mountaineering – Perpetual Weekend by Jim Harris

Orizaba Ramblers

Jim Harris — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:00:05 +0000

Windmilling his kayak paddle into the breeze, Luc Mehl, 34, pulls onto the sandbar at the mouth of Mexico’s Rio Antigua and squints at the novelty of a seascape horizon in the hazy afternoon glare. Two days of sleepless dysentery have drained Mehl’s prodigious vigor and his hands are blanched and clammy as we high-five. Still, he’s grinning with accomplishment in the salt air. Eleven days earlier we’d set out pedaling bikes strapped with mountaineering and whitewater paddling gear in Cholula de...

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Antarctica

Jim Harris — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:41:06 +0000

First, I want to give a huge thanks to Doug at Iceaxe.tv and SuperG at Smith Optics. Thanks so much guys! The term “trip of a lifetime” gets thrown around a lot with a jaunt like this and while the phrase hints at how special the trip is, I don’t like it because it insinuates that I might never go back. It was hard to get pulled away from a lifetime-worth of aesthetic alpine lines after only a handful of days. Shoot, a lifetime...

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North Face of Timp

Jim Harris — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:48:39 +0000

The North Face of Mt Timpanogos is a steep, seldom-traveled place. Andrew McLean and Brad Barlage skied a direct line decade ago before descending a poorly protected series of rappels down the 600 foot cliffs that stripe the lower face. Since then, the line has seen little action. Derek and I had eyed an elegant sneak down a tucked-away couloir in the cliffs on prior ski tours, but the face above was just too intimidating to try it on a...

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NW Cascade Super Chute

Jim Harris — Sat, 14 May 2011 18:36:32 +0000

Mark often imagined lines down the west face of Cascade Mountain. Wide alpine bowls tighten to rock lined chutes before ending abruptly in a massive limestone cliff band that wraps for miles around the peak. The chutes are in plain sight of Orem and Provo, Utah but the wide band of chossy rock is unappealing to rock climbers and skiers alike. After scrutinizing the cliffs with binoculars, Mark hypothesized that rappelling the cliffs might not be as bad as they...

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Crestone Scramble

Jim Harris — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:56:29 +0000

I first heard of the traverse between Crestone Peak and the Needle from Austin. He had just finished climbing the Needle’s Ellingwood Arrete and was enjoying the summit when a climber asked where the traverse began. Austin pointed him towards the downclimbing that begins the route towards the Peak and was horrified when, seconds later, the soloist tumbled off the 2000′ face. I decided to give the traverse a try in the opposite direction that the ill-fated climber took so...

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Brown Snow Skiing

Jim Harris — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:23:00 +0000

Despite a layer of Utah-colored dirt covering the snow, Allison, Anna, Rohan, Kevin, Tyler and I went out for a couple ski tours near Leadville. Skiing down red-brown snow feels kind of how I imagine it might feel to go skiing on a shag-carpet covered mountainside: skis don’t slide especially well but then you cross a patch of clean, white snow and then they suddenly rocket forward. Its a constant battle to stay balanced as you get thrown forwards then...

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Timp’er Tantrum

Jim Harris — Thu, 27 May 2010 02:23:54 +0000

Ty and I slogged 5k’ up from car for 4k’ of creamed corn skiing. The tour wrapped up with a character-building ‘schwack back to the car.

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The Book of Revelations

Jim Harris — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:20:18 +0000

After two weeks of exploring and skiing in the Revelations we’re back to syphilization. Despite our pilot Rob’s estimate that the snowpack is less than 50% of normal this year, we found some really aesthetic lines to ski- long, continuous, and surrounded by vertical miles of granite. I have a pile of photos to sort through so look back for a trip report of some sort in the next couple weeks. My first ski turns in AK were down the...

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Revelations, Alaska

Jim Harris — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:08:46 +0000

Noah Howell, Andrew McLean, Courtney Phillips and I are headed into the Revelation Mountains on Monday. Due to notoriously bad summer weather and also being a long bush flight from anyplace you and I have heard of, the range has gone relatively unexplored in the 40 years since David Roberts first tagged a few peaks in the area. The plan is to fly into the Revelations where we’ll mostly base camp, perhaps moving a few times, for about two weeks. ...

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