The Russell Incident

First View of Russell

Base Camp, Russell on the left

Tail Ski Issues
Duct Tape repair, that's a lot of duct tape.....
The Otter in the hangar as it looked the day we flew back to Talkeetna from Mt. Russell

Our Mount Russell trip had a lot of firsts for everyone on the trip (unfortunately for some). This trip marked the first guided climb on Mt. Russell (seventh expedition ever). Also, probably the first time a multi-million dollar DeHavilland Otter Wiped out a tail ski and rear end on the upper Yentna glacier. These pictures show the mountain on our flight in, and also the aftermath of our landing on the glacier. The deep snow, combined with a weak bungee cord affixing the front of the tail ski to the aircraft allowed the tail ski to catch sideways and rotate up and around into the fuselage of the aircraft. Paul (owner of TAT) was our pilot and he did a great job of recovering and dealing with the scenario. Another pilot/mechanic flew in in a Cessna 185, repaired the Otter while Paul flew back to Talkeetna in the 185 and Paul flew back in and flew the Otter out after repair. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the mechanic who fixed the plane, but the plane she fly's for TAT is known as "Foxy" because her 185 has an "F" in the N number, and also cause she's a babe who can fix airplanes in the middle of the Alaska range with duct tape.

Cheers,

josh

Alaska Mountaineering School

Russell Base Camp

High camp

Talkeetna Air Taxi's Turbine Otter.

AMS's Garage (Gear Check)

Hey guys, as the snow falls i keep thinking back to our great climbs this summer. I can't say enough great things about Alaska Mountaineering School. Colby and Caitlin have put together a great set of people who really do a great job of developing an appreciation and respect for the wilderness and mountains of alaska. Their guides are top notch and do an amazing job of teaching while climbing. I have included more pictures of our Russell climb this spring and will be posting more as the winter rolls on. Setting my clocks back as I speak,

cheers,

josh

Peter's Cub

I couldn't resist and had to post more pictures of Peter's Cub. This cub is really unique and Peter has a knack for details. Most planes he rebuilds he sells, but he claims to be keeping this one. I hope to have a scaled down version of this in the future, within ten years. This airplane has a full glass panel, slotted wings, 200Hp+, fully powdercoated frame, etc. etc. it's way nice.

hope all is well,

cheers

Redoubt and Others

Peter Thompson

North Ridge Route

Southern Face

We are in the planing stages of a Mt. Redoubt climb this may so Erik was kind enough to tag along and shoot some photos of the mountain yesterday. The last three days have been beautiful and great for taking route photos on the mountain. We crossed the inlet at 9K feet and hung out at that elevation as we made a loop around the mountain. I have included a photo of the proposed route on the north ridge of the mountain, this ridge looks like it offers the best route. I'll also include some photo's i took of Peter Thompson's new cub. 200K Plus worth of airplane. 3 bladed composite prop Hartzel, constant speed big dog, Also see Erik's Blog for some amazing photos he took on an evening flight we took 2 days ago.

Flashing lights

Long exposures and light painting.

These two photos were set up using Erik's flash bulb and a long exposure setting, about 30 seconds.

Erik came over and we messed around with the new camera, his is essentially the twin of mine minus a few superlatives. He taught me a few things about ISO, Aperture and exposure length settings that will take me awhile to digest, but we had a great time nontheless. I can tell this is going to be addictive and expensive, similiar to flying....... this isnt good.

Cheers

josh

08 summer climbing

The Summit Crater of Mt. Rainier (TJ,Jordan,Me)

Traversing the knife ridge to the base of Mt. Russell in the background

Looking down camp from about 12500ft on Rainier

Tahoma Peak next to Rainier

Bouldering ice moves on the way to Mt. Russell

These are photos from a couple of our climbs this summer. We had success on Mt. Russell in May and on Mt. Rainier in June. We climbed with Alaska Mountaineering School on Mt. Russell and TJ, Jordan and I went it alone on Rainier. We had fairly good weather for both climbs, although we had to spend a bunch of time in the tent to wait for that good weather. On Russell we had to Bivy out the night of our summit day because we got caught in weather and darkness on the way down, but our summit day on Rainier was perfect. I am working on getting some better photo's together from the new camera, hopefully i'll have some decent ones soon.

cheers,

josh

Winter is close

More snow today, woke up to about 3 inches on the deck, people are sliding off the road everywhere. Here are a few photos of plants hanging on till the bitter end. The snow sort of caught me with my carharts down, so i'm waiting for a melt to put the plastic on the raised beds, almost everything else is done thankfully,

cheers