Lady Shred Clinic on Six Mile Creek

On Sunday, August 10th 2014, I organized and brought together a group of 10 amazing women, few of which knew each other, to paddle Six Mile Creek in Alaska. Six Mile is a beautiful river located on the Kenai Peninsula, that offers class II-V rapids. Females of all abilities were welcome and thats exactly what we got! There was a wide range of experience from beginners to expert whitewater kayakers that joined on the sections they felt comfortable paddling.

We started off the day with a couple miles of some class II whitewater that leads into the first canyon. Here ladies who just jumped into kayaking for their first time fought their way through the currents while others practiced rolls, pealing in and out of eddies and learned tips on paddling technique. When we got to the first canyon, we all got out to scout and talk about the rapids. Myself and a few other ladies with more experience shared knowledge of how and where to run rapids. Every female made the decision for themselves to portage or kayak the first canyon. A few took a jump and ran some rapids in the first canyon that pushed them, while the more experienced kayakers guided and set safety. In such a male dominated sport, it was truly incredible to be out there in such a large group all supporting each other. The vibe was supportive to all. The ladies pushing themselves, felt comfort and stoke in this supportive environment of badass ladies.

After the first canyon, half the group continued through the class IV rapids downstream through the second canyon. Then onto the 3rd canyon with a handful of ladies. It was an empowering feeling to be out there is such a powerful, dynamic force of nature hooting and fist pumping through the rapids one after another with amazing women. We were all pumped!!!

Everyone was extremely excited and empowered from their accomplishments, whether it was getting into a whitewater kayak, running difficult rapids or helping others. Connections and friends were made that day that allowed these women to continue to get out on the river with each other to gain the experience, knowledge, and confidence needed to continue pushing themselves in this badass sport called whitewater kayaking.

A Week in the Wrangell St. Elias Mountains Ski Camping

This April I got lucky enough to do a ski mission in the Wrangells. A good friend, Rene Welty, called me up and threw out the idea for this trip. I was in! In my mind, there was no way I could pass up an opportunity like this. Rene is a badass climber and pilot that grew up in McCarthy, Alaska in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Her dad, Don Welty, is an amazing pilot and he flew us in there.

After a 9 hour drive from Girdwood, we arrived at Rene’s parents house in McCarthy. Luckily the road to McCarthy was open and in good shape. In the winter, the only way in and out of McCarthy is by plane. We spent the entire next day gathering our gear, doing crevasse rescue scenarios & finding the zones we wanted to scout. We had a hard time deciding whether we wanted to fly into the Bagley Icefield and traverse out to the Ultima Thule Lodge or if we wanted to fly in and set up camp for the week to ski. Either way it was bound to be an epic. We heard word from the locals that the snow was really good, so we decided to ski camp. That night I could barely sleep I was so excited.

Day 1 – We woke up packed the plane and headed out to scout our home for the next week. As we were flying deep into the mountains, I could not believe the size of everything … the gnarliest ice features & the biggest most massive mountains I had ever seen. There was gnarly hanging glaciers, bergstrunds, seracs and huge crevasses everywhere. Don flew us over the spots we wanted to check out, all the way to the border of Canada. We found an area off of the Bagley Icefield on the Jefferies that we decided looked like our best opinion to spend a week. We landed on the glacier and got out of the plane. The wind was howling, it was so ridiculously cold it had to be easily -30 with the wind chill. Rene and I quickly found a located for camp and starting build a wind wall. We spent the rest of Day 1 building camp.

Day 2 – We woke up to beautiful blue bird skies, howling winds and negative temps. We hurried to make breakfast so we could get moving.

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Unfortunately, I lost the rest of the trip report off my old blog. I am a bit bummed as I don’t remember the details. That is exactly why I keep these trip reports. It helps me to re-live past adventures that I cherish so much!

Whitewater Roll Clinic

This past Tuesday, 13 Alaskan women came together for a whitewater kayaking roll clinic that I organized taught. It turned out to be an extremely warm, gorgeous day! Who would have thought I’d be with a group of amazing women wearing bikini’s in a lake in Alaska rolling kayaks? Not me! Not in bikinis at least! But there I was and I was pumped to teach these girls the basics of whitewater kayaking.

Kelly, Peggy, Olivia, Liz, Katie & I

Here is the article I wrote for SheJumps…

We started off the clinic by learning how to properly outfit yourself into a kayak. From there we all got on the water and learned different paddle strokes, plus when to use them on the river. After paddling around the lake for a bit, we partnered up and learned how to hip-snap, the key element in rolling a kayak. Once we got use to this, we progressed into flipping up-side down in the kayak and hip snapping from there using our hands on our partners boat. From there came the roll. There were 3 other instructors (Kelly Rinck, Liz Powers & Tracy Kulesa) there to get in the water and help each lady work through the steps of rolling. The clinic was a huge success, all of the ladies were really excited to have the opportunity to do this. Plus, they were able to take a jump and push themselves in a comfortable & safe environment to do something rather intimidating.

Winter 2012-2013 in the Chugach

Here are some photos from my winter in the Chugach Mountains, Alaska. Thanks to all my touring partners for so many incredible days in the backcountry. I love you all! And thank you Alaska, for being so amazing!

A week in the Books - Thompson Pass AK

After a trip in the Iguana Backs, we spent 3 days recouping in Valdez. While we were there we decided that we were going to take advantage of the amazing weather and ski conditions and go for another mission. We decided to go into an area called the books. We knew it was a long way to get in and the locals haven’t known of anyone to really skin in there. We knew we would need an assist with carrying all of our overnight gear and food. So, we got set up for a snowmobile bump. When it came time to head in, the snowmobile bump fell through. We debated what to do for awhile. Uncertain of how much pain we were going to put ourselves in, we all came to the deciding that we would just walk and carry everything. We spent 11+ hours climbing in there and dug out camp in the dark that night.

Nicole in the kitchen

When we woke up we were all a little beat down and sore but we were stoked as hell to where we were! No one had been skiing in the area and we had it all to ourselves. It was absolutely amazing!! We spent the week skiing sweet lines, stepping it up everyday & having the time of our lives.

Storm / Tent Jam Day with Nicole & Reese

Our ski lines from a week in the Books

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I look back at this and still can’t believe we hiked all the shit in there! Especially now that I have a snowmachine and it would take like 20 minutes to get there. Crazy.

Road Trippin' to the Final Frontier

Nicole and I outside of Banff

When it came time to head to Valdez for April, I called up a girlfriend of mine that I knew would be perfect for this mission, Nicole Mansfield, a badass skier, professional kayaker and all around fun lady. It didn’t take too much convincing and she was in. I left Crested Butte, picked her up in Alta, Utah. We packed my truck full of ski, kayak and camping gear and we were on our way. We stopped outside of Banff, Canada and skied in the Lake Louise area. We had a great day with good snow and were tempted to stay for a little to ski there. But after getting a report of Valdez, I knew we had to get there because it was even bigger and better. So we kept on going, driving late in the night to early morning, sleeping in the front seats up my Tacoma and not stopping for too much. One night while driving in Northern British Columbia at 2 am, I saw my first view of the Northern Lights. It blew my mind and didn’t stop smiling the entire night.

As we drove down Thompsons Pass into Valdez, our minds were blown. It was the biggest, most beautiful, gnarly mountains we had ever seen. Within 12 hours of arriving in Valdez we were scrambling to put all the gear together that we needed for a winter ski camping mission. Our buddies who were locals were leaving on this mission and wanted us to come. We were not prepared for winter camping in Alaska but packed what we had and made do.

We spent the rest of that day climbing a couple thousand feet up the bench to our camp spot. Nicole and I didn’t have lightweight gear so our packs (double packs actually, one strapped to the other) were super heavy, probably half our body weight. But we made it and dug out our tent spot & kitchen. We spent the night watch the sunset over the mountains.

Nick Langowski’s breakfast line.

Throughout the next 6 days, we skied some amazing lines for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This was one of the most amazing times of my life. Skiing sick lines in Alaska with amazing friends. We had 2 zones to ski from the area we camped. We would wake up every morning and either eat breakfast at camp or take it with us and head out for the day. We would ski 2-3 runs a day and get back to camp to watch the sunset every night while eating a hot meal. Every day was blue bird and every night the stars covered the sky. There was a few night we stayed up late enough to catch an amazing North Lights show. The nights were very cold and you constantly had to be doing something to keep warm. Since Nicole and I didn’t have the best gear for this kind of mission, we were struggling with staying warm. We had a 3 season tent, +15 degree sleeping bags and a mat the sucked the heat right out of my back while I was trying to sleep. It was definitely a struggle at times but totally worth it! I knew that I would do it again in a heart beat and, in fact, it is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

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Looking back on this post - I’ve learned alot since especially how to stay warm ski camping and have the proper gear. But I am so happy to have experienced the sufferfest of not having the right gear.

It makes every time I go out now, that much better!