Eklutna Glacier
Dirty Harry Area
Mitre Might
Boulder Creek
Taurine Scream
Snow River
Arctic Rhino
Sterno
Burning Down the House
December 2021 –
Mike has been generous over the years to AIC, providing his knowledge whenever and wherever he can. We are fortunate to have his contributions so that others can benefit. Like many of our fellow users of the site, we love hearing about the past. AIC caught up with Mike in March 2021 to hear about the past and talk a little about his ice exploits. We were curious to hear his personal story and how he came to establish and climb some of the more famous routes we have come to know . He clued us in on what it was like back in the 80s and 90s. And, he spoke openly about what it was like to climb a major route then when the conditions, equipment, and tactics of the day were very different.
—
Part 1
For many of us, Alaska is a destination. Our lives begin somewhere else, but we end up here. Not because we can’t leave, but because we choose not to. The same could be said about Mike Miller. But before he established his roots in the Last Frontier, Mike was busy chasing adventures down south.
“I grew up in Colorado, just outside Denver, just west of Denver, and didn’t really do any big climbing down there. I moved up to Wyoming and worked there for five years. I worked in the oil field. I did a bunch of backpacking there. But I didn’t really do rock climbing or ice climbing down there. Not until I moved to Alaska in 1981.”
Mike’s career gave him the opportunity for bigger pursuits further north. “I worked for BP in the drilling group. Most of my career was there.” It’s a familiar story for many, heading north for gainful employment and the outdoors. Mike was eager to make the most of it. He took a chance for professional advancement but quickly was rewarded with much more.
“I got involved with the Mountaineering Club of Alaska. And, you know, I started doing some trips, mostly backpacking trips. Then, I kind of got interested in climbing. I got a pair of crampons and tools, not nice tools, ice axes, and just kind of went out and taught myself how to do it. I remember going up, rappelling just by myself.”
When he found local clubs, like the MCAK, it proved to be his connection to broaden his horizons of what was possible in the hills. He knew it was the way to find other like minded climbers. But at those times, the Alaska climbing scene was small in comparison. For newcomers to Alaska like Mike, he had to make his own way. “I met a bunch of folks through the MCAK. But it wasn’t like it is now. The membership was a lot lower. There were some hardcore climbers back then. Nick Parker, and, you know, Gary Bocard. They put a lot of guys these days to shame, of what they were doing back then, accessing areas.”
It was a chance encounter in the outdoors that Mike established one of his longest partnerships. “On one trip, me and somebody else went ice climbing and Dave Whitelaw was in there by himself. So, you know, he hooked up with us. Dave and I hit it off. And then we started doing a bunch of, I mean, a whole bunch of rock climbing and ice climbing. We had a good time back then just scouting out all these places that we hadn’t really been.” Dave Whitelaw went on to co-author the seminal guidebook for ice climbing in southcentral Alaska, Fat City and Urban Ice, published in 1989. “Then, it got into the 90’s, still doing a bunch of climbing. Dave moved out [of Alaska].”
Life changes and you have to change with it. So, when Mike lost his long standing partner, he wasn’t going to let that stop him from other pursuits in the backcountry. “And so then, you know, you’re just kind of picking up partners here and there. But then I kind of got hooked up with my next major partner, Dave Lucey.” Dave also worked at BP and they shared a similar passion for the vertical. “We did a lot of trips to Yosemite and Colorado, you know, just climbing around Boulder, Eldorado Canyon and Boulder Canyon, that kind of thing. We did a bunch of ice climbing too.”
Miller and Lucey worked to establish new routes in Alaska. It was during a “golden era” of ice climbing for Alaska where many areas in Alaska were being developed by Lucey, Miller and many others in their orbits. “And just prior to when I started with [Lucey], he climbed with Harry Hunt. He also did a lot of climbing with Ernie Borjon. Ernie, he’s another hardcore dude. He’s amazing.” Lucey and Borjon had established a lot of first ascents. They shared their knowledge with Mike, helping him improve his movement across all kinds of terrain. “A lot of the stuff they did was just turf climbing. There might be a little dribble of ice here or there. I did some of that too.” It was through these connections that Mike worked to establish some of the most amazing lines in Southcentral.
Mike was drawn to the remoteness of the backcountry. And soon, he and others were packing up the sled to access the routes of Eklutna Glacier. “Years ago [we made it up to the glacier] with the Mountaineering Club. A guy that was with the Club has since passed away, a guy named Tim Neil. Tim led a ski trip of, I don’t know, half a dozen of us. We went across Eklutna Lake and skied up the East Fork, back up and over a pass and down down the glacier. And as we were coming down, we came by all the waterfalls in there. But we saw [what was later to be known as] Mitre Might. And I thought, holy cow, that thing is bigger than anything I’ve seen around. It takes your breath away.”
The Mitre itself is an impressive peak. It harbors one of the most impressive waterfall ice routes in Southcentral. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s huge. I got to get some guys to come climb that,” he thought. Mike quickly asked around to elicit help and support to get this route done. He knew Charlie Sassara. He said, “Charlie, hey, what do you think about joining me on a trip and we’ll go climb this great big huge waterfall back on Eklutna Glacier.” Charlie was quick to oblige. “Yeah!”
Mike knew that accessing this route would be a challenge. So, he worked to gather up a couple other guys. He called another climbing friend, Karl Swanson, who he had done a little bit of climbing with in Alaska. Charlie had another friend from Seattle, Brian Canard. They all needed a way to get back in there because it is a long haul.
“Anyway, I had a friend who had a snow machine. But it was one of these kind of high end racing snow machines. That was back before I really knew anything about snow machines. So I borrowed it so we could get back in there.”
He did what needed to be done. “We ran the climbing ropes out behind the snow machine, and they were on skis. And then we had two or three sleds we put our packs on. And they were just tied behind the snow machine. So we took off across the lake. Well, this snow machine was set for racing. It would go from like zero to like 30 miles an hour, within a few seconds. And you know, it felt better if it was doing like 40 or 50 miles an hour. These other three guys on skis were just hauling ass across the lake.”
Mike is a courteous guy. He knew he needed to check in on his sled team from time to time on their 10 plus mile journey across the frozen lake if he was going to bag the route. “We stopped and we started. [Each time] the track was frozen. So, we’d have to tip this machine over on her side, take an ice axe, and break the tracks clear. We kept doing that all the way to Serenity Falls. Karl Swanson had a dog with him too. So, we’d have to wait for his dog to run up and catch up to us. We spent the first day getting there.”
These antics might deter some from the pursuit. But, it was this kind of spirit needed to push further to get the job done. “It was a beautiful March day, March 17. We started climbing this thing and Charlie and his partner went up the right side. Me and Karl, we went up the left side and then we both met at that crux, a vertical section [which is] really the crux of the whole climb. Charlie and his partner were ahead of us. When we got up to that point, Charlie was already up, working his way up that steep part. And he was putting screws in and his partner came up.”
Mike got creative and took advantage of the opportunity when Charlie was still leading the route. Mike said, “Hey, can we climb at the same time?” Charlie was always accommodating and said, “Yeah, come on.” Karl climbed on using the same screws that Charlie put on lead. It made for quick work as Karl just clipped the protection.
“So we’re all kind of, you know, climbing as a team. And we get up to the top of that thing. We look around. We say, shoot, there’s still ice, you know, small.” Today, it is likely that few travel any higher than the vertical section of the crux. But, these guys remained hungry. They kept looking up and it was a beautiful day. And, there was still plenty of daylight.
“So we said let’s just keep on going. And, we said, well, how are we going to get down because you know, we didn’t know anything about V-threads back then.” This modern technique allows climbers to descend ice by placing holes through the ice where a rope can be connected and retrieved after rappel.
“And you know, around that time I was experimenting with conduit. I’d cut about a half-inch conduit about a foot long. I [would] file one end sharp. Then, I would drill a hole through the other end and put a little piece of sling through there [for the rope]. I experimented around town just rappelling. It seemed to be plenty strong but we didn’t use that on this trip.” Not carrying up a bunch of conduit on a first ascent 15 miles into the backcountry sounds like a good choice.
“We said oh shoot let’s just go up and we’ll walk off. So, we just kept on going up and we didn’t have anything to eat or drink. We took nothing. We climbed up and up and then we just walked to the side of the mountain. We walked over toward Pichler’s Perch toward that direction and then came down that first gully and down to the glacier and back. ”
