saturday and Sunday I ran the whole 15 miles of Class V from top to bottom and it went perfect both times. Nutcracker is the real deal, then the next bunch of read-and-run Vs are great fun with nothing too serious in the way of consequnces. Then there's Jacob's Ladder followed immediately by Golf Course (named for it's 18 boat eating holes). This whole deal constitutes almost two miles of continuous Class V with awful consequences for blowing a line or getting upside down. Undoubtedly, I was a bit intimidated dropping into this one both times and probably will be every time in the future (wonder about me if this stops being the case), but I totally nailed the line both times.

All told, my third Idaho trip of the year was just as good if not better than the previous two outings. It was so nice to fly and not have to do the drive. This would not have been possible without the generosity of the incredible Idaho catbaoters that drove me around and let me borrow gear. Thanks Al for the tubes and Craig for the frame. You guys are the best.

Gore Canyon

Gore Falls. You can see that the swim sucks if you screw up the 8 footer.

I rowed Gore Canyon on the Colorado for the first time on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day on one of the most classic Class V runs in the country, but things turned a little epic so all you get in the public domain is a pretty picture and a promise for a good river story the next time we have a beer together.

An Idaho 4th of July

Beautiful scenery on the South Salmon

For the 4th of July weekend I was able to escape for a whopping six days and take another trip out to the great state of Idaho. Phil was once again able to join me for a long weekend and I picked him and his kayak up at the Boise airport on Thursday morning and headed for destination Yellow Pine, ID. On the way up there we had the pleasure of seeing the ultra-classic North Fork Payette for the first time in either of our lives. The North Fork is one impressive piece of whitewater and it quickly becomes clear that the numero uno rule of road scouting does not necessarily apply. For those interested, the numero uno rule of road scouting is, gIf you can't see it from the road, it's easy.h Eventually we stopped road scouting the most awesome river I have ever seen, killed my iPhone by submerging it in water, made it to Yellow Pine, ID and were on the water by two pm.

We had the pleasure of boating the East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon River with a crew of three WA catboaters and the very solid R2 of David and Laura. David was Val Shaull's R2 partner the day they showed Dana and I down the Truss and had the infamous flat wrap. Anyhow, I promptly proceeded to make a complete fool of myself by popping an oar in the long complicated Class V that is Flight Simulator and my troubles didn't exactly end there. I managed to row a pretty good section of whitewater with one oar while trying to get my other oar back in until this large double fin rock blocked my downstream progress. My left tube popped up over the first fin and dropped into the slot between the two and pinned before unceremoniously dumping me head first into the river in a downstream flip. Fortunately the only injury was to my ego and that was the only section of Flight Sim that was not being watched from the road.

The next couple of days we repeated with same run with different boating partners and better results, except for the Phil's Rock incident. We were actually in Yellow Pine to meet up with our new Idaho catboater friends Jerry Kiser, Craig King, Steve Rich and Ted Day. The latter two were to be our partners in a three day wilderness trip down the South Salmon.

Phil came to have a rock named after him on our second day of boating the EFSF. He paddled over this wave/hole thing to find a surprise pyramid rock hiding right behind the pillow. His bow dropped between the pillow and the rock he pinned horizontally with his head downstream. I was ahead of him at this point and quickly alerted our boating partners to the developing situation. From my vantage, I could see that Phil was able to get breaths intermittently, but had no idea how long he could sustain the effort to do so. It turns out he had pinned in such a way that the pyramid rock was directly against his cockpit (lap) and precluded any chance of pulling his spray deck and swimming. After a minute and forty seconds of this heinous situation, Phil was able to extricate himself by climbing out the tunnel on his spray skirt. I have never been so happy to see a kayaker swim in my life.

It turns out that Independence Day in Yellow Pine is a pretty fun albeit redneck experience. We had some great fireworks, potato gun duels in Main Street, and a pretty good band on the porch of the Corner Bar singing the classic rock anthems. Later in the evening I had consumed enough whiskey to dance with the local ladies and sing karaoke in the Corner Bar. We didn't get a particularly early start the next morning for our South Salmon trip.

I am not really at liberty to discuss the South Salmon trip in the public domain. All I can say is that the South Fork of the Salmon really sucks. The whitewater is sub-par, the canyon is all burnt, the bugs are awful, no fishing, no good campsites, well you get the picture (above). Skip this trip and boat your local roadside commercial run instead.

Log Video

Upper Animas Weekend

Roger making the meat line at No Name Falls look easy.

Phil flew in from Vancouver, BC for the weekend and we drove down to Durango to fun the Upper Animas. Coolest raft trip in Colorado. On the way down we stopped and ran the Numbers section of the Arkansas with Kyle Dickman and his ladyfriend Turin. It was great to see them both, but I'm still not sure how we were unable to convince them to join us on the Upper A.

After a sleep deprived wrong turn and much dirking Saturday morning we finally arrived at the put-in caffinated, fed, carrying freshly sliced deli meats and a great bottle of Rum from the Montanya distillery in Silverton, CO. We met a crew of 10 others including Dana and randomly enough, Josh Mack, a guy I guided with back in the day. I just showed up at the put-in and he was like, Keith? Yep, that's me. Great to spend time with an old friend that just randomly happened to be on the same river trip.

The Upper A is rad! I can't go on enough about how much I love this section of river. We had a great crew, great whitewater, great food, we ran the Rockwood Box, made new friends, hung out with old friends, told stories, and slept next to the river. Dana had to drink booty for flipping his paddle boat in Mandatory Thrashing and Mark took a little swim in Red Wall which led to his consumption of the unknown bottle of whiskey I found in the eddy below. Awesome weekend!

Huge Loss of Wade, Micah and Jonny in Sichuan Mountains China. from Renan Ozturk.

The Epic Story of the Log in Dagger Falls

The first big river on this Spring's Idaho trip was the Middle Fork Salmon. Five of us launched on 5/19 and took off on 5/22, perfect to hit this year’s peak of 7.3 ft. Phil and Adam paddled their playboats, Jake and I were in our cats, and Amanda rowed a 14’ round boat with incredible style. The weather was perfect, the food was great, the group dynamic was as good as it gets, the hotsprings were the ideal temp, we met cool people, and the whitewater was awesome!!! All told, this was one of the best river trips I have ever been on.

In order to run the Middle Fork in the spring you have to start on one of it's tributaries, Marsh Cr. This is necessary because the road to the normal put-in is blocked by snow until early June most years. Marsh Cr. has a reputation for being full of wood and has been the site of many epic adventures in the past. This year Marsh was relatively free of wood and was actually enjoyable instead of just being a necessary evil for the rest of the trip to happen. The last drop before the normal put-in for the Middle Fork is Dagger Falls, a giant Class V monster of a rapid with a brutal portage.

We arrived at Dagger Falls to find the bank lined by freaked out paddlers with whistles and throwbags waving at like crazy fools to eddy out. My first reaction was, ‘Shit, someone died! Hopefully they just have ropes in the river or there is wood in the falls.’ The Dagger scout is pretty hard to miss. Bridge over river. Check. Giant eddy with stairs leading to it. Check. Thundering Class V clearly audible around the corner. Check. Why people were offering to throw me bags as I made the easy pull into the eddy is beyond me. Anyway, I looked at the first competent seeming person and asked what was wrong and if our assistance was needed. “Nothing is wrong we just wanted to make sure you guys knew this is the portage.” Portage?

I had a quick look at the falls to make sure it was wood free and to get my bearings. Jake and Amanda both decided they didn’t feel up to funning the falls. We had met three extremely competent Boise catboaters earlier in the day and they agreed to run Blue Angel style with me for safety and off we went. Four cats four clean lines. The three Boise cats agreed to set safety while I ran Amanda's raft through and Phil and Adam decided to fire it up in their kayaks. Raft and two kayaks, three more clean lines. At this point our group has just one more cat at the top of the falls and the Boise crew graciously agreed to set safety for me while I ran the final cat through the falls.

I jogged back to the top of the falls and took a breather for a second to get my game face on for round three then hopped in Jake's cat and pulled out of the eddy. I was in the swirly room above the falls getting boiled and swirled around similarly to my previous two runs when all of a sudden I experienced what can only be described as whiplash. It took a split second to realize that something totally unexpected was going on and I turned around to see the two foot diameter butt end of a 60’ pine tree between my tubes and pushing on my cat frame. At this instant the thing was lined up perfectly behind me and pushing me off line and sideways into a part of Dagger falls I had no interest in investigating. My first instinct was to get ahead of the thing so I started pushing on the oars like a crazy fool, but I quickly realized the insanity of dropping into Dagger Falls with a tree chasing me. My second instinct was, ‘Get me out of here before I die.’ I pushed harder than I ever have for the fish ladder on river left and abandoned ship in one magnificent leap. I mantled up onto the concrete of the fish ladder and turned around just in time to see the log mash Jake’s cat into the boulder that forms the lip of the falls. The log then released and chundered on through the falls followed closely by another huge tree trunk and a full tree with attached limbs and greenery.

All three trees disappeared around the corner and I turned my attention back to Jake's pinned cat. His boat was pinned, bow upstream, right at the lip of the falls with the only damage being a mangled oarlock and a broken oar shaft. Realizing that I would only be rowing with one oar over the falls backward I hopped back in the cat and bounced it a couple of times so it would release. I promptly flipped in the hole at the bottom of the falls and climbed into the cockpit of the upside down cat. My safety chased and we herded the cat into the eddy at Boundary Cr. We reflipped, replaced the oar and oarlock and proceeded to have the best MFS trip ever.

All told, I feel incredibly fortunate to have escaped the nightmare situation of being pushed around by wood above a big Class V with only a broken oar and oarlock. This could have turned out very badly! I learned this lesson and learned it well, I will always look upstream before pulling out of an eddy!

Sorry For Another Teaser, I Really Will Write About My Trip Soon.

Dagger Falls on the Middle Fork Salmon at 7ft.

Lochsa Carnage

Jake is in the Orange cat, I'm yellow. We are each featured a couple of times. More Idaho stories to come.

New York Times photographer Damon Winter was awarded the Pulitzer Prize today for his coverage of President Obama's (I still love typing that, President Obama) 2008 campaign.

There is a great montage of his work here...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/20/722464/-Im-in-Love-with-My-Country

Red Rock Canyon... Again

Yes, I went climbing in Vegas again. Without me implicitly saying so, you may be noticing that this is one of my favorite places to climb. This trip I flew in and met up with Dane for four days of awesome climbing. I scored a free plane ticket on my way out for getting bumped a mere five minutes, how inconvenient. I would have spent that time waiting at baggage claim anyhow. The first route we did was Sour Mash (600', 5.10a) in Black Velvet canyon. This climb is awesome! A highly recommended must do Red Rock classic.

The next day we had big plans to link up Black Orpheus (1500', 5.9+) with Rainbow Buttress (1200', 5.8), but the weather was less than cooperative. The guy in the entrance booth at 6am informed us that 60mph winds were in the forecast and he was right on. What he failed to mention was the snow. We were about half way up Black Orpheus when the wind picked up and a couple of pitches higher we were in a full blown storm. I got a wee bit of the hypothermia at the hanging belay for pitch seven with freezing gale force winds pelting me in the back with snow. If we could have bailed on fixed raps, we would have. We were pretty close to using our whole rack to get off that one, but the easiest way off was up. We repeatedly had to hit the deck on the flat summit to avoid being blown off. Needless to say we didn't get the link up with Rainbow Buttress.

Day three was leisurely, mostly we were recovering from the excitement of the previous day. We did three single pitch climbs, all great fun. We ate a bunch and we prepared for our big objective of the trip.


The East face of Mt. Wilson with our route shown in red.

The fourth day was the big one! Dane and I linked Inti Watana (2000',IV,5.10c) with the upper nine pitches of Resolution Arete (2800',V,5.10+,A1) up the Aeolian Wall on the NE face of Mt. Wilson. This is one big radical sandstone face! We spent about 2 hrs. on the approach, got to the top of Inti Watana at about 1pm, a few more hours to the summit, a nice nap on top, and three hours walking down First Creek Canyon in time to make it back to the car before dark. I have never done 21 pitches up a Grade V in a day and it was so fun! We even had daylight to spare! One highlight of the day came on the descent when Dane rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a mountain lion. It took off and Dane's reaction was to do the same. I was like, "I want to see the kitty, where did it go?" I got my wish about a minute later when the cat started back down the slot canyon towards us. This was one big cougar! My best guess, and no exaggeration, is 140 lb. We decided that sharing a slot canyon with a 140 lb cat stalking us was a bit intimate for our taste and boogied on out of there.