Science of the Seasons: Ash goes with the flow

Photos courtesy of David Wartinbee. Above, Crescent River flows out of Crescent Lake near Mount Redoubt. It is a high-volume, steep-gradient stream that is able to wash away ash that may have fallen into and around it. Below, ash accumulates along smaller streams near Mount Redoubt this June. These streams will probably have longer impacts than faster-moving, higher-volume streams, because ash will continue to be washed into the streams for years to come.

By David Wartinbee, for the Redoubt Reporter

I flew across Cook Inlet on Friday to get another look at Mount Redoubt, but low-lying clouds only gave me a “peek-a-boo” view of the mountain. And the Federal Aviation Administration has a temporary flight restriction in place for an area within a seven-mile radius of the mountain.

Even from that distance, and with the limited view of the mountain top, it was obvious that Mount Redoubt was once again covered with bright, white snow. That evening the clouds parted and we all got a nice evening view of Mount Redoubt venting and covered in white again. That made me think of the ash-covered Redoubt pictures I showed in last week’s article. Don’t you just love it when Mother Nature makes us reporters and prognosticators look awful?

Well, why was there snow once again? The answer relates to two basic things. First, we had a fair amount of moisture — rain — last week, and much of Mount Redoubt is above the freezing altitude, so the moisture arrived as snow. As everyone knows, it gets colder when you go higher in altitude, but there are some interesting meteorological lessons here.

Science of the Seasons: River of fire, and a whole lot of mud

By David Wartinbee, for the Redoubt Reporter

Photos courtesy of David Wartinbee. Above is a photo of Mount Redoubt covered in ash, taken last week. Below is snow-capped Mount Redoubt, as it usually appears, taken in July 2008.

On a clear day from just about anywhere on the Kenai Peninsula, we can see two of the dominant peaks across the inlet, Mount Redoubt and Mount Iliamna. I don’t mean to ignore the more northerly Mount Spurr, especially since it is about 1,000 feet taller than either of the other two. However, Mount Spurr just doesn’t stand out so starkly against much lower background mountains the way Iliamna and Redoubt do.

If you have lived here or visited the peninsula in the past, I’ll bet you have a couple photos of these two picturesque mountains. I have a collection of Mount Redoubt and Mount Iliamna pictures that number in the hundreds and date all the way back to 1977.

When I look back at these pictures, no matter what time of the year they were taken and no matter how close I was when I tripped the shutter, they all show a 10,000-foot white mountain. But not today. If you take out your binoculars on a clear day this summer you will find that Iliamna is still snow-covered and white but Redoubt is dark with only a hint of white in selected spots. Redoubt has belched ash all over its normally pure-white bib.

Volcanic verse

Mount Redoubt inspires
eruptive show of local
creativity

Editor’s note: The Redoubt Reporter invited readers to submit photos and haiku poems of and inspired by Mount Redoubt’s eruptions. One photo and one poem were chosen as winners, and those submitters receive a T-shirt, a year’s subscription to the paper and are mentioned below. The Redoubt Reporter thanks everyone who participated. Photo prints are available for purchase from the photographers, or contact redoubtreporter@alaska.net to get in touch with the photographers listed here.

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

As Joe Kashi, of Soldotna, jokingly wrote in response to The Redoubt Reporter’s contest of poetry inspired by Mount Redoubt’s eruptions (with due credit given to John Donne and John Kennedy): “Ash not for whom it blows, it blows for thee.”

In a sense, he’s right (albeit a little corny). The volcano’s unrest has inspired curiosity and creativity in onlookers on the central Kenai Peninsula, and around the world, for that matter. It’s provided excitement, a topic of conversation, some celebrity status among friends and relatives down south, a reason for volcano-watching outings with the family, and motivation to pick up a camera or put pen to paper.

The Redoubt Reporter invited readers to share the results of their creativity with the paper, and is pleased to publish those submissions here.

While Kashi’s whimsical haiku poetry submission:
Redoubt volcano
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom
Twenty times to date
— didn’t rank tops in The Redoubt Reporter’s haiku contest, one of his photos of the smoldering mountain got top mention in the photo division. The shot was taken at sunset March 31 at the top of the hill on Robinson Loop Road.

Above is the winning photo, taken by Joe Kashi, of Soldotna, showing Mount Redoubt at sunset from Robinson Loop Road on March 31.

“I live at the base of the hill. I heard the volcano was simmering so I went up to take a look with my kid and took my camera,” he said.

He used a Kodak z1012 long zoom camera, which he has been keeping with him in his car, in case Redoubt erupted while he was driving somewhere, he said.

“I had that happen during the iconic April 1990 (Redoubt) eruption, which I saw that morning from start to finish, without a camera,” Kashi said.

Big shots — Eruption photographers find their work appearing far and wide

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Just like any good news photographer, David Wartinbee didn’t waste time celebrating the good luck that put him in the right place at the right time with a camera in his hand as a spectacular mushroom cloud bloomed over Mount Redoubt on Saturday afternoon. He lifted his camera to his eye and started shooting, and didn’t stop until the eruption subsided.

Then he went straight to his computer and filed his images. Later that evening they started showing up in media venues across the state, and soon, the nation and world.

All in a day’s work for an intrepid roving news photographer.

Except Wartinbee isn’t a news photographer. He doesn’t work for a media company or wire service; doesn’t have a press pass or journalism credentials. He’s a biology professor at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus with a recreational interest in photography whose front porch in Soldotna faces out across Cook Inlet, and who happened to be pulling into his driveway just when the mountain started to go off.

But through the power of digital cameras and the Internet, and a world that’s becoming insatiable for instantaneous imagery, Wartinbee and other central peninsula residents were deputized as newshounds that day, by virtue of having cameras, having something spectacular to point them at, and being willing to share.

Environmental concern over Drift River spill potential grows

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

A tank farm at the base of Mount Redoubt containing 6.2 million gallons of crude continued to raise concerns this week, while officials formed a unified command to react if volcanoic ash and melting glacial ice sent floods down the Drift River plain.

Fearing risk of an oil spill in Cook Inlet during this period of eruptions, Cook Inletkeeper Director Bob Shavelson went to the Coast Guard’s boss at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Shavelson’s letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urged her to order Cook Inlet Pipeline Co., to remove the 6.2 million gallons of oil at the Drift River Terminal at the base of the erupting Mt. Redoubt volcano until conditions improve.

“We are writing to ask you to take swift action to protect Alaska fisheries and the countless people they support from the threat of a major oil spill in Cook Inlet, Alaska,” Shavelson wrote. He described the precarious situation of the terminal’s location at the base of Mount Redoubt with the volcano erupting, sending mud, water and debris flowing down the Drift River.

Plugged In: Don’t let Redoubt’s ash be downfall of electronics

Before concluding our series about cost-effective computer upgrades, here’s a brief word about dealing with the byproducts of our namesake across Cook Inlet, whose unpredictable geological mutterings are likewise kicking up some dust on the central Kenai Peninsula.

Volcanic emissions are potentially damaging to almost any mechanical or electrical device. Damage can occur in several ways. Although light traces of ash are not a problem, it’s wise to remember that local volcanic ash is an industrial-grade abrasive, which, in sufficient quantities, can abrade and mechanically damage engines, bearings, fans or any other rotating or mechanically actuated devices.

This can quickly cause major computer failures. For example, if the bearings on your CPU’s cooling fan fail, either your computer will shut down almost immediately or your CPU will basically suffer catastrophic heat stroke within a few seconds. Modern processors really do put out enough heat to cook themselves unless constantly and efficiently cooled. In addition to general abrasion of moving parts, other electronic devices like printers, scanners and photocopiers are highly vulnerable to mechanical scratching of interior parts and can become quickly and permanently unusable unless covered and cleaned with compressed air. Don’t try to wipe the dust off such parts and surfaces — blow it off.

Volcanic ash can also damage electronics because it’s electrically conductive, which can cause short circuits. It’s also chemically corrosive due to sulfur oxides which, when combined with atmospheric water, hydrolyze into sulfuric acid, among other noxious chemicals. That’s the same process that results in long-term toxic acid drainage from open-pit mines and mine tailings exposed to oxygen.

Borough is ready for rumbles — Emergency management team keeps tabs on Redoubt eruption

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Scott Walden usually gets up at 4:30 a.m. He was about ready to head to bed around 10 p.m. Sunday night. But when you’re the coordinator of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management and a volcano starts erupting across Cook Inlet, sleep can be hard to come by.

After three months of on-and-off rumbling, Mount Redoubt finally made good on its threats. The volcano began a series of eruptions at 10:38 p.m. Sunday night, followed by others at 11:02 p.m., 12:14 a.m. and 1:39 a.m., according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. The largest blast of the morning occurred at 4:03 a.m. Monday, sending an ash cloud more than 60,000 feet — 12 miles — into the air. Another large eruption occurred at 7:41 p.m. Monday, sending another ash plume 60,000 feet into the air.

Walden’s work cell phone, a 24-hour necessity for occasions such as these, started ringing between 10 and 10:20 p.m. Sunday, he said, when it became clear Redoubt was ready to do more than just rumble.

Editorial: Peninsula scores passing marks for Redoubt round 1

OK, be honest now:

Who went to bed Sunday or woke up Monday thinking: “Gee, I really should have stocked up on water/air filters/flashlights/etc.” by now?

Consider this your warning.

Attention to Mount Redoubt wound down after months of activity without an eruption. Then, within a day, Redoubt decided to no longer be ignored.

The great news for the Kenai Peninsula is the ash plumes spurted out in the series of eruptions have missed us so far, and weather forecasts predict continued favorable wind patterns through Friday.

The good news is it appears as though, even if we had gotten some ash, the peninsula would have been more or less ready for it.

Shaken, not stirred to erupt — yet

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

If the Alaska Volcano Observatory were looking for a theme song, it could turn to The Who and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Current activity at Mount Redoubt volcano is deja vu for Kenai Peninsula residents who lived here during its last period of unrest, in 1989 and 1990.

And while the observatory keeps tabs on the rumbling giant across the inlet, the volcano in turn serves as a measure of how the observatory itself has progressed.

The observatory was formed in 1988, just one year before Mount Redoubt erupted.

“It was really that eruption that sort of showed the state and federal government that that was an important issue,” said Allison Payne, geologist with the observatory.

“It demonstrated how important it is to keep track of those volcanoes. … We can’t predict what the volcano is going to do, but we have a much better grasp of what it might do and a better timetable to work with, and that allows us to be more prepared.”

The observatory has come a long way in the last 20 years, when Redoubt’s eruption came largely as a surprise.

“The onset of the eruption happened quite quickly. We had about 24 hours notice,” Payne said of the 1989 event. “A couple people were looking at seismicity the week before the eruption, and had this premonition that there was going to be an eruption, based on some interesting seismic patterns.”

But the geologists weren’t widely believed until the seismic activity significantly ramped up just prior to the eruption in December 1989. Had the observatory known sooner, it could have sounded the alarm sooner, which would have allowed people to be better prepared for the resulting ash fallout — especially on the Kenai — and possibly could have prevented a KLM jet from flying through the ash plume and nearly crashing.

These days, there isn’t much going on at the volcano that the observatory isn’t aware of.

There’s a Web cam pointed at the summit and geologists monitor real-time seismic data that’s updated every second. They keep a constant watch on satellite data for heat and gas emanations. They do periodic overflights to monitor activity, and take gas measurements to learn about new magma moving in the system. Wind patterns are tracked and particulate matter in the air is monitored. The Web site is continuously updated with new photos and status reports. If unusual activity does occur, the observatory sends out e-mail alerts to anyone who signs up for them, along with its usual communication with government, emergency response, aviation and other agencies.

The observatory will even send out updates via Twitter, a networking service where people send and receive short text messages on cell phones, computers and other devices. That certainly wasn’t around in 1989.

“No, not so much,” Payne said.

So monitoring has changed, but the volcano itself isn’t behaving all that differently this time around. Other than the short notice in 1989, that cycle of activity and the current one share similarities.

Redoubt is displaying two kinds of seismicity, Payne said. Volcanic tremors are small, continuous earthquakes mainly produced from hydrothermal activity, when ground water in the volcano is heated to boiling by magma underneath and moves through the rocks, causing them to break up and jumble round. The other seismicity is more substantial, discreet volcanic events that come in at higher frequencies than the continual tremors.

Both types preceded the eruption in December 1989 and are being measured at Redoubt now, although in 1989 they led to an eruption much more quickly.

“Certainly they were there,” Payne said. “They happened sooner, so right now we’ve had a couple weeks with mostly tremors and just a few events of discrete volcanic events.

“This time we started seeing similar seismicity and we were thinking it could happen rather quickly. This just goes to show nature is very diverse, volcanic systems are really diverse and you never really know what’s going to happen.”

The level of seismic activity at Redoubt over the past month has cycled up and down. During the past two weeks there was a spike in activity Jan. 25, another Jan. 31 and an increase in seismicity over the last several days, Payne said Monday, with the volcano settling down in between.

It’s possible the volcano could quiet back down without an eruption, Payne said, but it’s more likely an event similar to 1989 and 1990 is coming.

“Something comparable to the ’89 eruption, or smaller in scale,” she said. “So that could mean an ash column the same size or smaller — or it could mean more growth of the lava dome, or growth of new lava dome. Or not.

“I think most folks are thinking it’s more probable we’ll have a small eruption. It’s possible nothing will happen, and it’s possible there will be a larger eruption.”

If Redoubt behaves as it did in 1989-90, that means Southcentral Alaska is in for several ash-producing eruptions up to 40,000 feet over a several-month period. Redoubt followed its December 1989 eruption with others in February, April and June.

The 1989-90 eruptions produced several ash plumes up to 40,000 feet, which dusted Kenai with 5 millimeters of ash overall, Payne said. The prevalent wind pattern this time of year blows east, northeast — toward the peninsula. If and when there is an ash-producing event, the peninsula will probably be in the crosshairs.

Eruptions can be from deep within the volcano out through the cone itself, and others are produced by volcanic domes growing and then collapsing, spitting up ash, gas and rock.

The iconic photo from Redoubt’s April 1990 eruption, with a red-tinged mushroom cloud rising into the sky, was caused by a collapse of a lava dome, Payne said, which is why the cloud rose off-center from the volcano, instead of directly from the cone.

Payne recommends continued preparedness, because it may be summer before Redoubt goes dormant again.

“It certainly could. The last one was several months,” she said.

Shaken, not stirred to erupt — yet

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

If the Alaska Volcano Observatory were looking for a theme song, it could turn to The Who and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Current activity at Mount Redoubt volcano is deja vu for Kenai Peninsula residents who lived here during its last period of unrest, in 1989 and 1990.

And while the observatory keeps tabs on the rumbling giant across the inlet, the volcano in turn serves as a measure of how the observatory itself has progressed.

The observatory was formed in 1988, just one year before Mount Redoubt erupted.

“It was really that eruption that sort of showed the state and federal government that that was an important issue,” said Allison Payne, geologist with the observatory.

“It demonstrated how important it is to keep track of those volcanoes. … We can’t predict what the volcano is going to do, but we have a much better grasp of what it might do and a better timetable to work with, and that allows us to be more prepared.”

The observatory has come a long way in the last 20 years, when Redoubt’s eruption came largely as a surprise.

“The onset of the eruption happened quite quickly. We had about 24 hours notice,” Payne said of the 1989 event. “A couple people were looking at seismicity the week before the eruption, and had this premonition that there was going to be an eruption, based on some interesting seismic patterns.”

But the geologists weren’t widely believed until the seismic activity significantly ramped up just prior to the eruption in December 1989. Had the observatory known sooner, it could have sounded the alarm sooner, which would have allowed people to be better prepared for the resulting ash fallout — especially on the Kenai — and possibly could have prevented a KLM jet from flying through the ash plume and nearly crashing.

These days, there isn’t much going on at the volcano that the observatory isn’t aware of.

There’s a Web cam pointed at the summit and geologists monitor real-time seismic data that’s updated every second. They keep a constant watch on satellite data for heat and gas emanations. They do periodic overflights to monitor activity, and take gas measurements to learn about new magma moving in the system. Wind patterns are tracked and particulate matter in the air is monitored. The Web site is continuously updated with new photos and status reports. If unusual activity does occur, the observatory sends out e-mail alerts to anyone who signs up for them, along with its usual communication with government, emergency response, aviation and other agencies.

The observatory will even send out updates via Twitter, a networking service where people send and receive short text messages on cell phones, computers and other devices. That certainly wasn’t around in 1989.

“No, not so much,” Payne said.

So monitoring has changed, but the volcano itself isn’t behaving all that differently this time around. Other than the short notice in 1989, that cycle of activity and the current one share similarities.

Redoubt is displaying two kinds of seismicity, Payne said. Volcanic tremors are small, continuous earthquakes mainly produced from hydrothermal activity, when ground water in the volcano is heated to boiling by magma underneath and moves through the rocks, causing them to break up and jumble round. The other seismicity is more substantial, discreet volcanic events that come in at higher frequencies than the continual tremors.

Both types preceded the eruption in December 1989 and are being measured at Redoubt now, although in 1989 they led to an eruption much more quickly.

“Certainly they were there,” Payne said. “They happened sooner, so right now we’ve had a couple weeks with mostly tremors and just a few events of discrete volcanic events.

“This time we started seeing similar seismicity and we were thinking it could happen rather quickly. This just goes to show nature is very diverse, volcanic systems are really diverse and you never really know what’s going to happen.”

The level of seismic activity at Redoubt over the past month has cycled up and down. During the past two weeks there was a spike in activity Jan. 25, another Jan. 31 and an increase in seismicity over the last several days, Payne said Monday, with the volcano settling down in between.

It’s possible the volcano could quiet back down without an eruption, Payne said, but it’s more likely an event similar to 1989 and 1990 is coming.

“Something comparable to the ’89 eruption, or smaller in scale,” she said. “So that could mean an ash column the same size or smaller — or it could mean more growth of the lava dome, or growth of new lava dome. Or not.

“I think most folks are thinking it’s more probable we’ll have a small eruption. It’s possible nothing will happen, and it’s possible there will be a larger eruption.”

If Redoubt behaves as it did in 1989-90, that means Southcentral Alaska is in for several ash-producing eruptions up to 40,000 feet over a several-month period. Redoubt followed its December 1989 eruption with others in February, April and June.

The 1989-90 eruptions produced several ash plumes up to 40,000 feet, which dusted Kenai with 5 millimeters of ash overall, Payne said. The prevalent wind pattern this time of year blows east, northeast — toward the peninsula. If and when there is an ash-producing event, the peninsula will probably be in the crosshairs.

Eruptions can be from deep within the volcano out through the cone itself, and others are produced by volcanic domes growing and then collapsing, spitting up ash, gas and rock.

The iconic photo from Redoubt’s April 1990 eruption, with a red-tinged mushroom cloud rising into the sky, was caused by a collapse of a lava dome, Payne said, which is why the cloud rose off-center from the volcano, instead of directly from the cone.

Payne recommends continued preparedness, because it may be summer before Redoubt goes dormant again.

“It certainly could. The last one was several months,” she said.

Spurred on — Climbers test luck on 3rd volcano summit

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

At 11,070 feet, Mount Spurr stands about a thousand feet higher than Redoubt and Iliamna, and because reaching it would require traveling a greater distance inland from the coast, Craig Barnard, Rory Stark and Tyler Johnson changed their usual modus operandi.

They decided to charter a plane from Merrill Field in Anchorage to Tyonek, take mountain bikes to roll up the maze of logging roads leading out of town and up the Chak- achatna River drainage toward the volcano, and to give themselves at least five days for the round trip.

On a Friday morning in early June, they boarded a single-engine Cessna Skywagon piloted by Spernak Air, and after a short flight they were unpacking gear in Tyonek and preparing to maneuver about a 40-mile maze of backcountry roads that would lead them up along the Chakachatna to its confluence with Straight Creek.

“It was crazy,” said Barnard, the least experienced of the three riders. “These guys were flying. It was all I could do to keep up. And I was hot for every break. I was, ‘Oh, a break! Come on! This is supposed to be fun, guys.’”

Near the confluence, they stashed their bikes and began following the creek, crossing and re-crossing its chilly waters to avoid prying their way through thick tangles of alders. Once, Barnard, who said the water sometimes moved so fast he could feel himself starting to float, tumbled into the stream.

“I bit it. I was on all fours,” he said. “Your legs are numb all day long. And then just in time to start feeling your legs and stuff, you plunge into the river again.”

Eventually, after camping for a night on a gravel bar to avoid all the bears in the area, they reached the source of Straight Creek: a swath of ice they called a “dry glacier” because its dense main vein was topped by a thick carpet of rocky debris.

Johnson called the up-and-down, boulder-strewn traverse of the glacier “tedious.” Stark said it was “just like a moonscape.” But, after day of such travel and a night on the glacier, they exited onto a southeastern flank of the mountain, and it was here that their real troubles began.

The clouds moved in. The light flattened out. Warmer air began to deteriorate the snow.

At about 8,000 feet, according to Johnson, they “got up onto the ridge, and, man, it was super steep. But it was the only way we could see to connect our route to the summit. We’re like 3,000 feet from the summit, and the snow at that point was so soft where you could stick your ski pole all the way up to the handle. Like 4 feet of mush.”

Stark painted an even more severe picture: “There was a cornice on one side of this ridge and then a really steep drop with crevasses running down the other side. This snow, it was just ready to rip. I mean, real sort of unstable snow conditions.

“I pretty much figured if we tried to traverse that ridge, we’d break a slide on it and go into one of the crevasses. And if you stayed high enough to be away from that, then you’d be hanging over the cornice on the other side, which is a cliff. It was pretty untenable.”

They sent Barnard out ahead for a closer look, and even though he said he was “disappointed” to turn back, he knew it was the right call.

“It was such a good decision to turn around,” he said. “Their vibe was totally right.”

They descended to 6,000 feet and camped.

On Monday, they worked down the full length of the dry glacier and camped along Straight Creek. On Tuesday, they reached their bicycles and trundled back into Tyonek, where they called Spernak Air. By Tuesday night they were all at home.

Johnson said they were all disappointed by failing to summit, but they decided to take a practical perspective: “The (other two) trips were so perfect that it was kind of nice to throw in three-quarters of a mountain in there. Nobody’s that lucky.”

Johnson added that he had no regrets.

“They were the cheapest trips I’ve ever done, and the most rewarding,” he said.

In the months to come, the trio would have many more rewards but also more difficulties.

In October, Johnson, Stark and Stark’s brother, Will, flew into Katmandu in the Himalayas and climbed then skied down Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak.

Just before the end of the year, Stark and Johnson were skiing high on Silvertip Mountain on the Kenai Peninsula when Stark, for the second time in his life, was swept away by an avalanche.

“It was horrible,” he said. “I broke my femur in three places, and my tibia was just shattered. For about 6 inches it was just bone fragments. And there was a piece of bone coming through my leg, and I lost a lot of blood, so I had to have a transfusion.”

Stark was rescued by the 210th Rescue Squadron of the Air National Guard. In November, he had surgery to remove 20 screws and some metal plates from his leg. Sometime after this Christmas, he said, he hopes to start skiing again.

In March 2008, Johnson and a pair of other Anchorage racers finished second in the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic. And in July, Johnson and Barnard won the summer version of the race. They plan to compete in the winter classic again this March.

“It was mainly for the adventure,” said Johnson, speaking chiefly of the volcano trips but also about the men’s shared love of the outdoor experience. “It’s not just the mountains and the skiing. That’s fun, but I think for all three of us it’s just the adventure of going out and doing something different, and rolling the dice. If it works it works. If it doesn’t it doesn’t.”

Spurred on — Climbers test luck on 3rd volcano summit

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

At 11,070 feet, Mount Spurr stands about a thousand feet higher than Redoubt and Iliamna, and because reaching it would require traveling a greater distance inland from the coast, Craig Barnard, Rory Stark and Tyler Johnson changed their usual modus operandi.

They decided to charter a plane from Merrill Field in Anchorage to Tyonek, take mountain bikes to roll up the maze of logging roads leading out of town and up the Chak- achatna River drainage toward the volcano, and to give themselves at least five days for the round trip.

On a Friday morning in early June, they boarded a single-engine Cessna Skywagon piloted by Spernak Air, and after a short flight they were unpacking gear in Tyonek and preparing to maneuver about a 40-mile maze of backcountry roads that would lead them up along the Chakachatna to its confluence with Straight Creek.

“It was crazy,” said Barnard, the least experienced of the three riders. “These guys were flying. It was all I could do to keep up. And I was hot for every break. I was, ‘Oh, a break! Come on! This is supposed to be fun, guys.’”

Near the confluence, they stashed their bikes and began following the creek, crossing and re-crossing its chilly waters to avoid prying their way through thick tangles of alders. Once, Barnard, who said the water sometimes moved so fast he could feel himself starting to float, tumbled into the stream.

“I bit it. I was on all fours,” he said. “Your legs are numb all day long. And then just in time to start feeling your legs and stuff, you plunge into the river again.”

Eventually, after camping for a night on a gravel bar to avoid all the bears in the area, they reached the source of Straight Creek: a swath of ice they called a “dry glacier” because its dense main vein was topped by a thick carpet of rocky debris.

Johnson called the up-and-down, boulder-strewn traverse of the glacier “tedious.” Stark said it was “just like a moonscape.” But, after day of such travel and a night on the glacier, they exited onto a southeastern flank of the mountain, and it was here that their real troubles began.

The clouds moved in. The light flattened out. Warmer air began to deteriorate the snow.

At about 8,000 feet, according to Johnson, they “got up onto the ridge, and, man, it was super steep. But it was the only way we could see to connect our route to the summit. We’re like 3,000 feet from the summit, and the snow at that point was so soft where you could stick your ski pole all the way up to the handle. Like 4 feet of mush.”

Stark painted an even more severe picture: “There was a cornice on one side of this ridge and then a really steep drop with crevasses running down the other side. This snow, it was just ready to rip. I mean, real sort of unstable snow conditions.

“I pretty much figured if we tried to traverse that ridge, we’d break a slide on it and go into one of the crevasses. And if you stayed high enough to be away from that, then you’d be hanging over the cornice on the other side, which is a cliff. It was pretty untenable.”

They sent Barnard out ahead for a closer look, and even though he said he was “disappointed” to turn back, he knew it was the right call.

“It was such a good decision to turn around,” he said. “Their vibe was totally right.”

They descended to 6,000 feet and camped.

On Monday, they worked down the full length of the dry glacier and camped along Straight Creek. On Tuesday, they reached their bicycles and trundled back into Tyonek, where they called Spernak Air. By Tuesday night they were all at home.

Johnson said they were all disappointed by failing to summit, but they decided to take a practical perspective: “The (other two) trips were so perfect that it was kind of nice to throw in three-quarters of a mountain in there. Nobody’s that lucky.”

Johnson added that he had no regrets.

“They were the cheapest trips I’ve ever done, and the most rewarding,” he said.

In the months to come, the trio would have many more rewards but also more difficulties.

In October, Johnson, Stark and Stark’s brother, Will, flew into Katmandu in the Himalayas and climbed then skied down Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak.

Just before the end of the year, Stark and Johnson were skiing high on Silvertip Mountain on the Kenai Peninsula when Stark, for the second time in his life, was swept away by an avalanche.

“It was horrible,” he said. “I broke my femur in three places, and my tibia was just shattered. For about 6 inches it was just bone fragments. And there was a piece of bone coming through my leg, and I lost a lot of blood, so I had to have a transfusion.”

Stark was rescued by the 210th Rescue Squadron of the Air National Guard. In November, he had surgery to remove 20 screws and some metal plates from his leg. Sometime after this Christmas, he said, he hopes to start skiing again.

In March 2008, Johnson and a pair of other Anchorage racers finished second in the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic. And in July, Johnson and Barnard won the summer version of the race. They plan to compete in the winter classic again this March.

“It was mainly for the adventure,” said Johnson, speaking chiefly of the volcano trips but also about the men’s shared love of the outdoor experience. “It’s not just the mountains and the skiing. That’s fun, but I think for all three of us it’s just the adventure of going out and doing something different, and rolling the dice. If it works it works. If it doesn’t it doesn’t.”