Alaska smash & grab - how

Thanks everyone for your insightful comments on my previous post. 

Basically as a result of that, the team who was trying to go late may bailed out of that plan    and one member of that team wants to go to Kahiltna in April with me instead. 

Now the next problem: how to maximize chances of success given limited time and notoriously rare weather windows.

let's define "success" here as making a good faith attempt at 1 warmup walkup and 1 technical route. this requires 5 days of good weather (2 flying days, 2 climbing days separated by a rest day)

Partner can only take 10 weekdays off work = 16 full days in alaska  - 2 for anchorage-talkteena transfer.

Given the range's reputation, It seems somewhat unlikely that we would have 5 good weather days in a 14 day span. Is this true?

I've heard tell of some people attempting a 'smash & grab', aka, don't book anything until you see a long window of high pressure in the forecast. Has anyone taken this strategy? How was your experience?

Aside the obvious, you're gonna pay out the ass for flights if you book last minute, How would you determine whether you're looking at a prize weather window?
What specific sites would you look at and what would you want them to show in order to feel confident that you're looking at a smash & grab opportunity? also, how does this work with the air taxi booking?

Generally which strategy would you advise for someone's first trip to the range (smash-&-grab or preplan)? There might also be an middle ground of staying in alaska for 3 weeks but work remote from talkeetna while the weather's bad. 

First thing would be learning how to keep your ice screws sharp. Lol

Air taxis take first come first serve based on check in, so if you wait for a good window after a storm you might be waiting a while (1-2 days) in Talkeetna while they catch up getting others in. 

If you get lucky and plan appropriately you could land in Anchorage in the morning and be sleeping at KIA that night.

You might not have perfect blue bird weather, but 5 climbing days in 14 is fairly common (and 5 days in a row isn’t unheard of).

A combination of Mountain Forecast and Windy seem like what most people I’ve talked to use. All my trips have been planned out, so not sure what to watch for on a smash and grab style trip. 

Hire a meteorologist. 

I have been very happy with https://christomer.com/services/

He climbs, so knows what you're thinking, plays well with inreaches... 

In the bigger scheme of things, the civilian weather world doesn't pay any attention (spend any money to sample upstream weather) to forecasting places without millions of people, so he'll be much better than all those silly weather apps that are making up numbers literally out of thin air. 

As per another MP thread, forget Mountain Forecast. Go directly to NOAA. Get used to reading and understanding the forecast and prognostic discussions. Get your buddies to feed this information to you while you're on the mountain.

+1 for NOAA.

FYI the weather station at 14.2 has been dead for almost 2 years. NPS still references it in their comms links, and I've asked them about its status / when it's coming back, but crickets.

tl;dr; 14.2 Denali wx station is dead, don't plan on it being available

https://mesowest.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/meso_base_dyn.cgi?stn=FCPA2&unit=0&time=LOCAL&year1=2013&month1=1&day1=23&hour1=8

I have done several smash and grabs, though not in the AK range. Those doing smash and grabs most anywhere have the logistics wired. They have the logistics wired because they have been into in the range before or are really good at planning. I am not sure I would suggest a smash and grab for a first trip to the AK range. You would be better off planning a more traditional trip with multiple possible objectives. Pick the objective based on the weather. 

I agree with what Allen said above. For simplicity sake, choose a small handful of objectives that fit your goals (out of a couple of different glaciers to give you options) and then plan and book your flights in April. Hope for good weather. Chances are you will have an opportunity to make attempts. And, if you end up truly sitting out storms for 2 weeks straight that's a learning experience also!  

I've attempted to smash and grab in AK from CO three times over, with three times leaving empty handed. 

On the first, I wish we had hired Tomer. We worked remote/ waited in Talkeetna until they could fly us in, posted up in a luxurious basecamp given the generous weight allotments, and waited for a good forecast. You fly when they say you can fly, so this requires waiting around on the glacier. Our forecast was iffy at best and we waited out blue bird days to get dumped on later. Second trip similar issues with iffy forecast.

On the third, we had a good forecaster and phenomenal weather. Hung out in AK driving around and working for a two week block waiting on a 5 day window. This worked well, but lack of acclimatization hit us. 

I've been to the range several times. One attempt was more or less smash and grab style and relatively successful but not what I wanted. I had a complete smash and grab plan for this season including accommodations in Anchorage that would allow me to be there waiting on weather for 4 weeks. 

I'll first point out that I think Allen is correct about needing to know and understand the logistics. You can try it, and you might pull it off, but going SnG style on your first trip there is a good way to feel like you spent a bunch of money for nothing. The major logistical issues are fairly well known and easy to sort out by reading about trips, but theres a lot of small stuff that can hang you up that isn't on the top of anyone's head and doesn't make trip reports. 

If you're going to try it, the best chance for success is if you can post up somewhere between Anchorage and Talkeetna and work remotely, with an easy and quick way to get to the airstrip in Talkeetna if a window appears. I would show up with everything relatively packed in such a way that you can hit the glacier and start climbing without having to sort a bunch of stuff. You want to get off of the plan on the snow, bury your basecamp cache, and head for your route if at all possible. Every minute of a weather window you waste can come back to haunt you. Even if you have a great forecast, the peaks in the range can have their own localized weather that completely shuts you down. I got stormed off of the mini-moonflower one year while the NPS was flying loads from basecamp 14k camp with the helicopter in perfect weather. 

If I was doing this, I would likely forego the "warmup walkup" climb and get on the thing that matters to you. My opinion and experience has lead me to not want to waste any good climbing days. It's not the worst range for weather, but the weather just changes too fast to give up a window on something that isn't what I went there for. If I need a warmup, I probably shouldn't be trying to smash/grab. 

Awesome and thanks for the kind and informative replies and not just calling me a gumby :) 

Air taxis take first come first serve based on check in, so if you wait for a good window after a storm you might be waiting a while (1-2 days) in Talkeetna while they catch up getting others in.

This settles it. 

With 14 days in the Ruth area or Kahiltna you will very likely get some good weather. I've been there and had 10+ days of perfect weather at a time more than once. I've also had small windows to climb a day and sit in a tent for multiple days. It's part of AK and expedition climbing and still a great experience.

Ellen Swrote:

Awesome and thanks for the kind and informative replies and not just calling me a gumby :) 

This settles it. 

If you're going in April, your chances of sitting through a backup are much lower than if you were to go in the last week of May when everyone is trying to get on Denali. There are really only a couple handfuls of people climbing during April vs all the hordes running to Denali in the end of May. I've never had to wait out a full day due to a backlog when climbing there in the early season.

I've waited out weather A LOT, which is just par for the course there. I've also turned around in the air 5 different times because the glacier landing has socked in during the time it took to fly from Talkeetna to the glacier. Just to share some of the things you can expect that can totally throw a smash and grab plan off. 

If you were to schedule a 3-week window to be in alaska (including <=2 weeks on the glacier the remainder allocated to waiting in town for weather windows)

aiming mainly for hunter north face couloirs but with other stuff (walkup ridges, frances, 12200, etc.) as possible bonuses, 

Prioritizing avoiding heat problems but also keeping in mind that a first season ascent is probably not in the cards for this team,

which 3 weeks would you choose? 

Last two weeks of April first week of May.

More May for stuff on the N side on Hunter. They generally remain quite snowy in April with more and more ice appearing in May.

.. My other post says late May is too late .. was mostly debating between 4/12-5/4, or a week later. There are tons of ticks on MP for these routes starting around 4/20, but I suspect that people are ticking for the date that they return to cell service, not the date they climbed. Wouldn't go any later than that- I hate having to race the sun.

They generally remain quite snowy in April with more and more ice appearing in May.

By "more snowy" do you mean lower angle pitches are snow-covered in April and then melt off to expose ice in May? Generally I prefer 50deg snow to 50deg ice.. 

Or do you mean the ice on steeper pitches doesn't form until May?

The Alaska Air Miles program is a great way to get last minute tickets for cheaper. I'd buy them when they went on sale (New Years / Christmas and in October with PFD sale) and then also build up air miles with one of their credit cards. You get basically a free round trip ticket for opening one. 

By "more snowy" do you mean lower angle pitches are snow-covered in April and then melt off to expose ice in May? Generally I prefer 50deg snow to 50deg ice.. 

Or do you mean the ice on steeper pitches doesn't form until May?

You'll generally have unconsolidated snow on the approach pitches and snow plastered ice vs bare ice to climb/protect in early-mid April.

Ellen Swrote:

There are tons of ticks on MP for these routes starting around 4/20, but I suspect that people are ticking for the date that they return to cell service, not the date they climbed.

I would be very cautious about basing travel plans on this assumption.  I can't speak for other people, but I definitely tick routes the day I climbed (or started) them, not a date I got back home, because that's what's most useful both for my future self and for other climbers.

Kyle I appreciate the effort :) we have refundable flights for April 18 and 25. Plan is to look at forecast and call TAT on April 17 and see if things look decent for the next week, if not delay by a week. 

We ended up doing a "Smash & stay" style. It worked out pretty well.

We booked two 2-week trips in advance. On the morning of the flight, we decided to go with the Plan A dates because we saw a decent weather window at the beginning of that trip. Then the hope would be that more weather windows would also occur over the following 2 weeks. in the end we had:

5 logistics days

1. Anchorage - Talkeetna transfer - arrived by 10am so the schedule would permit flying onto the glacier the same day, but TAT couldn't fly due to clouds.

2. Talkeetna - Root canal flight

3. Root canal - Kahiltna flight

4. Kailthna - Talkeetna flight

5. Talkeetna - Anchorage transfer & anchorage - home flight (4 and 5 could be combined)

7 weather days 

• 5 of these had bad forecasts and bad weather. 
• 1 had a bad forecast but good weather. 
• 1 had a good forecast but bad weather. 

5 climbable days. (good forecast + good weather)

I gather this ratio is slightly worse than average.,. people said it was the snowiest April they had seen. The median 17-day window probably gets more climbable days than we did. 

I think 2 weeks is a pretty good time frame for this kind of trip. I know of 3 teams who each stayed 10 days and didn't climb at all. There were ~10 day stretches of near constant snow both starting april ~10 and ~27, but both were then followed by 5+ day stretches of good weather. So in those cases, a 2-week trip would buy you some good weather. Not to say that it's impossible to have 2 straight weeks of snow!

I'm still unclear on whether a multi-day high pressure window could be predicted in advance by looking at forecasts. 

We did have a high-pressure window around May 7 to 11, but many of those days were forecasted as having 1-3" of snow -- the same forecast as days that ended up nuking 10".