When I got to Jökulsárlón near Vatnajökull National Park I was kinda bummed at the weather. Actually I was really bummed. It was very overcast, foggy, and rainy. I had myself convinced that taking photos was not going to yield me anything worthwhile. Then I looked out over the icy lagoon toward a monster glacier and saw
Every day in Iceland offered up a new an exciting adventure. The sky was never anything short of dramatic due to the constantly changing weather, and the 23 hours of daylight. When we got to the southern part of the country, we saw a glacier flow off in the distance, and since we had a
Last June, after a disappointing shutdown by Mount Hood, we departed Government Camp Oregon, and headed south into California. We figured if Hood was going to shut us down, we still had to climb a mountain, it was in our blood, it was what we came so many miles to do. Shasta had been an
Not many people get to travel very far beyond their home town, let alone far off lands, for this, I am grateful for the life I am building. Last week, I returned from a ten day trip to Iceland, full of stories to tell and photos to share. Over the course of ten days we
So I finally have decided to go to Iceland. I'm not sure what inspired me to go there initially, but I know I have wanted to for a while and well, now I get to go! Well, not right now, but in May. Why exactly should anyone go to Iceland, you might ask? Well I
I hopped from boulder to boulder looking for the angle that showcased the grandeur of this field of boulders and the loneliness of this single tree growing from the field. I crouched down and lined up the tree where I wanted it and fired off some frames. I sat back and took in this beautiful
We neared the Red Banks at around 12,000 feet on Mount Shasta. We were blowing out calories faster than we could pack them in, but we pressed on. The weather was bluebird, at the temperature just about perfect. We couldn't have asked for a better day to summit one of California's most magnificent volcanoes. Truly
Last week, I stepped on to the snow covered slopes of Mount Shasta in N0rthern Califoria, and didn't look back. We ascended to 9500 feet the first night and set camp on a snowfield under a blanket of stars. The next day we made our summit bid. Here is video montage of our summit day.
By - Bill Urbanski EDITOR’S NOTES: All teams on Denali are required to register their team names with the National Park Service. Stickers are provided to identify gear caches on the mountain. Our team name was TZT2 (“To Zee Top 2” – the first TZT team made an unsuccessful summit bid in 2007). TZT2 consisted
By - Bill Urbanski Summer is right around the corner here at CTS Base Camp in Pennsylvania. This means hiking in shorts, rock climbing outdoors, and even the occasional simple pleasure of a dip in the backyard pool. But my mind is elsewhere. My mind is on snow, glaciers, and mountaineering. For the