|
On April 4, 2004 Marko
Prezelj and Steve House skied up Wooley Creek, over Wooley Shoulder, down Haberl
Creek and crossed a glacier to the base of the 4,500' North Face of North Twin
and established a bivy at the base of the lowest rockband after fixing half a
pitch.
Our intention was to climb the face in winter conditions (though just outside of
the official winter season) by whatever route seemed most logical and with the
clear understanding that we might not climb anything at all. There were only
two routes on the face (George Lowe-Chris Jones, August 1974 and Barry
Blanchard-Dave Cheesemond, August 1985) and neither route had been repeated in
summer or winter.
We carried food for 5 days and fuel for 6. We had one synthetic sleeping bag, a
5'x8' tarp, and a shovel blade that fits our ice tool shafts. Our rack
consisted of 13 nuts, 10 cams, 12 pitons, and 6 ice screws. Extra clothing
consisted of a change of socks each and a synthetic belay (DAS) parka each. The
leader climbed with a light pack and with leash-less tools. The second climbed
with a heavier pack, sometimes with the the second pack hanging off his harness,
and with leashed tools.
The first rockband, though short, gave us a taste of what was to come. The first
pitch offered steep and difficult dry-tooling in thin cracks, and necessitated
some pulling on gear. The second pitch required a tension traverse from the
belay and insecure mixed climbing on poorly adhered ice with hard-won rock gear
for protection. There was a clear pattern with just about every one of the 17
"hard" pitches--neither of us ever knew if the route would continue to go until
we got to the end of the rack and/or rope and built an anchor. This kept the
element of adventure high which we both consider important to a successful
outing, more important than whether we complete a route or not.
The end of the first day on the face (April 5th) saw us fixing a pitch half-way
up the face at the point where our line joined the unrepeated 1974 George
Lowe-Chris Jones route. We bivied comfortably on the highest snowband that
traverses the face.
On April 6th we ascended the ropes and Prezelj led the first block of the day, 4
pitches of steep rock climbing. Much of it was freeclimbed (dry-tooling), but
there were significant amounts of aid as well, including what we presumed to be
the "thin A3-A4" pitch described by George Lowe and Chris Jones. After that
long lead, House started his block, finishing his third pitch at a thin crack in
a steep headwall 30 minutes after sunset. Steve fixed the ropes there and
descended to Marko's stance, which being the size of one boot, was the biggest
stance they had seen since the morning. With some chopping they were able to
enlarge the stance to approximately 12"x20", just big enough for 3, maybe 4,
butt-cheeks. They dug snow out of cracks and scooped it off of other small
ledges and hung in their harnesses while they prepared some food and water.
|
While dinner was being
prepared, House chose to change his socks. When replacing the outer shell
of his left boot the loop on the back of the boot suddenly broke and he
lost control of it. The shell was seen briefly hovering in the light of
their headlamps before it quietly disappeared down the face. After much
cursing, and some discussion, Prezelj and House decided that it would be
easier, quicker, and safer to continue to the top of the route and travel
out by traversing the long, but non-technical, Columbia Icefields to the
Athabasca Glacier and the Icefields Center.
So it was an austere pair that finished dinner of soup and dehydrated
mashed potatoes and rigged their tarp overhead before they squeezed onto
the ledge, and with their feet on a backpack, pulled the sleeping bag over
them and spent an uncomfortable night. Their repose was cut short at
5:00am when winds near the summit started to cause spindrift to dump on
their ineffectively-rigged tarp and get into their sleeping bag. It is
worth remembering that at approximately this point George Lowe and Chris
Jones had "six pitons, some worthless nuts, and three ice screws" (AAJ
1975, pg. 1-8)
Unable to use the stove in the spindrift-shower House and Prezelj started
without food or water and ascended the fixed pitch and Marko lead one
traversing pitch towards the exit ice gully at the top of the face. House
followed with one normal boot-crampon combination and one inner boot
wrapped with athletic tape to protect it from abrasion. From the end of
that pitch the pair made a very traversing rappel, during which one of the
rope sheaths was badly damaged. From that stance a short, 20 foot lower
brought Marko into the exit ice gully, which to their consternation, was
completely devoid of ice. Marko led a long and difficult mixed pitch up
patchy ice and steep crack systems on the right side of the vertical gully
feature which brought them to within half a rope length of the end of the
true difficulties.
One short steep bit of ice climbing put the pair on the summit ice slopes,
which they climbed in 10 60 meter pitches to the North Twin-Twin Towers
col. From here they were able to ascend towards the summit of North Twin
and reached a suitable bivouac at 7:00pm below the summit cornice. Being
quite dry after a long day without water, they cooked until 1:00am, and
then fell asleep for 7 hours.
At 10:00am the morning of the 8th they continued over the summit of North
Twin onto the Colombia Icefield where they utilized a GPS unit to navigate
their way to the Athabasca Glacier in a complete whiteout. After nine
nearly-continuous hours of walking they reached the Icefields parkway. It
took them well over an hour to thumb a ride 10 kilometers north to their
waiting van. (It was later calculated that with perfect navigation it
would be a 14 mile traverse.)
House never had any problems with his foot getting cold and they returned
to the highway with 1.5 gas canisters and no food remaining. They carried
off all of their gear and ropes. Their skis, poles, and skins remained in
the Haberl Creek drainage, but were retrieved by a pair of young climbers
a week later who were paid by House for their efforts.
Summary:
Second ascent of the Lowe-Jones 1974 (5.10 A3) route on the North Face of
North Twin with a variation to the first half by Steve House (USA) and
Marko Prezelj (Slovenia) from April 5-7, 2004.
*Prezelj is pronounced "PREY-zell".
|
