Reports from recent tours:
  Karakoram 2016 (Broad Peak & Gasherbrum IV)
  Alaska
  Hagshu north face, Indian Himalaya
  Slovenian Route - Triglav North Face
  Bernese Oberland Ski Touring
  Haute Route 2014
  Chamonix, Vallee Blanche
  Prestreljenik ski touring
  Ski touring on ViÅ¡evnik
  Traverse of StoržiÄ group
  Livada route (Jerebica)
  Jalovec (Julian Alps)
  Slovenian route (Triglav)
  Aschenbrenner route - Julian Alps
  Å losarska route in Triglav
  Monte Rosa
  Triglav
  Climbs above Saas Fee
  German route (Triglav) 23.7.2013
  Mont Blanc (6.-8.7.2013)
  Ski touring on Mt Blanc (12.-13.5.)
  Ski touring on Grossglockner (11.-12.4.2013)
  Ski touring around Prestreljenik
  Ice climbing course and ski touring
  Powder above Ljubelj
  Steber revežev in winter
  Kamnitnik (25.10.2012)
  ZeleniÅ¡ke Å pice ridge
  Kuffners ridge
  Haute Route trek
  Via Ferratas in Dolomites 20. - 22.6.2012
Domov
Summer guiding Winter guiding Contact
  Alaska  
  20.6.2015  
  Climbers: Luka LindiÄ, AleÅ¡ ÄŒesen

The idea to visit Alaska Range was born last year during our expedition in Indian Himalayas. None of us have been ever there and even before coming back home from India, we were fully decided where we'll spend climbing this spring. Unlike expeditions to Himalayas, there are not a lot of organizational problems with going climbing in Alaska, which was surely a nice change. In less than three days after saying goodbye to our love ones in Slovenia, we were already digging a place for our tent and kitchen on Kahiltna glacier. Unfortunately a bad weather came in just after few hours from our landing on glacier which forced us to stay in base camp for another few days. It would not be a problem if we would not be nervous about going to climb some great mountains in the range.
 
 
 
 
   

Acclimatization
We did our first ascent for acclimatisation on SW ridge of Mt Francis. The route is not a high level climb, but it was a great adventure with all the cleaning the rocky parts and track breaking as we climbed it the first after a period of bad weather. After a day of rest in sunshine we took off for a bit higher but technically easier climb on Kahiltna Queen (aka Humble Peak). The crux of the climb was the descent, where you have to maintain high concentration when down climbing a steep snow/ice if you are not rappelling.
 
SW ridge of Mt Frances (Alaskan grade IV, 5.8)
 
Photo: Luka LindiÄ Photo: Luka LindiÄ
 
 
The summit ridge on Mt Frances is full of snow cornices On the summit of Mt Frances with Mt Hunter in the background.
 
Kahiltna Quess, West Face
 
 
  

Mt Hunter (Begguya)
After a few days of resting in bad weather we decided to give it a try in the north buttress of Mt Hunter (aka Begguya). We packed our backpacks with quite a lot of technical equipment especially for rock climbing and with a lack of bivy equipment (no sleeping bags) to save some weight. We decided to try a new line right from the French route, which looked difficult but interesting from looking up from the base. Unfortunately the ice/snow lines soon turned out to be made of useless snow on smooth rock. We quickly turned back left and decided to do the French (Grison-Tedeschi) route. Climbing the initial couloir was really nice and it went smooth and quick. In the middle and the upper part we were much slower having hard glassy ice in traverses in the middle part, and a lot of cleaning the fresh snow in the upper headwall. After about 23 hours of climbing we set a small bivy place under a boulder about 100 meters below the cornice bivy. After we climbed a really impressing route we want to continue the easy part all the way to the summit. But next morning bad weather from the south came and we were forced to go back down just above the cornice bivy. It took us around 7 hours to rappel 1500 meters of Bibler-Klewin route in low visibility and full of small and not so small spindrift avalanches.
 
Mt Hunter, French route (Alaskan grade VI, 90º, M6, 1500m) Photo: Luka LindiÄ
 
Photo: Luka LindiÄ
 
 
Photo: Luka LindiÄ
 
Photo: Luka LindiÄ
 
Photo: Luka LindiÄ After 23 hours of climbing in Mt Hunter.
 
Photo: Luka LindiÄ  

 
After coming back to basecamp, temperatures begun to rise dramatically and ice started to melt rapidly in Hunter's face. After few days of rest, we wanted to try the Deprivation route, which is on the right hand side of Hunter's north buttress. After a few hours of climbing during the night, we encounter some fragile ice with low support along with some falling snow mushrooms in our vicinity. Due to safety reasons, we rappelled down and returned to the basecamp. After a few days of bad and unusually warm weather we decided to end the expedition and fly back home.
 
Optimistic start in Deprivation route (Mt Hunter) After only a few hours of climbing the Deprivation route we had to rappel down and returned to the base camp.
 
Just before the end of our expedition we did a night ascent on Mt Crosson. The climb ended just before the summit due to bad weather. On east face of Mt Crosson Talkeetna
 
   

 
I would like to thank to Alpine Association of Slovenia for financial support and to Arcteryx for donating some high quality outfit to keep us warm.
 
     
 

SlovenÅ¡Äina

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