The Jack River flows through Cantwell, Alaska. The icefall is up the Jack River Valley off the Denali Highway. Unfortunately, most of these pictures are black dots in a sea of white ice.
(click image to enlarge)
The Jack River flows through Cantwell, Alaska. The icefall is up the Jack River Valley off the Denali Highway. Unfortunately, most of these pictures are black dots in a sea of white ice.
(click image to enlarge)
A view up the Jack River Valley (Sean Bemis for scale). It's about a 5? mile ski in. Even if you don't like ice climbing, this is a gorgeous place to ski into. |
A view of the falls. It consists of one pitch of grade 1 ice that we soloed (my dog even climbed it), then one good pitch of WI3-4, then another pitch of easy WI1/2 ice. |
Andy Mahoney ("British Andy" that is) belaying Ryan up the easy route (WI3). |
Sarah Masco and Andy Knust chose to make two pitches out of the harder route (WI4) and styled it. Andy's on the right (where's the rope?). Ryan's on the left on the hero ice.
|
Ryan tops out. |
Andy halfway up a nice lead. The right side was actually very difficult due to a layer of snow about 2 inches below the ice that tended to break off. Needless to say, it required a lot of hacking. |
British Andy climbing.
Back to
Interior Alaska Ice Climbing and Mountaineering
(time show is the last weather observation)
UAF Tectonics and Sedimentation Research Group Home Page
UAF
Department of Geology and Geophysics
Geophysical
Institute