Springtime Climbing on Peak 3- Alaska

Rob (trebork2) picked me up and we drove right to the Glen Alps Trailhead. We were not quite sure what we were going to climb yet but we knew we wanted to do some mixed climbing. So we headed walking down powerline. The day was amazing, the sun was just behind a thin cloud and the temperatures were great. The wind was non-existant. We started our hike at 8:30am.


We decided on a ridge up Peak 3 which looked like it had some fun climbing but nothing that would take all day since I had to be to work at 4pm.


Hiking up the long snowfield is always semi exhausting work but with such great weather it didn't seem as bad as it could have been and we were making good time.


Nearing the first face we would climb we could see lots of possibilites for ascending. We tried the blue line first then went the direction of the red line.


I liked the look of this wind blown snow so I took a few pictures of it.


Rob ascending the last little bit of snow before the real fun begins.


I am doubting that this route hasn't been climbed several times and I was wondering if anyone knew what the rating on it was? I first tried to climb up to the left of the first little gully with my ice tools and crampons. After getting in two pieces of gear I just didn't feel comfortable going forward so I down climbed and let Rob give it a shot. After he came down and let me go forward again I went to the right without my ice tools and climbed up a tuff ramp. I had hooked my ice tools to my harness and when I would stand up the tools would hook the back of my leg digging in with the hook and not allowing me to straighten my leg! This between the fact my pack and gear would get stuck everywhere was driving me nuts! I am sure it made this climb feel much more difficult then it should have been! Of the 3 pitches we stayed roped this one was the most difficult.
Here Rob follows up the crack.


Rob topping out on this pitch.


The second pitch we stayed roped was the easiest and included some easier snow travel mostly staying roped just for the practice of it.


The third pitch we both felt was the most enjoyable and included a small chimney at the top. Rob tops out of the Chimney.


Rob looks out with Ptarmigan Peak in the backdrop.



After the third pitch we knew we were running out of time so we hiked to the summit and topped out a bit after 2pm.


At the summit was a snowboarder coming up the other side. It was a great day to be out.


We are not quite sure what any of the ratings would be on the route but heres a description of what we climbed.


Well that was the day for us. I made it to work 5 minutes late so we almost timed it perfect!