It’s pretty crazy what’s possible in the Valdez to Thompson Pass corridor of the Central Chugach via human power. The lines are endless; there’s no point even trying to catalog them. Prominent (500’+) peaks are dime a dozen, but at least those accessible via human-powered daytrips are comprehensible. Coming from the Western Chugach, where LONG and heinous approaches are the norm for big lines, it seems like the peaks around Thompson Pass are low-hanging fruit. That is, if you’re comfortable with STEEP terrain and lots of glaciation.
If you want to make 50* turns in the Western Chugach you may have to trespass, hike up in trail runners, do some brush-bashing, faceted and unsupportable postholing/skinning, and then finally weave through bare tundra patches to get to a couloir apron (given the much less reliable snowpack it’s generally better to stick to couloirs, rather than faces or open slopes, for steep turns). Even then, you’re probably only going to get a few hundred feet around 50* and maybe only a turn or two around 55*. In the Central Chugach 55* faces, spines, flutes, and ramps are abundant. You can make a few hundred feet of 55* degree turns, and options abound for keeping slope angles 50*+ for several hundred feet.
I love it. Being a Western Chugach based steep skier, the possibilities in the Central Chugach are very rewarding and satisfying. It’s SO STEEP! Booting up exposed 55* snow for hundreds of feet? Yes, please bring the zen!
It’s too bad the culture there is so motorized. I’ve come to terms with the sled scene: at least those guys aren’t commercial. While their chosen form of recreation is much more high impact and less sustainable than touring, at least they’re out enjoying Nature and their public land (without trying to make money off a public resource like the worst sort of capitalist pig). The heli scene is another story. It’s RIDICULOUS. Alaska Snowboard Guides and Doug Coombs own Valdez Heli Ski Guides seem like the most notorious for thieving road runs.
Not only do these “guides” rip off their clients by charging them thousands of dollars for road runs that anyone with a base level of fitness and avalanche awareness could do on their own for free, they rip off the locals and non-commercial visitors with their insane greed and carbon gluttony. I’ve heard countless stories of the dangerous situations they create buzzing recreationists, dropping in on them, and have experienced similar situations myself on several occasions. Yes, non-motorized ski tourers have even been sluffed off mountains by heli groups! Some of these guides, and their company owner/operators, seem to be wholly morally and ethically debased.
It’s funny, too, some of the likely worst offenders think they’re the most bad-ass. Spraying social media with their heli-stoke. Fuck your heli lines, brah. If you were the real deal you’d climb what you ski! Please make sure you #HeliBitch in the future. Stop catering to the 1%, killing our planet with your carbon gluttony, and develop some cardio fitness. You’re ruining this truly majestic area for everyone else.
Fortunately, I did not get buzzed on the day of this trip report. But that seems to be the exception rather than the rule, as I’ve been heli-harassed as many days as I haven’t. Returning to the area two weeks later to climb and ski the Hershey’s Kiss (aka Repeater Peak), I was buzzed by a heli and a group was dropped directly above me on a lower ramp of Hershey’s as I was skinning up 40*+ terrain directly below it! The heli pilot and guide definitely knew I was there; they had dropped a group on Acapulco’s shoulder earlier, and flew directly over me to check me out as I was climbing up Hershey’s. Luckily, they dropped in off another aspect of the ramp and I was only sprayed with rotor wash. Maybe this is because I made sure to wave my poles before they landed directly above me, flip them off, and scream “FUCK YOU” from a few hundred feet below after the heli left and its noise dissipated. I was skinning through heli-rider sluff from the previous day…
Given that I’d been making trips to the Central Chugach monthly since September, and have seen the glaciers go from bare to climax snow coverage, the spring glacier travel is pretty casual. These are coastal to transitional snow climate glaciers. With good visibility, I feel like you’d have to try very hard to have a crevasse mishap. That said, I’m comfortable with the solo glacier travel come spring. Around the Port of Valdez, it’s like the sky gods poured 30′ of concrete over the mountains. The Worthington Glacier area, while not quite as cemented as the Port, is similar.
With reassurance from Central Chugach guru Taylor Brown that the solo glacier travel would be chill (besides, bears and other wildlife do it all the time), I set off for this solo loop in late March of 2019. It’s a classy one. With fitness, light gear, calm head for exposed ascents/descents, and a solid steep turn; it’s an easy daytrip.
View south from the summit of Girls with Acapulco (and its NE face that I climbed and skied) pictured as the big peak second from the right border. Hershey’s Kiss (a trip report for that will be added later) is to the left of Acapulco, and to the left of that is Sapphire (read an alpine climbing TR of a traverse of the entire Sapphire ridge here).
Acapulco from Girls:
A 2000′ descent of the heavily glaciated NW face of Girls brought me to the Hoodoo Glacier (the big face still had plenty of clean and untracked powder, but had been heavily harvested by helis and sleds): 
Looking towards the pass between the Hoodoo and Worthington:
A very sweet alpine ice climbing line that looks to be at least two full pitches of WI5 (it seems to have minimal serac/ice fall exposure):
Acapulco summit views east and west:
Looking back at Girls from Acapulco: 
Looking back at Acapulco from the Worthington:
