Comments (1)

By Dan Bailey, April 15, 2008 8:31 am

To kick off the Spring season, I’ll be giving a free slide show about my Little Switzerland, Alaska rock climbing trip next Thursday, 7:00PM at The New Mountain Shop located at 172 N. College Ave. in downtown Fort Collins.

A longtime staple of the Northern Colorado outdoor community and dedicated sponsor of many of my previous slide shows, the Mountain Shop has recently reopened under new management. They have an great new store and an awesome, friendly atmosphere. Come by, see the show and hang out with some of your fellow Fort Collins outdoor junkies! Who knows, you might even win some free gear…

Comments (1)

By Dan Bailey, November 16, 2007 10:56 am

This video pretty much sums up our trip to Little Switzerland, Alaska this past summer.

Shot and edited by Eric Parsons, with some still images by Dan Bailey.
Alternative title: “Lots of Rain…”

Enjoy…!

…And view more misadventures and assorted random troublemaking at Eric’s own blog:
The Confessions of Captain Swallowtail.

Comments (0)

By Dan Bailey, October 3, 2007 2:19 pm

While on the Pika Glacier this summer, I experimented a bit with the Interval Shooting option on the Nikon D200. With this feature, you can set the pararmeters of how often you want the camera to fire, how many frames you want the camera to shoot each time, and how many total shots you want the camera to take. Needless to say, this option is best utilized when the camera is on a tripod. Interval shooting allows a world of very interesting photographic possibilities and with a little creativity, it can be used to make time lapse videos.

For this particular project, I shot two different series of one hundred images each, and then using a variety of Apple software, (iMovie HD, Logic Pro 8, and Compressor) I created a Quick Time movie of the still images, scored it with some original music, and then exported the project to mpeg format.

Click the image below to play the Alaska Time Lapse Movie.

Comments (4)

By Dan Bailey, August 14, 2007 10:05 am

On July 22, Eric Parsons and I flew into the area known as Little Switzerland, which is located on the Pika Glacier in the Alaska Range, about 35 miles southwest of Denali. First discovered and named by legendary bush pilot, Don Sheldon, Little Switzerland features many high quality moderate rock climbing objectives on granite towers in an incredible environment. Unfortnately, days of heavy fog over the Pika caused us to wait at the airstrip in Talkeetna and watch our number of possible climbing days diminish. Eventually, though, a clear window presented itself and we were able to fly in and land under blue skies, although we did constant battle with rain and fog over our entire week in the Pika.

(Flying into the Pika Glacier)

Wasting no time with the weather window, Eric and I dragged our gear across the glacier, set up a quick basecamp, donned our harnesses and immediately began skiing towards the formation known as The Trolls, which are three very prominent towers located on the eastern side of the upper Pika Glacier, with our sights on the Middle Troll, the tallest peak in the group. (1,300 feet III, 5.8) The weather held and after some very enjoyable crack climbing, we summitted at 1:00AM, under the midnight sun in 24-hour Alaska daylight, which at times can be a bit strange. Experience being “darked on” a few times in my climbing career has taught me that when you see the sun heading towards the horizon, you don’t keep going up, you start going down. Of all the ojbective hazards and obstacles in the Alaska range, darkness is simply not one of them and you can literally climb at all hours of the day or night.

Our second objective was “The Lost Marsupial” route, which is the prominent rounded ridge on the south face of The Throne. (III, 5.8) Unfortunately, we were rained off on our first attempt, but went back the next day to finish the route and reach the summit. The knife edge summit ridge on The Throne offers some very interesting climbing over steep snow and wet rock, which made for an exciting descent as well.

My photo gear weathered the rain with no problems, and I kept a cotton bandana in my pocket at all times to wipe water off of the lenses. I climbed with my Nikon D200 camera and two lenses (17mm and 85mm) every day, usually keeping the gear in my pack for the vertical climbing sections and using my chest pouch or around my neck while skiing around the glacier and walking on summit ridges. While on the Pika, I experimented with some time lapse interval photography, a feature that’s built into the D200. I plan to combine the images into a short time lapse video and post here at a later date.

Although the weather prevented us from climbing anything else during this trip, our week in Little Switzerland has definitely inspired us to go back. There is certainly enough rock there to satisfy many trips into this incredible area.

Here are a few more images from my 2007 Pika Glacier trip. Also, check out the REAL Story of our Little Switzerland alpine climbing trip! Finally, here is a video that Eric shot of our exploits on (and off) the Pika Glacier.

Alaska Climbing by Joe Puryear

Special thanks to all the pilots and crew at Talkeetna Air Taxi for the incredible flights and for putting up with our shenanigans during our three days of waiting out the weather.

And finally, if you’re planning a trip to this region and you don’t already have Joe Puryear’s Alaska Climbing guide book, you’ll want to pick up a copy. It’s got topos and route maps for all the classic climbs in the area.

Comments (2)

By Dan Bailey, July 23, 2007 12:02 pm

The Alaska Range is kind of like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get. I’m speaking of the weather, of course. Being right in the middle of three major weather flow patterns that blow in from the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska and the East, it’s pretty much a target for any kind of possible weather, just about any time of the year. During our eleven day trip, which was cut down to seven days due to three and a half days of unflyable weather, we experienced fog and rain every single day, with scattered patches of sunshine and blue sky, otherwise known as “Sucker Holes,” and even some snow.

I’ll post a complete trip report here in a few days, but for now, here are a few shots to entice.

(Eric Parsons throwing the rappel rope- Descending from The Throne, Pika Glacier, Alaska)

(Eric Parsons rappelling from the top of The Throne, Pika Glacier, Alaska)

(Fog rolling into the Pika Glacier past The Royal Tower, Little Switzerland, Alaska)

Here is the full account and more photos of our 2007 Little Switzerland trip. Also, here’s a video that Eric put together of our trip.

Zoomify Panorama

Below is a near 360 degree panorama taken from the top of The Throne. This image was stitched together in Adobe Photoshop CS3 from five individual images using the “Photomerge” command, and then exported using the “Zoomify” command.

Click on the image to scroll through the high resolution panorama.