The solid thunk of an ice tool into the cool blue bulge of ice sends just the right amount of vibration into my arm, as I weight the tool and step up into the next placement. Cool breezes are channeled through the canyon and send dusty wisps of spindrift from the top of the pitch down onto my helmet and shoulders. I look down to my last screw placement, then down to my partner Rush below. The only way to go now is up and to the anchor!
My partner for the trip was Rush, an ER doctor in Missoula, having arrived to town a few months prior and still sporting that confident and warm Texas drawl and fresh crew cut. With a pregnant wife and 1 year old daughter at home, we decided to play this trip as safe as possible and hedge our bets where avalanche danger was concerned. Rush and I had set out to climb an alpine route in Bass Creek, a craggy and dangerous looking protrusion stabbing into the sky in crenelated formations when viewed from the road, but to the climber's eye it looked like a cold playground of couloir climbs, ridgelines and water ice, both inviting and chilling to behold from the trail. Our objective was a ridgeline rising from the creek and extending in twisting and gnarled features to the summit above. It looked challenging, dangerous, cold, utterly physical. It looked fun. We left the trailhead that morning with heavy packs and skis strapped to the outside of that. We looked and felt like the pack mules prospectors would have used to make the journey into the hills in search of metallic wealth. We were after a different treasure though, and the payoff was well worth the three miles uphill on unsteady and icy terrain. After an hour and a half of this we made camp, and rested. We sorted gear, made ramen, talked shit about each others questionable heritage, undesirable ethnic backgrounds, etc.
Home Sweet Home
Once we stowed everything we hiked a ways up to the northern side of the creek to find some suitable single -double pitch ice. The trail wound up serpent like in switchback up the side of the canyon directly across from the target climb, giving us perfect recon opportunity. We looked at this line and that, debated the merits of a steeper icier line versus a longer but lower angled snow couloir, scouted belay possibilities, looked at avy paths and likelihood, debated snowpack, and after much pointing and consideration decided on a suitable line. We chose a line that started not on the ridge proper, but up a snow slope then through an ice chute and weaving between lower angled snow slopes above to meet with a fantastic looking chimney that all but led to the top. Satisfied, we continued on the path to the ice. After some route-finding difficulties we arrived at the first pitch of the day, a fun looking mildly angled WI2 which turned out to take screws, but neither of which I'm sure would hold a hat let alone a fall. Interesting ice led to the anchors, and I set up the toprope. This was Rush's first day on ice and I could practically feel the excitement in him like an electric charge. He made short work of the climb, we pulled rope and went onto the next route, a bit more vertical WI3 where we could set up a safe anchor and Rush could really feel the technique work on steeper ice. Just as I thought, he shot to the top of this one too, obviously not too challenged. We dropped anchor and moved over for our final route of the day, a short but straight vertical and beautifully colored WI4 that glistened in the fading light. We roped up and no sooner had I cast off and put in the first screw, my tool slipped and off I came, my crampon point snagging the rope on the way down. The rope was fine though, and the Yates Screamer deployed halfway, leaving me comfortably but embarrassingly deposited rump first in the snow. Back up I went, this time pulling the final bulge and setting anchor on a tree above. Rush followed, and I haven't mentioned yet that on this climb, instead of the modern technical ice tools that chew into ice like a chainsaw through butter, he sported dual mountaineering axes, straight shafted awkward affairs with all the bite of a nerf dart in steel plate. To his credit (and my amazement) he advanced right up and we made the descent into camp in failing light, tired and starving.
Tired Cold and Hungry
The darkness found us just as we made it back, and we spent the next hour preparing food and discussing the gear we would take up the route the next morning. The alpine climbing credo is "fast and light", with some parties shedding all but the most crucial gear, sometimes even leaving water behind for the precious ounces in weight it would avoid. For gear we agreed on two ice screws, 5 slings, cordalette and longer slings for anchors, a small set of nuts, two pitons, and precious little else. I eventually settled on a food bar, half-full Nalgene, compressible down belay jacket, and camera for in-the-pack items. We settled in for the night, set alarms and dozed off.
The next morning came cold and overcast, and we overslept to the extent that we had to resign to a high point in the climb instead of shooting for the summit, with a pre-agreed upon turn around time of 3:00, 3:30 at the latest. We began breakfast and brewed coffee, excited and anxious about the unknown terrain ahead. We sorted and packed everything and pushed off, our boots crunching in the frozen top crust of snow as we made way to the base of the climb.
Rush coaxing the stove into brewing essential coffee
The trail ran up perhaps a tenth of a mile up until it became parallel with our snow slope. We donned crampons, shed a layer, and started up through the snow covered boulders, our feet plunging through the hard crust up to our thighs in some spots. A broken tib-fib or ankle was a real possibility through the entire boulder strewn field, and our movement up was cautious.
Coming out of treeline and into view-city
We sloughed and plodded, slogged and plunged through deep here and shallow there drifts. The angle steepened and the consequences of a slip in the wrong place weighed in both of our minds as we gained the upper part of the boulderfield. The snow conditions varied between powder, to a heavy but soft quicksand, to a firm neve that
almost took bodyweight. I would liken this part of the climb to someone swimming uphill in sand or Jell-O. The best conditions were the Styrofoam snow patches. These were firm enough to take ice axes and were speedily climbed sections. The angle went to near 55 degrees and we neared the first bulges of ice protecting the couloir proper.
Rush on the "Styrofoam" snow on the upper boulderfield
We pulled up next to the bulges and tested the terrain. Rotten, crispy ice hid better quality ice, but the crispy guarded a thinner more vertical section. We ran through the options, and we decided on setting up a running belay off a tree down and left of the climber. I sank a screw and waited for Rush to set up rope. Once I was on, I set off through the ice and into more solid snow pack beyond. The cold and smell of frozen granite was better for the senses than any fine wine, and I drank it in, together with the growing adrenaline and the pointed focus one only gets when doing something possibly fatal in the case of failure. I managed to slot a marginal nut about 60 feet past the screw, clipped it to an extendable sling, and carried on. "Rope halfway!", I heard Rush yell when I was five feet past the nut. I climbed another 30 feet or so, pounding in a small Lost Arrow piton then continued a ways past that. "10 feet left!", came the shout from below. I started looking for a crack, a horn around which to sling some webbing around, anything, when I spied some old, frayed, tattered parchment of a sling, bound to a boulder frozen in place to the slope. It was anyone's guess as to how old or UV damaged this piece of mank was, but in alpine climbing, sometimes you have to just go with whatever available. I clipped the sling, and equalized it off to my ice axe slotted in the crack behind the boulder, willing Rush not to fall. There was good ice under the boulder itself, lending itself to what could have been a good V-thread placement, but out of the two screws I took, I only had the stubby 10cm screw left, the longer 19cm was down just past the tree belay. I called to Rush that I was on belay and up he started.
Sketchy Anchors 101- If it holds bodyweight, it's good enough for the alpine!
Rush pounded through the lower couloir at speed, grabbing gear and plowing through the now broken up chunks of snow. He made the anchor and I immediately set about sinking in a good solid V-thread, and equalized the anchor properly, freeing my axe for the next lead.
Rush coming up on the nut placement
Coming up on the anchor, slogging away
Rush doesn't look pleased with the anchor.....
We traded slings and looked up at the next section, the actual ice slot. I was wishing for more than the two screws I had, but just decided to gun it until the top of the pitch then place both high up, one right before the main vertical section and one halfway through the vertical bit.
The upper ice slot. The snow slope angle here is a deceptive 60 degrees+, with the ice slot where the rock and ice meet in the middle of the picture, just out of sight. The ice slot itself is about 40 feet tall.
I started up and continued the slog up to the actual ice. About 60 feet of snow later, I reached the first pillar and placed the longer screw here, clipping a Yates Screamer and pulling onto the vertical section. The picks dug in to increasingly thin plate ice as I made my way up into the slot, the wall of bare rock on the left closing in and the wall of ice on my right growing alarmingly air pocketed and thin. I placed the stubby in the last ice that would take a screw and gingerly stepped up. Ten feet later the wall and ice abruptly ended in a sharp dihedral of crispy ice and snow, and I heaved up over the last section and was out of the slot. 15 feet above found a good tree anchor, and I called down o Rush. He cleaned the "anchor" and joined me shortly after, rallying up the vertical section on naught but two dulled mountaineering axes!
At the tree belay above the slot. The exit of the slot is just to the left of my shoulder
I believe it was here that the discussion of time was brought up, and as we looked at our watches, the numbers were already getting uncomfortably close to the turn around time. We conferred and decided to descend to the base of the couloir and do some single pitches of ice down below; the summit was as impossibly far a Everest at this hour, and neither of us had the time or the gear for a bivy up here. After some scrambling, down belaying, and kind-of rappelling off to climber's right down into the other side trying to get to the base of the couloir we lost even more time, but gained a little more experience with the darker side of alpine climbing: route finding through trees and brush and heavy, sloggy snow. We finally rapped the final vertical ice section back down to the mouth of the couloir and by then the sloggy snow, late hour, fading daylight, and thoughts of food and beer convinced us to start the descent sooner than later. We settled on an impromptu ice screw and V-thread placement clinic instead and started the long slog downhill towards camp.
The final ice rap. If only we had the time to climb back up this!!! It continues vertically another 20 feet, and drops down another 30 from here.
Rush sinking bomber screws for his first placement
The next hour is spent carefully surfing down the misery that is a snow slog, all of it passing in a blur as the dehydration and hunger set in. We finally make it through the boulderfield and back onto more secure ground. We pack up camp and stuff our faces simultaneously, with chocolate, food bars, nuts and fruit. Heavy packs are hoisted onto weary backs, and we begin the 3 mile walk back to the trailhead just as the last of the light creeps from the sky. At least it's all downhill! Over beers in town later that night we talk of our favorite climbs, anchor techniques, climbing history, government, politics, economics, astronomical science and plans of future climbs. Our imaginations lead to wild, unattainable peaks and crags, precipices lofty and dangerous, as fierce as the passion for vertical terrain. We'll be back for the rest of the route another day, perhaps in the spring, when more consolidated and solid snowpack lends itself to easier snow walking. As the beers slowly grow in number we discuss a route name. Nowhere is there written a description of an ascent done previously, by any party, at any time of this obscure gash in the mountain, and the webbing we encountered was frozen on the cliff side of the boulder under a foot of ice, ergo, placed likely in a hasty descent in the summertime when there's still enough clearance for the sling to be placed round the boulder. First ascent? Maybe. At any rate we decide on the name "Sloggy Drunk".
View from the top of the route.
Climb on!!
