Travel: Exploring Valdez

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Glaciers and rainforests meet near Alaskan harbor town

Ice melting after breaking free from the receding Columbia Glacier near Valdez, Alaska.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

Alaskan coastal rain forest near Gold Creek.

Valdez is best best known for an oil tanker disaster in 1989, when the ship’s hull was ripped open and subsequently flooded Prince William Sound with 11 million gallons of crude oil that covered an area extending 470 miles to the southwest. However, the port of Valdez today is a biologically vibrant and beautiful part of the coastal rainforest that extends along the Alaskan coastal region.

Bus transportation is available from downtown Anchorage to Whittier, where ferry service delivers visitors to Valdez. I chose to drive the 265 miles across Alaska from Palmer, through the Matanuska River Valley, in order to pass Matanuska Glacier and explore Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  Along the way, I camped beside Squirrel Creek, a river filled with fast-running, opaque, silt-filled glacial water. Next day, I dropped from a glacier-covered pass to the coastline at Valdez.

At the harbor, I joined a Stan Stephens tour of the Columbia Glacier on a sunny sky, passing friendly sea otters, whales, sea lions, and porpoises. According to the Boulder Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Columbia Glacier has receded nine miles since 1980 and is expected to lose another nine miles during the next fifteen years. Discharging two cubic miles of ice into Prince William Sound each year, the Columbia Glacier is the largest North American glacial contributor to rising sea levels. (more…)

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Colorado: Snowmass Mountain, and our Lady of the Lake

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Kim Fenske explores one of Colorado’s most spectacular peaks

The comb of Snowmass Peak viewed from about halfway along the Snowmass Creek trail.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

As I kneeled at the side of Snowmass Creek and filtered water into my bottle, a tall, slender woman, hair flowing like golden sunlight over her shoulders and reflecting in the blue pools of her glacial eyes, rose up from the water. She was the personification of Snowmass Lake, sparkling glacial water at the base of two miles of mountain that rise above to the spiked comb that forms the summit of Snowmass Mountain.

Snowmass Mountain reflected in Snowmass Lake.

(more…)

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Travel: Exploring Alaska

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

The Kenai Peninsula

A sow shows her cubs a find of fish remains left behind by fishers.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

Kenai, Katmai, and McKinley were the big three objectives on my list of locations to visit when I began planning my three-week backpacking trip to Alaska. My foremost objective was to find the coastal brown bears and live among them during the great salmon runs of summer. I was looking for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure into the wild.

I decided to fly into Anchorage and take a few major thrusts outward from this center, within a radius of a few hundred miles. I had enough space in a small daypack for my camera, journal, netbook computer, and a couple of water bottles. I filled my 80-liter backpack with an extra set of clothes, one-week supply of dehydrated foods, backpacking stove, water filter, raincoat, sleeping pad, down sleeping bag, and two-person tent. I decided to take the larger of my two backpacking tents because the historic climate charts indicated frequent rainfall in the coastal rainforest. I knew that the average precipitation for much of the coast is sixty inches or more.

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At the airport, I faced the challenges created by modern security. I suffered separation anxiety when I stowed my pocket knife and fire starter in checked baggage. A security officer emptied my water bottle, raising the level of tension. Any hiker who always carries essential gear everywhere can understand why my carry-on luggage included two headlamps, maps, and a global positioning system.  (more…)

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Colorado: Exploring the Ute Trail

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Escape to the high country of Rocky Mountain National Park

A bull elk resting in a cool breeze on Trail Ridge, overlooking Ute Trail.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

Rocky Mountain National Park is a major tourist destination. Recognition of that fact alone has been enough to deter me from visiting the area during the summer season for decades. But this year I decided to to spend a few early summer days with some friends at the Moraine campground.

Trapped in the valley between Trail Ridge Road and Longs Peak with temperatures soaring above a hundred degrees in the lowlands east of the Front Range, I was committed to any plan that took me to the highest elevation available. (more…)

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Colorado: Climbing Mt. Princeton

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Airy views of the Arkansas River Valley from this Collegiate Range peak

Mount Antero viewed from the ridge of Mount Princeton.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

Mount Princeton, 14,197 feet, is one of my favorite mountains to climb.  Perhaps, the symmetry of the peak appeals to me as the sun sets and casts the shadow of a magnificent pyramid across the Arkansas River Valley below.

The length of the hike from the ranch at the lower trailhead is an ideal fourteen miles. The start of the hike is a high-clearance road with a climb of 3.4 miles to 11,000 feet, where a few pads exist for dispersed camping.

Buena Vista in the Arkansas River Valley northeast of Mount Princeton.

(more…)

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Colorado: Your grandmother’s fourteener

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Kim Fenske strolls up Mt. Sherman

The rounded ridge to the summit of Mount Sherman lies beyond ruins of the Hilltop Mine, 1.5 miles up the trail, at 12,900 feet.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

SUMMIT COUNTY — At 14,036 feet, Mount Sherman is one of the more modest fourteeners in Colorado, ranking forty-fifth in height. With an easy walking trail from about 12,000 feet in elevation, Sherman is your grandmother’s fourteener —  good beginner trek or afternoon sprint mountain. Even flatlanders visiting from lower elevations should be able to walk up to the summit of Sherman in a few hours.

Mount Sherman lies in the middle of the Mosquito Range. The mountain forms a narrow rib between two river valleys, the Arkansas and Platte. Sherman is southeast of Fairplay, Alma, and Breckenridge, with Leadville in sight to the west. The summit can be approached from Leadville, via Lake County Road 2 east to Iowa Gulch. However, the most popular approach is on dirt roads from Fairplay, along Fourmile Creek. (more…)

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Colorado: A spring jaunt on Mt. Antero

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Stunning vistas from Colorado’s 11-highest peak

Mount Princeton, 14,197 feet, lies north of Mount Antero, about twenty miles southwest of Buena Vista, above the Arkansas River Valley.

Fenske hiked three miles up Mount Antero to set base camp beside a stream at 11,000 feet and slept snug and cozy in a two-pound ultralight tent with a zero-degree rated sleeping bag.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

Mount Antero, 14,269 feet, may rank high among the ugliest Fourteeners in Colorado. The peak has been abused by mining digs and cut with four-wheel-drive vehicle pathways for decades. During peak summer season, Antero can be crowded, dusty, and noisy with heavy traffic of all-terrain-vehicles.

Despite the blemishes created by modern machinery, Antero offers spectacular views of its neighbors, Mount Shavano, 14,229 feet, and Tabeguache Peak, 14,155 feet, to the south; as well as Mount Princeton, 14,197 feet,  to the north.

Mount Antero is the 11-highest peak in Colorado, named for Chief Antero of the Uintah band of Utes. (more…)

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Colorado: A spring hike on twin 14ers

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Kim Fenske hikes Shavano and Tabeguache

Kim Fenske on the summit of 14,155-foot Tabeguache Peak, with Shavano in the background.

The summit of Tabeguache Peak from the saddle to Mount Shavano.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

Rising from the lowlands west of Salida, a giant mountain marks the path to Monarch Pass. This cornerstone of the lower Arkansas River Valley is Mount Shavano, 14,229 feet, southernmost peak of the Sawatch Range.

Mount Shavano is named after a great leader of the Tabeguache band of the Utes. Across a saddle from Mount Shavano rises the dramatic summit of Tabeguache Peak, 14,155 feet, protected by a wide ring of boulders and broken cliffs. (more…)

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Colorado: A winter climb of Huron Peak

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Try, and try again …

The Three Apostles.

Moonset over Clear Creek Valley.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

When I woke up after a night with temperatures in the teens, the sun was not yet in sight.  Despite giving myself the comfort of two down sleeping bags, I still needed a significant boost to generate enough heat for the trail. After boiling a liter of water for a giant chocolate mocha coffee, I ground my legs into low gear and hiked up the road from the mining ghost town of Winfield toward the Huron Peak trailhead two miles from my camp. After the first mile, my leg muscles were loose and sweat began to seep through my base layer.  An hour later, I arrived at the trailhead.

A lesson in patience, this was my fourth attempt to reach Huron Peak, 14,003 feet, in winter.  From Clear Creek Reservoir, Chaffee County Road 390 is maintained only eight miles to the abandoned mining community of Vicksburg, across from the trailhead to Mount Oxford, Mount Belford, and Missouri Peak.

On my first attempt, in mid-March, I parked at Vicksburg and hiked on the snow-covered road for five miles to Winfield, then busted trail through powder that was sometimes waist-deep for a mile toward the trailhead before turning back. The twelve-mile hike was primarily a scouting mission to determine how easily I could approach the trailhead with a four-foot base of snow in the forest. (more…)

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Colorado: Snowy tracks on Mt. Yale

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

A winter hike in the Sawatch Range

The view southwest from Mount Yale.

Story and photos by Kim Fenske

In winter, tracks in the snow tell a clear story on hiking trails. After a snowstorm, the trail is nonexistent. As days of clear, sunny weather go by, a road of footprints, ski, and snowshoe tracks form a road on the most popular trails. (more…)

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