The early days of the Grand Teton Speed Project, Lycra required.As most readers know, I've been playing the speed game in ski mountaineering for several years. It was a natural distraction for active Teton and Wasatch skimo racers who wanted to take their race-honed fitness and ski skills to the higher peaks. For those of us who toyed with this sort of masochism, we enjoyed pushing each other, setting standards for others to pursue and generally enjoyed testing ourselves in the mountains. We coined it the "Grand Teton Speed Project". Granted, this stuff is not for everyone. The fat and baggy crowd could care less about going fast and covering lots of ground in a day. For them, the focus is on the down. Fair enough. For sure, our skiing was not pretty but we got more of it each day and this made us happy. We still like powder skiing on fat boards but Lycra and race sticks still capture our imagination.
Spring 2013, still clinging onto the Lycra and skinny skisWhen I moved to AK three years ago it quickly became evident that I would have no such partners in crime for the fast and light game. Hell, it proved impossible to get partners out of bed before dawn let alone have them hauling ass through skin transitions and sucking down Gu to fuel the day. It's just not how it rolls up here, apparently. My funny Euro-tight clothing was met with thinly-veiled snickers and most couldn't understand why I'd want to ski anything on narrow waisted skis. To be fair, I've made a few at least partial conversions to the way. Packs have gotten lighter, equipment similarly so and nutrition simpler. But no one is going out and buying any Spandex touring clothes just yet. To the contrary, my clothing has just gotten baggier.
Changing stylesGetting lots of vertical each day is the obvious advantage of this style of skiing. More skiing = more fun. And certainly, several of my partners buy into and enjoy this aspect. But that's about as far as the game goes, so far. Specific car to car objectives are not so obvious up here. This leaves lots of room for creating standards. In the Tetons, the nature of the range makes car to car pushes obvious. But I think the scale of the mountain ranges up here makes these sorts of efforts less common. And with nearly no one up here really interested in pursuing stuff like this, there's just not much happening.
As a result of the general ambivalance to speed (save for Kilian Jornet's destruction of the round trip on Denali last spring) my race gear has been mostly idle since I've been here. I brought it with me to Chamonix last spring and enjoyed playing on it at the Pierra Menta and on a few tours in the Argentiere. But back home in AK, I wasn't that inspired. Sure, I did the odd spring ritual of biking to the base of Ptarmigan Peak in the Anchorage Front Range on the gear and it was well-suited.
Then, I got out on the Bomber Traverse a few weeks ago and spent a couple of nights at the Snowbird Hut. We didn't traverse but it occured to me that doing so on race gear was the obvious challenge. Another new friend who had actually done so with speed in mind gave me a standard (7 hours) to shoot for and I started getting excited about giving it a go. I also realized that with the vastness of AK's mountain wilderness, perhaps long traverses and loops made more sense than peak bagging on light equipment.
The Bomber
With this in mind, the weather, conditions and days off finally collided last weekend and I geared up for a go on the Bomber Traverse, a typically multi-day hut to hut traverse through the Talkeetna Mountains near Hatcher Pass. The classic traverse hits the Mint, Bomber and Snowbird huts during the course of the 32 km journey. Two passes are crossed and a couple of low angle glaciers are skied enroute. With stops at each hut overnight, a ton of great ski terrain can be accessed each day.
Previously, I'd been to the Mint hut and the Snowbird but missed the middle section. This was unknown terrain to me and that fact cost me 10 minutes or so during my effort. I had a moment of indecision about which way to go and took a short detour to the Bomber Hut to check the map. Poor preparation had me forgetting a pocket map which would have spared me the penalty. That said, the route is super straight forward and I'm excited to have another go in the future.
BreakfastI approached the traverse in a counter clockwise direction, opting to hit the mind-numbing 12 km opener up the Little Susitna to start things off. I left the car at 0615 by headlamp but quickly turned it off as the sky lightened. The track was frozen solid and punctuated by moose post holes that made skiing a little squirrelly. It took about 1:50 to get to the climb up to the Mint Hut, gaining about 1,300 vertical feet in the process. I was happy to start climbing. Another 1,000 feet of vertical over 25 minutes or so brought me to the basin where the Mint Hut sits. The climbing track avoids the hut but I could see it a few hundred yards away as I cruised the flats toward the grunt up Backdoor Gap. I skinned with ski crampons for a bit before transitioning to booting for the rest of the 800 foot ascent.
Backdoor Gap above the Mint HutThe climb up the Gap accesses the top of the Bomber Glacier, providing a low angled descent toward the Bomber Hut near the terminus. After nearly 3 hours of frozen solid surface, it was nice to hit the shaded glacier for some less scratchy skiing. The Talkeetnas had not seen much new snow the previous week so the skiing was punchy and wind affected. Near the bottom, a well-beat skinner came in from my left making me second guess my notion of continuing down valley. Just as I was about to spin around and go the wrong direction, I caught a glimpse of the hut and b-lined over there for a look at a map. I also was interested in seeing the digs.
View down the Bomber Glacier from Backdoor Gap
Bomber Hut
It turned out that I was initially correct and continued working the contours down valley, even spying a rarely seen wolverine along the way. With skins back on, I started the 2,000 foot 5 km climb back up and past the Snowbird hut to Snowbird Pass. 
The Snowbird Glacier coming into view
Snowbird Pass dead aheadI hit the pass around 4:39 and made quick work of the descent down to the valley. The snow was still hard and fast on the right side and I stayed high as I rounded the corner toward the Reed Lake trailhead. It was easy and fast contouring until I was blocked by some massive avy debris and was forced low onto the trail below. It turned out to be super fast if not a little scary with all the post holes.
The view from Snowbird Pass toward the exitAt the short climb back up to Archangel Road I simply walked on the firm surface. The road itself was groomed and fast in its frozen state. With race skis, I was way happier than I was a couple of weeks earlier on real skis and a heavy pack. 
Reed Lake trailhead and Archangel Road in the distanceThe miles went fast and I hit the Gold Mint trailhead cut off, making the descent from Snowbird Pass to the car in 30 minutes flat. Total time - 5:11. I'm thinking that with similar conditions, a little more focused effort and now with a good knowledge of the terrain, I could take another 15 to 20 minutes off.
Pounding some chocolate milk at my car, my head started spinning thinking about all the possibilities for similar outings up here. It's not the nerve-rattling steep skiing I was doing on race gear back in the Tetons but rather super fun traversing through big mountain ranges. This dismal snow year may not be the season to explore the possibilities but I'll be cooking up ideas this summer in hopes of getting out there next year, inshallah.
Gear Notes
I went fairly light using a Camp race pack and leaving behind all avalanche safety gear. I knew the snow pack was locked tight and frozen solid. I still brought enough to suffer a night out including puffy, wind pants, full repair kit and heavy gloves along with a Mylar bivy. With three huts along the way there is shelter closer than the road. I carried nearly a liter of water in a bladder tucked under my clothes but only drank half. I relied on 1,000 calories of GU gels diluted in 5 flasks and finished 4. I had a couple of packages of Energy Chews just in case.
I used Trab World Cup race skis but opted for heavier Dynafit TLT 5 boots as my Scarpa Alien 1.0 race boots need some work since putting fatter liners in them. The cuff overlap is askew and I didn't want to fiddle with it on the fly. I have a solution cooking. I brought Grivel Haute Route crampons and an ice axe and needed neither. There is definitely some weight to cut for next time.