Alaska Range Expedition

Expedition Summary

On May 15th, Jared Ogden and I flew into the West Fork of the Ruth Glacier in the Alaska Range. Our original objective was the east face of Mt. Huntington, but our fly-by of the face revealed a wall almost completely covered in snow. We had been hoping for dry rock. Nonetheless, we established our basecamp as we had planned, with hopes that some good weather would help the face clean itself up. We quickly learned why the face was covered in so much snow. Each morning would be clear and sunny, but by early afternoon storm and clouds would sock in above 10,000 feet. On our first full day in camp we climbed what is probably a new route on a 10,000 foot peak just north of our basecamp. We carried one rope and a set of stoppers and simul-climbed most of the way. The route followed a couloir with a few ice and rock steps, then a wild knife-edge ridge at the top. We turned back in a whiteout about 200 feet below the top and had an exciting 4000 foot descent down a different route than we had climbed up. A few rappels and a lot of downclimbing got us into a long couloir which we glissaded back to camp.

The conditions were still not ripe for an attempt on Huntington, so we decided to try the classic southwest ridge of peak 11,300 feet. We left early in the morning carrying sleeping bags, bivy sacks, a very light rack and one 8 mil rope. The snow was firm like Styrofoam and by simul-climbing Jared and I climbed over half of the ridge in about four hours. By 1pm, a storm was brewing once again, so we dug a snow cave and cooked up some hot drinks and dinner. A couple hours later, as Jared and I were dozing, the snow cave collapsed on top of us. We were shaken, but able to dig ourselves out. It was not a good time. We sat out the rest of the night in a snow storm that deposited four inches of fresh snow onto our bivy sacks. Unfortunately, the snow was still unsettled at 4am when we woke up, but we set off for the summit anyway. We climbed another 1,000 feet of steep snow and ice. Within a couple hours of the summit, the weather turned into a whiteout with heavy snow and strong winds. We descended.

From basecamp we could see that the weather down in the Ruth Gorge was better than what we were experiencing, so we packed up our sleds and headed down glacier with an assortment of climbing gear and five days worth of food. The next day we took a look at the east face of Barille but decided that we'd probably destroy our packs trying to haul them up this 2,500 foot vertical granite wall. Instead, we decided to try the Moose's Tooth, a 10,000 foot peak on the opposite side of the gorge. The south face is a spectacular 3,000 foot granite wall split periodically by deep ice gullies. We didn't know a lot about the face but figured we could probably find some worthy adventure up there. We trimmed our gear down to the bare essentials: one 8 mil rope, four ice screws, a few pins and a set of stoppers. We brought sleeping bags and bivy gear but no tent or shovel.

It took us about four hours to climb a steep glacier to the base of the face. Once again, the weather deteriorated into a complete whiteout, but luckily we found two parties bivied in anticipation of their own climbs. We borrowed their shovels and built ourselves a nice igloo. After talking to the other climbers about the different route choices, we decided to try a climb established in 1997 by Jim Donini and Greg Crouch called Shaken Not Stirred - a 3000 foot snow and ice gully that climbs a prominent cleft between two rock pillars. Another party had tried it a few days earlier but had been turned back about halfway up by a section of overhanging sugar snow.

We were climbing by 3am. We did a variation to get inside the gully, a rock band of crumbling pulpy rock with one short overhanging section that was extremely difficult. Above this we entered the gully which was about 15 feet wide and filled with perfect neve. We simul-climbed about 1,000 feet to the base of a narrow five hundred foot choke filled with perfect blue ice. The climbing in the choke was amazing, one swing ice in a fissure that was often only the width of my shoulders. Sections were vertical and even slightly overhanging, but the ice was so good that you hardly even needed ice screws. More steep snow brought us to the overhang which had turned back the previous party. Stemming between ice and rock I was able to weld a titanium piton in a small crack. The piece seemed good, so I pushed on, getting marginal axe placements in the frothy snow and ice. I hung on my tools a few times to rest and soon I was clawing through vertical snow and the crux of the route was behind us.

Another several hundred feet of moderate climbing put us on Englishmen's Col, then terminus of Shaken Not Stirred. It was 9am in the morning. By going light and simul-climbing, we had completed the 3,000 foot climb in six hours. Climbing from the col onto the summit ridge looked dubious, but since the weather was holding and we had not yet reached the summit of an Alaskan peak, we felt we had to continue. The ridge was nothing more than vertical snow and as I got about ten feet from the edge, I punched through into a honeycomb of ice and snow with light shining through. The entire edge of the ridge was not really there, an ethereal frosting of sugar covered snow. This left me no choice but to make wild traverse to a thin runnel of ice about 30 feet to my right. Getting to it involved clawing my way across vertical snow, for which there was no protection because we carried no pickets. I hammered one of my tools, shaft first, into some solid snow beneath the sugar, then used the other tool to dig as much snow out of the way as possible. Eventually I made it to the ice which was vertical to slightly overhanging and about an inch thick. I aided off my tools for a couple moves and eventually got into thick ice where I sunk three screws in a row.

Right at the end of the rope, I pulled up onto the summit ridge, buried my tools for a belay and brought Jared up. From here we simul-climbed several pitches trying to stay as far away from the corniced ridge as possible. There were some more tricky sections of vertical snow but eventually we both stood on the middle summit of the Moose's Tooth. It didn't seem like a good idea to descend back the way we had come because to get back to the col we'd have to make a couple bollard rappels and the snow seemed too sugary to be safe. We were committed to traversing all the way across to another gully called Ham and Eggs which was supposed to have good rappel anchors.

Several hundred feet later we stood at the top of a huge snow gully with a rappel anchor at its top. I assumed this must be the way down, but Jared was not convinced. After a short discussion we decided to head down. We made three steep rappels through a rock band then downclimbed about 800 feet of steep snow, roped together, always trying to keep a couple of pieces between us. Finally, the gully choked down and appeared to drop off into a sheer cliff. Jared lowered me over the lip. I was dangling at the lip of a Half Dome sized vertical rock wall. We had gone the wrong way and there was no possibility of rappelling this huge cliff with the skimpy rack we carried. Our only choice was to climb over 1,000 feet all the way back to summit ridge.

As if things weren't bad enough, the weather now crapped out and soon we were engulfed in driving snow and a blinding whiteout. After climbing several steep snow pitches we arrived at a vertical chimney filled with loose flakes of rock and some patches of thin ice. Up to this point I had been in the lead all day because Jared had come down with a nasty cold. Without discussion, he now grabbed the rock and headed up. "Be careful bro," I told him. We both knew that if he fell and got hurt, we probably would not survive the night out. We carried no bivy gear, no down jackets, no stove, no shovel, no food, and no water.

In a situation like this there is no one in the world I would rather be with than Jared. Jared is one of the best climbers I know and he does not mess up. Nonetheless it took him a long time to lead this pitch and by the time he called off belay I was almost frozen solid at my hanging belay. Spindrift was pouring down onto my head, I couldn't see anything and my hands and feet were numb. Climbing like a man possessed I followed Jared's amazing lead and then took off across the summit ridge, praying I could find the Ham and Eggs gully in the whiteout.

Following the ridge in these conditions was extremely difficult because everything around me was white. I couldn't tell if the snow in front of me dropped off, went up or just stayed flat. The only way I could move along was by feeling with my axe and it seemed like a long shot I would find the right gully. Through the mist I could see a snow gully, then another and another. Which one is it? On top of all this the ridge was crevassed and we both punched through several times, though miraculously neither of us took the big plunge. Jared and I debated about which gully to try, knowing we did not have the strength to make another mistake. It was a bit like a game of Russian

roulette. Finally, I chose one and started front pointing down 50 degree ice covered with a few inches of snow. Spindrfit poured down all around us and we could barely see each other. 500 feet down, I spotted a blue sling on the side of the gully and I let out a cry of relief. We were saved.

We spent the next several hours rappelling, downclimbing, drilling v-threads and methodically working our way down. Near the bottom we encountered one of the other teams who had climbed most of the Ham and Eggs that day. We hooked on with them and eventually reached our snow cave at midnight. We had been on the go for about 24 hours. Badly dehydrated, we brewed some hot water, but we both fell asleep with our mugs in our hands.

The next morning we headed down, anxious to get going on our ten mile uphill ski back to basecamp. Unfortunately, we got caught in a vicious four day blizzard and it was impossible to negotiate the glacier back to camp in the whiteout. We were out of food so we went to the mountain house, a small hut in the area, and bummed some food that had been left in the hut by previous parties. Four days in our Jannu tent was a bit of a torture, knowing we had steaks and a vast quantity of other tasty food in basecamp. When eventually the storm cleared, we took turns breaking trail through thigh deep snow for six miles back to camp. All told we were away from basecamp for eight days and seven nights. It was definitely one of the most intense adventures of my life.