 |
| Summit caldera and cinder cone |
Back in the late 1990s I'd go to Dutch Harbor with my dog Katie for the end of the summer. I'd finish with my Kodiak archaeological fieldwork and then would go on vacation to Dutch for more fieldwork. The last year (1998) I took my skis along with me. I did some skiing near town during July, but then got invited to ski and climb Akutan Volcano.
So a group of us took the commercial goose to Akutan. Katie dog rode in my lap. One guy was guiding a lady who was creating a film about volcanos while me and John Picard intended to just ski the volcano. The first night we slept in the church and the next day away we hiked to the base of Akutan where we set up a base camp.
The next day John and I set out to climb the volcano. It is about 4300 feet high, and I realized it would be the most vertical from bottom to top that I'd ever done. So I asked John what was the most vertical he'd ever climbed. And he replied, 'I guess that would be Denali'.
We got to the caldera but it was super windy and a total white out. So we decided to quit and ski back down. But then on the hike back to camp, just as we got to about where the picture just below was taken, it totally cleared off and got nice. So we decided to give it another try and turned around and climbed up again. And this time we made it.
The volcano had recently erupted and I remember that there were bubbling springs of hot water and often bright yellow or red. Also the snow was very icy and covered with volcanic grit. I remember that we got in something like 2000 feet vertical with each ski run.
Patrick
 |
| That's Akutan and the snow we skied down on |
 |
| On the summit - it was a sheer cliff down into the caldera behind me and I held Katie Dog tight! |
 |
| Looking back towards where we started hike in the distance on far right is the village of Akutan |
No comments:
Post a Comment