The NW Alpine Blog of Alpine Pursuits — climbing

I had erased the Lowe Direct from my tick list a long time ago.  Sphinx Mountain lies in the Madison Range of western Montana, 750 miles from my doorstep - not as far or remote as many places I've visited - but far enough to require a real effort to reach the ice routes snaking up it's northern flanks.  After two previous attempts had ended with poor weather and unstable snow, I'd written off the Sphinx finally, told myself that it was "too small, too far" to be worth that effort. 

Unfortunately, I kept bumping into the Sphinx. Speeding along I-90 to access the dense concentration of water ice up the road in Hyalite Canyon each winter, I was often reminded of that looming absence waiting just beyond the horizon.

Photo: John Frieh

But secrets are never safe in the age of social media: images came trickling in this fall tagged #sphinx, #montanaice, #lowedirect.  Tasty pics of long blue ice and reports of once-a-decade conditions.  An October storm was on it's way in, so we piled gear in the rig and sped off Montana-bound, knowing that in just a few days the face could be loaded up and off-limits once again.  

Photo: John Frieh

Photo: Kevin Oberholser

The climb itself went off just as planned:  gorgeous open trails led to pitch after pitch of enjoyable ice and a sunny topout under windless skies.  We'd been on enough trips gone awry in the past to appreciate just what we were missing on this one.  We savored every swing of the tool and the crunch of snow beneath our feet.  Things have to line up just right to nab even the most ordinary ascent: partners, schedules, weather and conditions all have to come together.  When it does happen and the stars all align, one might be tempted to think,"Well that was pretty easy!"  But back down at the trailhead, ditching the pack and psyching up for many hours of long road that still lie between us and home, we are reminded that even on the best of days in the mountains, easy is never easy. 

 

Photo: Kevin Oberholser

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It was a busy winter and spring in Alaska this year.  Several long high pressure systems provided good conditions and weather for climbing.  In March, my friends and I made our fourth trip into Mt. McGinnis, the eastern most peak in the Hayes Range.  A 14 mile approach brings you to the east face and easy access to a col on the northeast ridge, our objective. We gained the col, dug in for the night, and continued up in the morning.   After a few blocks of simul-climbing along the knife-edge ridge, Andy arrived at the belay and told me that he was feeling pretty worked.  I turned and looked at the long section of ridgeline we had remaining to get to the summit, almost a mile.  I know we could have made it to the summit, but it was descent back down the knife-edge ridge that I was worried about.  It was an easy decision, we went down.  

The Northwest Face of Peak 9400 Photo: Jason Stuckey

As we downclimbed under bluebird skies, I struggled with disappointment.  During all of my previous trips here the weather had been horrendous.  As we descended through the icefall a couloir on the northwest face of Peak 9400 caught my eye.  Chad and I decided to give it a go the next day while Andy rested in the tent.  We skied over and started up the couloir around 9am.  The snow was a bit deep at the bottom of the couloir where it pinched down, but conditions improved above.  The angle was around 45 degrees, steepening to 60 degrees on the upper part of the face.  Simul-soloing, we topped out 20 yards from the summit.  The face had been in the shade the entire morning, and a strong wind had begun to blow about halfway up.  But the summit was warm, sunny, and sheltered from the wind.  It was glorious.  I usually don't like to waste too much time on the summit, but we stayed for almost an hour.  The view was incredible.  We finally packed up and headed back down the face.  An hour and a half of downclimbing brought us to back to our skis.  We had dinner and slept, and the next day skied out to the car and headed back to Fairbanks. 

Clint on Pyramid Peak before Bailing Photo: Jason Stuckey

Descending Peak 9400 Photo: Jason Stuckey

A week after the trip I got a message on Facebook from Clint Helander, a climber down in Anchorage.  He and his partners had been waiting for almost 2 weeks to fly into the Revelations, the western most mountains in the Alaska Range.  His partners had to get back to work and school, but he still wanted to fly in and needed a partner.  I had never met Clint, but knew he had already made numerous trips into \the Revelations and had climbed several first ascents.  This was an opportunity I didn't want to miss.  Somehow I talked my boss into letting me take more time off, and a few days later I was on a flight to Anchorage.  Clint picked me up, and shortly after we loaded our gear and were on our way to the Revelations.  We landed on the Revelation Glacier, setup camp, and skied down to Pyramid Peak to look at a line Clint had seen the year before.   We couldn't see the upper part of the mountain due to clouds, but the lower half looked good.  We had a good dinner and went to bed early.  At 4am we were up, and after breakfast and coffee we were ascending the lower slopes below Pyramid.  From the ground, it looked like there was going to be steep steps of ice with lower angled sections in between.  But instead of ice we found overhanging waves of snow.  Scary, and not fun.  We climbed around them on mixed \terrain, but around every corner we came to another wave of snow.  After spending most of the day climbing six pitches we bailed.  

Apocalypse West Face with Route Marked

We spent the next day skiing around and looking at other objectives. Clint wanted to try a line on a peak towards the end of the glacier called The Apocalypse.  After a few minutes looking at the west face I was psyched.  A steep ice and snow couloir looked like it would take us to the upper snow slopes and the summit ridge.   We skied back to camp and packed.  Another early start and we were heading up the slopes below the first section of steep ice by mid-morning.  The first ice pitch was excellent and led to lower angled ice which we simul-climbed.  The ice ended and a long section of snow climbing brought us to another steep ice pitch.  After this more snow climbing with short sections of ice brought us to the base of a steep rock wall and the final section of ice before the upper snow slopes.  It was getting late so we built an anchor and chopped a ledge in the snow at the base of the wall.  After an hour, we had a ledge big enough for our tent.  We brewed up, ate, and slept.  

Clint Climbing on Apocalypse Photo: Jason Stuckey

Climbing on Apocalypse Photo: Jason Stuckey

The next morning we left most of our gear and went for the summit.  After the last bit of steep ice we reached the upper snow slopes, and simul-climbed up to the summit ridge.  As I reached what I thought was the highest point on the ridge,  I realized (to my great disappointment) that a point 300 yards across the ridge was actually about 20ft taller than where we stood.  We wanted to stand on the true summit, so we headed across the knife-edge ridge.  The climbing, although very exposed, went quickly and before long we were on the summit.  We took a few minutes to admire the view, snap some photos, and then began our descent.  Heading back across the summit ridge and down the upper slopes went smoothly and before long we were rappelling back down to our bivy.  Another brew, more food, and more sleep.  The next day we downclimbed and rappelled the rest of the route.  As we skied back to camp there was a brisk headwind and I realized how lucky we had been with the temperatures while on Apocalypse.  Our first night was pleasant, a bit colder the second night, but  when we arrived back in basecamp it was -20F.   We ate a huge dinner, made several hot water bottles, and went to bed.  When we got up the next morning the mercury in the thermometer had dropped below -25F.  Clint had wanted to stay longer and try a couple more objectives, but I was feeling pretty satisfied and concerned about the weather deteriorating and having a hard time flying out if we waited.  By chance, Paul Roderick with Talkeetna Air Taxi was flying a team of skiers in that afternoon and after a short discussion we decided to fly out with Paul.  We made breakfast, broke down our camp, and a few hours later were sitting in Talkeetna eating pizza and drinking beers.  It was magnificent.  

First ascent of the Northwest Face of Peak 9400 (60deg snow, 3,400')

First ascent of The Apocalypse, A Cold Day in Hell (AI5, 4,400')

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Ruth Gorge 2013, Mt. Wake “The Cook Inlet”  April 26th-28th, John Frieh & Daniel Harro.

Daniel Harro Mixed Climbs photo: John Frieh

Climbing in the alpine is all managing the many systems including ropes, cooking, sleeping, rack, and maybe the most important your clothing system.  A few weeks ago I had a “long weekend” trip into the Alaska Range with my good friend John Frieh who has mastered the art of the “Smash and Grab” style of alpine climbing. Alaska has had one of the coldest recorded springs in history so I threw in both my NW Alpine Fast & Light pants as well as my Salopette’s in case things were on the cold side of the spectrum.  John and I talked on Tuesday and purchased our tickets to Anchorage that morning.  Jonn saw a solid weather window and we both had air miles to burn so we decided to go for it.  

Thursday night we left PDX and headed north.  Our plan was to fly into the range Friday morning and fly out sometime Sunday since both John and I had to report back to our respective jobs at 8:00 Monday morning leaving just enough time to scout routes on Friday and climb on Saturday and get back to Anchorage by Sunday night.  Pretty much your standard long weekend warrior trip substituting airplanes for cars.

Thursday night to Friday morning: PDX -> ANC -> Talkeetna -> Ruth Glacier.  After skiing and scouting for about 4-5 hours Friday afternoon, John and I decided to head to Mt. Wake and see what it had to offer, unfortunately our line that we were looking at was not in so we ended up repeating a route called “The Cook Inlet” on Mt. Wake that John and Jess Roskelley put up last October.  It was an amazing summit and we were very lucky to have great clear warm weather to climb in.  It was nice reach a summit, not always easy in Alaska...

After a short stay on the summit and a few photos we headed down with little issues.  We reached our skis as the sun was setting and did the long slow ski back to base camp.  At some point The sun set and the wind picked up on the way back to camp  forcing us to throw on our belay parkas for the last hour or so, surprising us both how cold it was still getting at night.  One of the down falls of the “Smash and Grab” style is our lack of forethought into preparing good quality meals, with no cooking tent, tired bodies and frozen fingers we were forced to eat freeze dried food which in my opinion is not adequate after 20+ hrs on the go.  On the flip side we woke up the next morning around 0800 called Paul at Talkeetna Air Taxi from the satellite phone and said he would see us in 45 min, giving John and I just enough time to wake up throw everything into our duffels and drag our gear down to the airstrip.  After being in the Alaska Range for about 72hrs John and I awarded ourselves with larger than normal breakfast at the Roadhouse making up for meager rations the night before.

Summit shot! Photo: Daniel Harro

A huge thanks goes out to Bill Amos at NW Alpine for making some great quality clothing made right here in my back yard!  I can honestly say that my Fast and Light pants have more days of use than any other pant I have used in the alpine and are my go to pant for anything in the mountains.  

I want to also say thanks to John for the inspiration of a long weekend into the Alaska Range, and of course we could not have done a trip like this without the amazing support from our wonderful wives and family!

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Matt Van Biene self portrait, high on the Cassarotto Route, North Pillar of Fitz Roy during his ascent of the Care Bear Traverse

Our good friend the climber/photographer Matt Van Biene headed down to Patagonia for a couple months this season and returned with this review of a prototype NWAlpinist Salopette we made for him.

Usually clothing is… well, simply clothing. Even when we are talking about garments made for activities such as alpine climbing. A jacket might have waterproof characteristics, breathe well, fit over your helmet, but essentially you just wear it and do your thing. Pants are the same deal. Sure you’ll probably want soft shells over jeans when romping through the hills, for obvious reasons, but whatever dri-stretch-neo-tex-fabric company A uses over company B will likely have no bearing on whether you make it to the top. In fact, I can’t recall really ever wearing an article of clothing that “did” anything for me while climbing, other than be there and keep my dry and warm, but everything does that. That is until I donned NW Alpine’s Salopette down in Patagonia this past season.

Like a form fitting stretchy suit of armor, the Salopette hugged my core snug and provided a force field from the elements. The combination of upper body warmth and lower body durability made for an ideal combo while climbing gritty granite and bivying at night. During high output moments the whole piece breathed extremely well and I was easily able to regulate temperature with the full-length zipper that runs down the front and through to the back. Hiking ten miles in on a good weather day? Drop the front zip and let it breathe. For extra high output with a heavy pack, open up the crotch area for a nice draft to keep you cool. Being in the backcountry, nobody cares that you’re exposing your underwear that you’ve been wearing for three days. But, as my mini rant stated above, these are all qualities we’ve come to expect in well-made outdoor gear, and the NW Alpine Salopette is no exception. Handcrafted in Portland, OR by climbers, for climbers, this piece stands out with its build quality alone. But how did it help me get to the top? It’s not a long story, but let me explain…

So there I was, on lead, hundreds of feet off the deck and few thousand more to go. Blissfully enjoying stellar crack climbing on near perfect rock in an unbelievably sublime setting. I was bordering on an out of body experience when all of a sudden I had a very internal body experience. My stomach dropped and the dehydrated mountain cuisine that I had feasted on earlier began to wreak havoc and make a mad dash for the exit. With the end of the pitch near I sprinted to the ledge. Frantically slamming two cams and clipping them, my mind screamed “fuck equalization!”, and I called “TAKE!” to my belayer 150 feet below. A perplexed response, “Dude, are you OK?” echoed back. I panted out, “Hold on!” This was happening NOW and my bowels rumbled. Normally, with any other pants I wear I would have been up shit creek, literally. But realizing all I had to do was unzip through the back and lean back I relaxed a little. That was a bad idea all things considered, but thankfully the seamless transition from glory hand jams to hanging bowel movement went cleanly, to say the least. Naturally, if it hadn’t we very well might have been forced down and that is how the NW Alpine Salopette helped us send that day.

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