Interior ice

Interior ice is what grows inside your window if the insulation is bad. But it's also the collective term for ice that is good enough to climb in the Alaskan 'interior'; the best ice climbing is down near the coast at Valdez where its a bit warmer and wetter.

I sampled a little interior ice of the second kind on Sunday with my friend Frank. We left Fairbanks at 5am, and arrived at the trail head on the Glen highway at 8:30am. After some setting up gear and me worrying about the cold (it was -14 C) we took off up Boulder Creek. After one and a half hours of stumbling up snow covered river bed - being careful not to break through the sometimes thin ice cover of the steram - we found some ice that was 'in'.

We climbed two water seeps, one was a slab and the other was more like a pinnacle with some cool-looking chandalier icicles (top picture), that finished up a little snow gully. Frank led and I toproped and seconded.

15 hours round trip is a long day out! But it was great weather, company and fun, and especially great to be out exploring and enjoying the Alaskan wilds so soon after getting up here.

Frank abseiling off the first route, and leading the second formation.

Fly my pretties

Just before I left Lisa got me the Fly my pretties CD recorded live at Bats theatre in Wellington. Fronted by Barnaby Weir from the Black Seeds, Fly My Pretties is a mixture of Wellington musicians with some chilled-out really beautiful songs from Barnaby and guests. And some more rollicking ones too. Barnaby Weir writes some absolutely awesomely great songs, and I like his lyrics because they tend to be about real-life happenings and people. Genuine, often touching and frequently pretty uplifting and thankful.

Funnily enough, this album has songs on family, love, giving thanks to friends, and leaving Wellington for overseas. Many are striking a chord right now.

Daylight savings up here tomorrow, but we're losing 6 minutes of daylight a day at the moment so it won't be long until the hour of light we gain in the morning is lost again!

Setting up!

Well I have been back up here in Fairbanks for a week now, and finally got around to setting this up. We'll see how it goes, but I thought it might be a good way for me and Lise to drop stuff on to let friends and family know what we are up to up here in big Alaska.

I have been staying with friends Andy and Anna Roberts. Despite being Austrlian :p they are really great and decent people, who we met up here last year. It's been neat running into friends up here. It feels a bit like i didn't leave. Or, as I arrived at the same time last year, maybe it feels like I've somehow pressed 'reset'! Weird having just gone through something similar settling in back in NZ after the time up here and trip to Europe.

Anyway, its so far so good. Ice climbing this weekend, so maybe a few good pictures to add, though hopefully nothing too dramatic to report.

Here's a pic from our time in Italy, in the area where we got engaged.
ciao.