Moose's Tooth via the West Ridge - Alaska

Mooses Tooth's West Ridge

Janelle and I were very excited to get back into the classic climbing circuit for the fourth year in a row_, after an amazing winter overseas. We had spent 90 days in Europe, where Janelle competed in several countries with the best ski mountaineering racers in the world, while I made videos of the experience. The videos can be scene here (episodes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5).

In May we flew back to the States, and had 13 non-traveling days to pack and prep for our expeditions to Alaska. This was definitely not enough time, but we made it work. Most of the time I feel like a professional packer, always lugging around at least two fifty pound duffle bags and a way-to-heavy carryon. Life is so rough =)

The first climb on our calendar for the year was the West Ridge of the Moose’s Tooth. This would be our second attempt. In 2010 we tried to climb it but got turned around largely due to Alaska sized intimidation, and horrible snow conditions.

This year we had a plan, and a bunch of experience to draw on, to make the climb go as smoothly as possible. We flew into Anchorage where our ever-faithful Anchorage hosts, Bob and Celia Lohr, picked us up from the airport. The forecast was looking bad so we delayed for four days in Anchorage. After the delay we stocked up at Costco, and made our way to the quaint tourist town of Talkeetna, AK.

walking up the Ruth Glacier....forever!

Talkeetna Air Taxi is the best in the business, flying hundreds of climbers all over the range every year. The added bonus is that they keep track of you while you climb. Having eyes in the sky is a true comfort. We got to fly in with Paul Rodrick, the owner, which is always a treat. He landed us on the Ruth Glacier and we were at the base of the West Ridge two hours later. It was awesome.

Our base camp duffels were flown to a different location by a friend and fellow mountain guide, Kurt Hicks, who was flying into the Root Canal campsite. That would be the finish line after climbing the West Ridge. This very conveniently removed the need to cross through the dangerous icefall that connects the Ruth Gorge to the Root Canal. We had traveled through this serac zone twice in 2010 and had no desire to repeat it.

The snow was deep as we made our way up to the high camp, which was slow going.  The camp site, located at 7,800',  is one of the most beautiful in the range. The only neighbors in this neighborhood are Denali, Huntington, Dan Beard, and several other striking peaks. It had taken us about 8 hours to travel from the landing strip to this camp.

the access couloir had perfect snow

The next morning we woke up around 6:00AM and started climbing around 7:30AM. The lower parts of the access couloirs were in great condition. Firm pick and crampon placements allowed for quick movement. As we approached the ridge, the snow got deeper and softer. The hairs on the back of my neck started perking up as we traversed this 55-degree face. Thankfully everything stayed in place and it reached a notch in the ridge.

forboding-ness

Reaching the notch, we got our first look at the foreboding North Face. The entire upper half of the face was covered in huge snow mushrooms that ran the entire length of each snow spine. Below that, the glacier drops off a vertical wall for several thousand feet to the glacier below. Along the skyline the West Ridge, our route, weaved up and down like the crooked spine of a snow-breathing dragon. The cornices were both large and intimidating, and we would have to navigate them for more than a mile. Taking photos of this view was spectacular in an eerie sort of way. Probably similar to capturing a beautiful photograph of a tidal wave, right before it hits you.

tough knowing where the cornice is overhung

We dropped down from the ridge, picking our way along, paying very close attention to where we were relative to both the rocks on our right and the cornices on our left. As it turns out, our high point from our 2010 attempt was about 20 mins of climbing away from the West Summit. Attaining this high point we had an even better view of the West Ridge route. The steep corniced slopes coming out of Englishman’s Col were in perfect view. Perfectly scarey-knarly-intimidating-steep-snow view.

climbing out of Englishman's Col, first mega crux

“How in the world are we going to get up that?” I thought. Janelle and I discussed possible options of how to best climb this 500 foot section of terror. We down climbed and then rappelled into the notch where the route Shaken Not Stirred meets the ridge. We knew there were an established rappel anchors down the entire route, making it a possible bail out option. Directly up from that was this super scary face, creating a gigantic mental fork in the road. Do we turn right, rapping down Shaken Not Stirred, to a comfortable base camp where chips and salsa were waiting for us? Or do we stay the course and tackle this daunting snow wall? I’d be lying if I said the pull to bail was non-existent. Blue pill red pill, which will it be? Janelle kicked in a descent belay spot on the other side of the ridge and I started up the pitch.

Peru or Alaska? More cornices, loose snow, walking over air

It was slow going as I could not afford to fall. Every step had to be spot on. Every tool placement had to be spot on. Janelle called up, “half”, meaning I had gone 100’, and I placed a picket. Above me was and overhanging cornice. I had to excavate a trench and then climb through it. 180’ up, with only one lame picket 80’ below me I cut out a ledge for a belay. This was probably the worst belay anchor I’ve ever made. Totally not AMGA passable. The snow is loose, I’m standing on a corniced snow pillow, 60-70 degree slope, with buried ice tools in loose “snice” (snow ice combo). The only thing providing significant holding power is the fact that I’m straddling the snow in a way that provided some resistance to downward pull. I yelled down, “climb on….carefully!”

Janelle made it up to me with no falls, and took the lead over the next roll. She made short work of it, fighting through the loose steep snow. We swung leads again, and got into a rhythm of fighting through these cornices. Creeping ever-so-carefully along this sleeping dragon’s spiny back, trying very hard to not wake her.

Look back where we had traveled, Denali in background

As we descended down to the final col, which is the top of the uber classic “Ham and Eggs” route, we were able to let our guard down a bit as the terrain mellowed. Walking past the top of Ham and Eggs there was another slight mental tug to pull the eject cord, and rap the route. The tug to get to the main summit was much stronger thankfully, and the weather was holding, so we continued up the final ascent. This section of the route was more of the same. Playing the game called, “where to walk so I don’t die” as we traversed the backs of these cornices.

La Cumbre - The Summit

We reached the summit 12 hours after leaving our high camp on the Moose’s back. It was a spectacular evening in the Alaska Range. Windy yet beautiful. The top of the Moose’s Tooth is actually a big cornice, so the true elevation of the mountain likely changes on a weekly basis. Being an idiot, I wanted to touch the very top. Janelle just shook her head as she belayed me up. First walking, then using my ice tools in the cane position, then on my knees, and for the last six feet on my belly as to distribute my weight as best as possible. I picked my head up and could see unobstructed 360 degrees, the tippy top. In hind site that was probably stupid to climb a big cornice like that, but whatever.

Rapping down Ham and Eggs- Root canal airstrip lower center of photo, fishhook shape

Many many rappels later, around midnight thirty, we walked into the Root Canal campsite. Our buddy, Kurt Hicks, had heard us coming down and put out our base camp duffle, a thermos of hot water, and a bottle of whisky. I read his accompanying handwritten note by the dim Alaska midnight light, “Way to crush Smileys! See you in the morning.”

Root canal camp, with entire West Ridge in view.

The video we made of this climb will be released Sept. 2, 2013. And can be seen on the main website: www.smileysproject.com

If you would like to follow the project in real time via facebook please like us here: https://www.facebook.com/SmileysProject

New Nemo Brand Video

This Nemo video is worthy to check out. Nemo has been working with us since the beginning. Their products continue to impress us as we climb on so many different types of objectives. Our personal favorites, for the alpine climbing we have done, are the Moki & Tenshi Tents, and Zor sleeping pads. They are built to last, and you can tell much thought went into every detail of design and construction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=asmh1udOjM8

Don't Forget Your Man Pants

Janelle and I headed west after climbing Mt Waddington, and met up with a ski mountaineering racing buddy, Reiner Thoni, who lives in Valemount. As a local, he had always wanted to climb Mt Alberta, so we asked him to join us. Reiner is crazy strong, always positive, speaks Canadian, and therefore was a great moral booster for us, as we had just been skunked on Mt Robson for the third time (I released the Mt Robson video out of order).

After doing route research, the mandatory creek crossing seemed epic. Wanting to hedge our bets, we borrowed a raft, packed up Lulu, and made our way to the trailhead road pull off, which is right in the heart of the Icefields Parkway Road.

Loading the raft with our expensive camera gear, we each took a side and jumped in the fairly swift glacier melt. The creek was not nearly as bad as the online trip reports let on. Only getting up to our thigh at the deepest part. The raft was total overkill, but whatever, it was fun.

The 6 mile (9 km) hike into the little hut went by fairly quickly. Isolated thunderstorms were moving through the area, which made talus hopping a little more exciting. Thankfully, it was sunny for the grovel up Wooly Shoulder's gravel slopes. Wooly Shoulder was as bad as trip reports made it sounds. One step up, 1/2 step back. At times the baseball sized rocks in a 10 foot diameter around me started moving, like a mini rock avalanche! Hitting b-fast I powered across like Mario as the rocks slid down behind me.

Once at the hut (reserve through the ACC prior to arrival), we settled in as a wall of water soaked the landscape. The States needs more backcountry use huts like these. They are low impact, and allow climber's and hiker's to travel with significantly lighter loads.

The coolest part of the hut was its guest log book. Climbing accounts from Vince Anderson, Steve House, Jason Kruk, other classic climbers, hikers, and more. Many accounts of getting skunked by weather, bad rock, and how many 11,000ers people had done. The last successful summit of Alberta was logged back in August 2009!

The best account was by a couple guys that were lucky to have perfect weather. They got up super early, eagerly rappelled down to the base of the steep North Face of Mt Alberta, looked up at the looming vertical wall and, "realized we forgot our man pants, so we went home."

Our strategy was to climb this bad boy in one push. Fast and light, aka, long and semi-light. We started sometime before sunrise, made our way down and across the toe of the glacier in the dark. The sun started rising and we enjoyed amazing morning light hit the North Twin peaks. This time of the morning is pretty special. The climb hasn't started, you're finally awake, nervous about what is to come, yet excited that it's finally time to get the job done. Alberta stood over us in the dusk, the sky was calm. Time for an adventure.

We started a rising traverse to the west on loose gravel. The lower flanks of the mountain are, more or less, a giant stair case. The landings of these giant stairs are completely covered in ball-bearing-like rubble, which forms 20-30º slopes. The vertical part of the stairs is merely "pre-rubble". One step up, half a step back. We milked "easy vertical" on snow patches when available, hopping from snow patch to snow patch.

Once on the top step, of the mountain's lower third, we turned back east, and traversed for a very long time along one of these 20-30º rubble steps. The next piece of the beta puzzle was to locate the "third elephant ass." That was the key waypoint where you start up the low 5th class climbing that takes you right to the summit ridge. As we stumbled along, our imaginations turned everything in to an ass of one animal or another. We ended up walking too far (we would discover later), turning us into the ass.

Not wanting to back track, and knowing that the gully directly above us was part of 'the way', we climbed directly up a 60º tongue of snow that ended as a one-foot wide icy point.  This point had pulled away from the rock wall two feet from melting, forming an imposing moat. Pulling those first moves from the snow to rock and finding a "good" (at least, for the Canadian Rockies) anchor turned out to be the crux of the climbing. Nothing like getting the crux over with during the first moves.

Two pitches, and three cam placements, later officially we joined the normal Japanese Route, as signs of fixed sling anchors became very obvious. We picked our way along. Janelle had no interest in leading, so I got to lead all 7-8 pitches. I cant remember how many we did it in now, as some were short and others were the full 60 meters. Pitch length was dictated by where I could build safe belays.

7.5 hours after leaving the hut we reached the summit ridge. The sky was still beautiful, and there appeared to be little snow on the ridge, so the hast that accompanies most alpine adventures eased a little. We picked our way along the ridge, sometimes walking, sometimes climbing, but always taking a bunch of photos. On the summit someone had left a Japanese umbrella, which I thought was nice touch. We hung out for half an hour, taking in the views, recharging the batteries with some power food, and then headed back. The summit ridge was far and away the best part of the experience.

Rappelling down went something like this:
1. me down, Reiner down, Janelle down.
2. Pull the rope
3. Quickly cover head with backpack as the falling rope dislodged rocks that showered us. While the rocks are falling, the primal urge to tuck my head into my shell kicks in. Which is actually just shrugging my shoulders with my chin against my chest, but for some reason it feels like the protection level has increased.
4. Dust off, collect rope, check for rope core shots, rap down with saddle bags to the next anchor
5. repeat steps 1-4 x 9

We made it back to the hut with daylight to spare. It had been a great adventure.

Climbing the Japanese Route on Mt Alberta is like being in 7th grade. There were some good parts, a lot of crappy parts, and I really don't ever want to do that again.  Yet somehow, for some unknown reason, deep down I know that it got me one step closer to earning my man pants.

Beta:
-watch the video we made of the climb here
-rack: BD C3's full set, C4 .4-#2 full set, no nuts, didnt need tools or crampons (condition dependent), 2 60m Sterling Photons 7.8mm, slings to back up anchors, man pants.
-route can be done in a day with good conditions, a light pack and good beta.
-Link to a very rough outline of how to get to the hut. The trail is faint at times, but never totally gone. walk on the left side of the creek 95% of the time.
-shoot me an email with questions: www.smileysproject.com

The Salathe Route, El Capitan

  There are few things better than driving into the Valley in October. You come around that one turn and all focus shifts from the road to El Capitan's West facing walls. Amazing. I pity the fool that stands outside their car on this stretch of road. All attention is paid to the rock, and none to moving vehicles.

This was our second wall, the Nose last year was our first. As a sophomore big waller we had our systems pretty dialed, and we were excited to get going.

Day 0 - Prep. Taking over an entire campsite we laid all the gear out, OCD style, as to mimic Glen Denny's the black and white photos of Yvon Chouinard. Janelle is the master mind of the food and I handle the equipment. She set to work making bagel sandwiches for both breakfast and dinner. We wanted to leave the stove behind, so all food would be fully hydrated meals. When you have to carry all your water, it makes no sense to us to eat dehydrated meals. I'm pretty sure the total weight of things was around 165lbs. Including 40lb kit, 29 lb portaledge and fly, 70 lbs of water, 10 lbs of clothing, and 15ish lbs of food.

Day 1- Getting all that stuff up to Heart Ledges. There are a permanent fixed lines from the ground to these ledges, which facilitates staging very nicely. You must trust the manky fixed lines, but it beats the alternative, so you try not to think about it too much. Stepping into the aid ladders I had to dust off the brain rust to get into the groove of things. 500 feet up I felt back in the game. Huge exposure, hanging from some crazy thin piece of sun-cooked old rope, wind blowing, 75 degrees, sunny. Life is good. Turns out hauling really takes it out of you, so by the time we got the 150+ pound pig up to Heart we were ready to call it a day.

Day 2- Getting up early to dodge the crowds, we made our way, with only our free climbing rack and rope, to the start of the Salathe. The first 10 pitches are known as Freeblast, which commonly goes free for people in a mild sized day. Our mindset for the day was to free as much as possible, but if an onsight does not happen, whatever, just get 'er done, and pull through where needed. All but three cruxes went clean, so we were stoked about that. It's just so nice to move without a pack, in the sun, simply focusing on pure rock climbing moves on the best stone in the world. Especially after an entire summer of climbing cold chossy mountains.

Day 3- We jugged back up the fixed lines to Heart Ledges, and launched on the route. There were a couple Brits right in front of us, so we took turns waiting on one another. The sun was out, but not too hot, so the urgency meter was very low. We climbed and aided up pitch after pitch. The Salathe is so classic that nearly every pitch has a name. Ear, Hollow Flake, Monster, Alcove, El Cap Spire, Sous le Toit, to name a few. Some of the aid climbing was tricky, but where it was there was normally a fixed piece of gear. Some were good, some looked awful. I clipped the piece regardless. I mean, it's only got to hold my body weight, right?! We slept the first night on the wall below the Ear pitch. Setting up the portaledge with daylight to spare is the way to go. Once level, we relaxed on what is probably the best piece of kit we own...our portaledge. Lounging, watching the sun set, eating BBQ Pringels...does it get better?

Day 4- The highlight of this day was watching one of the Brits onsight the Monster off-width pitch. I was belaying Janelle from above, so I got eyes-on the entire thing. The UK has little to no off-width cracks to train on, so the fact that he onsighted it was extra impressive.
You might think you're a good climber, until you go to Yosemite. It's the big pond.
Arriving at the belay he was coated in sweat and chalk, and a few oozing war wounds. I think I was more excited than he was. High-5s, slaps on his back, "you're awesome" filled the air. He was pretty quiet, as he rigged the anchor to bring up the second. After ten minutes or so I noticed him eyeing my water bottle hanging on the anchor.
"Want a drink?" I asked.
It was as if I just offered him a million bucks.
His mouth said, "ah no, thats okay, I do not want to take your water." His face silently screamed, "I want a drink more than anything in the world!"
I unscrewed the lid and handed it to him. He took a small sip and handed it back with a sheepish grin, leaving 3/4 of the bottle was full.
"Finish it man, you deserve it."
"Really?!" He said.
"Yeah for sure, we have extra, and you just fricky onsighted the bloody MONSTER."
The bottle was empty a minute later.
We made it up some more pitches. And again set up the ledge for another beautiful evening.

Day 5- Our 6th wedding anniversary. I am one lucky man to have found, and won the heart of, a beautiful woman excited to spend this special day doing manual labor.
There was some tricky aid climbing throughout, but mostly plugging and pulling. A party pasted us, Russian brothers, that were trying to free the entire route (Freerider). As they blew by with their light rack, no packs, I was jealous of the simplicity of that style of climbing. Come to find out they had been working the route for three weeks. A lot of hard prep work is what it took to get them to this place.
As Janelle aided up the very overhung Salathe roof, which provides access to the beautiful headwall, the brothers came back down. Successful. They were so pumped. Now they had about 2 hours of rappelling the entire route, picking up cashed supplies as they descended. It was also very cool to witness a small part of their huge success. Few elite climbers have the "Freed Freerider" feather in their hat.
We spent the night on Long Ledge, eating fruit cups, soaking in the beauty that makes Yosemite so special to so many. We were blessed with a sun set that left nothing to be desired. Aside from my shoulder tendonitus flaring up, and being too covered in grim to "celebrate marriage", it was a perfect evening.

Day 6- We topped out. Lounged around, in no real hurry to shoulder the 80 pound pig. A couple from Austrian hikers happened by, took some photos of the "crazy climbers" with our gear exploded everywhere. We communicated with hand gestures as their English was good as my German is...nein.
Two hours later, the call of a shower grew louder than the cry of the pig's weight, so I shouldered it and started down hill, walking like an overweight tortoise that had had one too many.

All in all it was a great experience. I think I have satiated my hunger for big wall climbing for a while. I want to most light and free. When I get back on El Cap it will be to go for the Nose in a day, as that seems like an awesome goal, and a great adventure. Watch the video here: https://vimeo.com/62166077

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