Thread: Death on The Orient

This is looking up at the lower couloir and face down to 14K camp. All my pictures from the actual couloir are worthless as we were in snow and fog. I've only tried to ski it once, but pulled the plug after taking 4 turns or so. We hiked down.

It is not very steep in overall terms of descent, but it does pretty much start from around 19,000 feet, which up in Alaska is physiologically much higher than one would initially think.

In the picture you might be able to make out small patches of blue ice, which make skiing in the AK range very difficult and dangerous. You can go from powder to glacial ice very quickly, and if you start sliding on a slope that steep, you likely are not going to stop. Anything up there is a very serious descent.

RIP.

Originally Posted by covert

Last time i was in that zone some friends let us use most of their beer and liquor in base camp then went off and crushed it proper.

http://www.doglotion.com/blog/archangel

We're you at basecamp that night?? I flew in on an NPS patrol that day, meeting Ryan and Marcus before they took off. That was an amazing effort.

yup, coming off 14 patrol. met marcus not too many years before that when he was still figuring out how cool skiing is.