Tordrillo Range

Overview

The Tordrillos are a little known mountain range about 70 miles West of Anchorage. They can actually be seen from Anchorage on a clear day, but most people there have never heard of them. Access is difficult, a glacier plane is the only option. The three highest peaks are Mt. Spurr, Mt. Torbert, and Mt. Gerdine, all with elevations of around above 11,000 ft. Mt. Spurr is an active volcano, having had a major eruption in 1992, and was letting off a fair bit of steam in March '07 as well.

Getting There

A plane capable of making glacier landings is needed. We used Talkeetna Air Taxi, the cost was about $700 a person (it's a longer flight than is required to get into the Denali area, so the price is correspondingly higher.) Very few operators had made flights to the range. Knowing somebody out of Anchorage that could make a landing and do a reconnaisance flight first would be ideal...

Terrain / Conditions

The range is heavily glaciated, and the terrain is severe. We found ourselves mostly contained to a single valley, getting deeper into the range to access any of the high peaks would have been very difficult. Where the landing is made is very important, since the terrain seemed too jumbled and steep for multi-day sled traverses. The weather is supposed to be more continental than the Chugach, which is in a more coastal pattern.

External Information

The main piece of information we found about the range is the excellent book Tordrillo: Pioneer climbs and flights in the Tordrillo Mountains of Alaska, 1957-1997 written by Rodman Wilson. It's out of print, but available from the American Alpine Club library. Other than that, you're pretty much on your own. Chugach Powder Guides (heli-skiing company) are doing some skiing there, based out of a lodge on Judd Lake. They might have condition information, but they didn't respond to any of our group's repeated emails.

Here are two trip reports from our trip. We were on a branch of the Triumvirate glacier from March 29- April 5th, 2007.

My trip report

Chris Pond's trip report

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Images

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