Raphael Slawinski

Elbows resting on the car roof, I eyed the distant smear through binoculars. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think it’s worth the hike,” I sighed, passing them to Steven. After glassing the melting ice, he wasn’t chomping at the bit either. We drove down the gravelly road for another twenty minutes, looking for a consolation prize, but nothing really caught our eye. It's also possible that after a couple of hours of driving and the disappointment of finding Plan A out of condition, car lassitude had set it, keeping our asses firmly rooted to the seats. Pulling a U-turn, we headed back to town for espressos. Once re-caffeinated, we briefly considered going rock climbing - it was certainly warm enough - but with the cold season approaching, decided on drytooling instead. Yet it was only two days earlier that a friend had emailed me: “I took a photo this morning that you may be interested in. Is there an established ice/mixed route on [Peak X]? Scott”. In the attached photo, a lin...

This past spring  Rob Smith  and I spent five weeks in the Alaska Range. We arrived in Talkeetna with ambitious plans: in a perfect world, we'd warm up on the French Route on the north buttress of Mt. Hunter before moving on to the Slovak Route on the south face of Denali. I knew the world isn't perfect though, and would have been ecstatic had we gotten up just one of these. In retrospect, even that seemingly realistic outlook now appears wildly optimistic, as we didn't manage so much as to stand at the base of either wall. Still, it'd be wrong to say that the trip had been a waste of time. At the risk of rationalizing failure, it'd be sad if my sole measure of success in climbing was whether I'd sent this or that "hard" route. During the five weeks I spent in the land of eternal daylight (as is Alaska in late May and June), I had some fantastic experiences. I got to know Rob, with whom I'd only spent a few days ice climbing before. We lived th...