Establishing an Unclimbed Route in Hatcher Pass
Kelsey already posted his version of our trip to Hatchers, so here's the two days from our perspective!
We hiked into Reed Valley the morning... er... afternoon
after Kelsey and Dane headed up, and after a couple miles of hauling all our gear we managed to somehow locate them in the vastness of the empty mountains. We just looked for the people climbing the walls...
Tracy and I set up a quick camp in the best place we could find. I'm convinced by now that this area of the world contains a large number of the world's greatest campsites. After we rigged our tent, we packed up the climbing gear and strolled leisurely up the hill to the cliffs.
Five years ago, a friend and I headed up to this wall to try climbing in some uncharted territory and snag ourselves a first ascent, a prize cherished by climbers worldwide. Being the first to ascend a beautiful line is a great feeling, and gives one an opportunity to leave a legacy for climbers following for decades to come. We climbed two lackluster pitches of dirty slab to get to the base of the impressive looking crack system we were after, but as I climbed my way up this truly great dual-splitter, I slowly began to realize that placing protection was going to be very difficult. Deep moss filled the back of the crack, and fuzzy flakes of lichen crumbled on contact and turned to a slippery dust that negated friction as I tried to wedge my sweaty hands between the masses of rock.
I slowly worked my way higher, but without having some hands free and appropriate tools to dig out the vegetation, I couldn't seem to find many places to place protection. After about fifty feet above the slabby granite at the base of the crack, with sweat dumping from every pore and shaking limbs covered in dirt and grime, I started to get scared. I had only two pieces of protection between me and hard rock, and completely unknown ground above me with no promise of protection anywhere. The fall potential was enormous, and I knew I was lying to myself if I thought the shaky pieces below would stop me before I smacked the immovable slab and wound up broken and dead at my belayer's ledge. Looking down, it was debatable whether or not my last piece was even close enough for the rope to get tight before decking on the hard rock. I mean I started to get really scared.
Never in my life had I actually experienced tasting fear, but I realized while slipping from my precarious holds in this mossy crack with almost certain death below that the expression has a solid basis in fact. I tasted it, a strong bitterness that filled my dry mouth and didn't go away as I spat mouthfuls of crumbled lichen and moss. Climbing higher only increased the likelihood of splatting, but I couldn't just lower with my last piece an infinite distance below me. I gasped and whimpered and chickened out, sticking my tail between my legs and desperately searching for any way out of my situation.
Eventually I snuck a sketchy stopper into a flared constriction in the dirty crack in front of me, leaned over very gently to eye the placement, and decided it might hold my weight. It was worth a shot. Shouting down to my belayer, I slowly began to half-lower half-slide down the grimy grungy wall, praying the single piece of protection above me would hold long enough to get at least close enough to the slab to limit injuries when it popped and sent me flying. I tried to keep solid handholds as backups for when I went airborne, but the dirty nature of the whole wall made friction almost nothing, and I knew I was grasping at straws.
After a forever of lowering in this manner, my feet finally touched down on the slab and I could breathe again. I stepped back and flipped my rope to see if I could dislodge the stopper I had just lowered from, but to my surprise it was more solid than I expected. Smacking my lips, I still couldn't dull the acrid taste of adrenaline or whatever it was my over-stressed body system put into my mouth, and I turned and ran away with nothing on my mind but getting down off that wall.
Of course in the days, weeks, and years to come my mind has always gone back to this route, knowing that with the proper preparation and gear, I could come back and finish the thing properly. An unfinished climb haunts a climber, leaving them lying awake at night going over the moves in their mind, certain that, given just one more try, they'll be able to unlock the move sequences and add a tick mark next to that route on life's list.
Until this week I never really put the effort into getting back up there, but after a brief chat with Kelsey, Tracy and I made our way to the top of the cliff and rappelled down the route that beat me so badly so many years ago. With the advantage of being on rappel, I was able to use a long slender hook made for retrieving pieces of protection from gluttonous gear-eating cracks to dig deep into the dirt and moss in the back of the crack and expose many excellent places for protection. When I reached the bottom, after eyeing the whole route bit by bit, I was confident that I could finish off this climb in good style and put an end to my years of wishing I had done so.
Tracy followed me down, and with no further ado and only a small amount of trepidation, I started my way upward. The route was incredible! Move after move flew by, with hand jam after hand jam slotting in solidly on both sides as the crack split in two directions and offered stellar sequences, and even threw in some great face climbing moves on bulging chickenheads. Turning around, the view was fantastic, with sunny mountainsides rolling down to the deep blue-green Lower Reed Lake. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was wonderful.
Reaching the top, I rigged up a belay and Tracy followed me up. It's a beautiful day in Hatchers and we just put up a new route. As Tracy reaches the last holds, it's clear that this is one of those moments that makes all the suffering and trials of climbing well worth it.
Dane and Kelsey wrapped up their climbing and followed us up our new route, starting from the ground and easily forging their way up the two pitches of slab to meet us at the money pitch. Here, Dane cleans the gear as the waning light drops shadows across the valley floor and leaves us enjoying some of the last rays of sunlight in the valley for the day.
Faced with the choice of a long and hazardous walkoff or tying all our ropes together and hoping they reached the ground past a monstrous overhang below us, we opted for the overhang. I took off down a double ropelength, with a third rope on my back in case I needed to tie it on to reach the ground. After a thoroughly amazing free-hanging rappel off the lip of the overhang, Kelsy followed me down to earth.
It's hard to paint a picture of how much open air there is on this rappel, but it's really really fun.:D:D
Dane and Tracy followed us down, and with the last light illuminating the way, we left our ropes fixed on the wall and headed back to camp. Kelsey and Dane packed up their gear and hiked all the way back to their cars in the dark, leaving Tracy and I alone and quite content in the mountains I call home.
Morning dragged on and on as we dozed in our sleeping bags waiting for the sun to climb over the mountain and boil us out of the tent. After a leisurely breakfast, we headed back up the route and assessed placements for permanent anchors at the belay ledges that didn't have cracks available for traditional placements. A quick bolting lesson for Tracy, and she and I take turns pounding away at the drill for the next few hours.
The beautiful skies held out for us, and with late summer temperatures hanging in the perfect range for us Alaskans, we had a blast for the entire day. Here Tracy follows me to the belay ledge atop the first pitch, where we'll place our last two bolts and head to the ground for good.
Lower Reed Lake still sits peacefully below us as Tracy poses at a nicely constructed anchor on the slabby first pitch. We ran out of smaller bolts and I was forced to spend a good half-hour pounding away to place one of the larger bolts I usually reserve for the more demanding work of highlining. Eventually we got the job done and rappelled to the ground with a great feeling, knowing that climbers will likely be clipping these bolts and enjoying this climb for decades to come!
Here's a knot that I personally tied on my first attempt at this route five years ago. It's a little cool to know I've been climbing long enough to clean my own slings and find moss growing on them.
And to wrap things up on a non-climbing note, at every rest stop on the hike back to the car, little flickers of movement revealed the locations of dozens of tiny Pikas in the rocks around us. These little guys store up food during the summer and stay awake eating it all winter long rather than hibernating. They're fleeting little buggers, and hard to catch in one place for more than a few seconds.
Edit: And I almost forgot the final photo of the whole route from afar!
And thus ends another journey into the mountains, coming home a little lighter for a couple bolts left behind, and a lot happier for having finally sealed this personal nemesis and made a route really worth climbing again. As always, I hope you all enjoyed the photos at least a fraction as much as we enjoyed taking them!
We hiked into Reed Valley the morning... er... afternoon
after Kelsey and Dane headed up, and after a couple miles of hauling all our gear we managed to somehow locate them in the vastness of the empty mountains. We just looked for the people climbing the walls...Tracy and I set up a quick camp in the best place we could find. I'm convinced by now that this area of the world contains a large number of the world's greatest campsites. After we rigged our tent, we packed up the climbing gear and strolled leisurely up the hill to the cliffs.
Five years ago, a friend and I headed up to this wall to try climbing in some uncharted territory and snag ourselves a first ascent, a prize cherished by climbers worldwide. Being the first to ascend a beautiful line is a great feeling, and gives one an opportunity to leave a legacy for climbers following for decades to come. We climbed two lackluster pitches of dirty slab to get to the base of the impressive looking crack system we were after, but as I climbed my way up this truly great dual-splitter, I slowly began to realize that placing protection was going to be very difficult. Deep moss filled the back of the crack, and fuzzy flakes of lichen crumbled on contact and turned to a slippery dust that negated friction as I tried to wedge my sweaty hands between the masses of rock.
I slowly worked my way higher, but without having some hands free and appropriate tools to dig out the vegetation, I couldn't seem to find many places to place protection. After about fifty feet above the slabby granite at the base of the crack, with sweat dumping from every pore and shaking limbs covered in dirt and grime, I started to get scared. I had only two pieces of protection between me and hard rock, and completely unknown ground above me with no promise of protection anywhere. The fall potential was enormous, and I knew I was lying to myself if I thought the shaky pieces below would stop me before I smacked the immovable slab and wound up broken and dead at my belayer's ledge. Looking down, it was debatable whether or not my last piece was even close enough for the rope to get tight before decking on the hard rock. I mean I started to get really scared.
Never in my life had I actually experienced tasting fear, but I realized while slipping from my precarious holds in this mossy crack with almost certain death below that the expression has a solid basis in fact. I tasted it, a strong bitterness that filled my dry mouth and didn't go away as I spat mouthfuls of crumbled lichen and moss. Climbing higher only increased the likelihood of splatting, but I couldn't just lower with my last piece an infinite distance below me. I gasped and whimpered and chickened out, sticking my tail between my legs and desperately searching for any way out of my situation.
Eventually I snuck a sketchy stopper into a flared constriction in the dirty crack in front of me, leaned over very gently to eye the placement, and decided it might hold my weight. It was worth a shot. Shouting down to my belayer, I slowly began to half-lower half-slide down the grimy grungy wall, praying the single piece of protection above me would hold long enough to get at least close enough to the slab to limit injuries when it popped and sent me flying. I tried to keep solid handholds as backups for when I went airborne, but the dirty nature of the whole wall made friction almost nothing, and I knew I was grasping at straws.
After a forever of lowering in this manner, my feet finally touched down on the slab and I could breathe again. I stepped back and flipped my rope to see if I could dislodge the stopper I had just lowered from, but to my surprise it was more solid than I expected. Smacking my lips, I still couldn't dull the acrid taste of adrenaline or whatever it was my over-stressed body system put into my mouth, and I turned and ran away with nothing on my mind but getting down off that wall.
Of course in the days, weeks, and years to come my mind has always gone back to this route, knowing that with the proper preparation and gear, I could come back and finish the thing properly. An unfinished climb haunts a climber, leaving them lying awake at night going over the moves in their mind, certain that, given just one more try, they'll be able to unlock the move sequences and add a tick mark next to that route on life's list.
Until this week I never really put the effort into getting back up there, but after a brief chat with Kelsey, Tracy and I made our way to the top of the cliff and rappelled down the route that beat me so badly so many years ago. With the advantage of being on rappel, I was able to use a long slender hook made for retrieving pieces of protection from gluttonous gear-eating cracks to dig deep into the dirt and moss in the back of the crack and expose many excellent places for protection. When I reached the bottom, after eyeing the whole route bit by bit, I was confident that I could finish off this climb in good style and put an end to my years of wishing I had done so.
Tracy followed me down, and with no further ado and only a small amount of trepidation, I started my way upward. The route was incredible! Move after move flew by, with hand jam after hand jam slotting in solidly on both sides as the crack split in two directions and offered stellar sequences, and even threw in some great face climbing moves on bulging chickenheads. Turning around, the view was fantastic, with sunny mountainsides rolling down to the deep blue-green Lower Reed Lake. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was wonderful.
Reaching the top, I rigged up a belay and Tracy followed me up. It's a beautiful day in Hatchers and we just put up a new route. As Tracy reaches the last holds, it's clear that this is one of those moments that makes all the suffering and trials of climbing well worth it.
Dane and Kelsey wrapped up their climbing and followed us up our new route, starting from the ground and easily forging their way up the two pitches of slab to meet us at the money pitch. Here, Dane cleans the gear as the waning light drops shadows across the valley floor and leaves us enjoying some of the last rays of sunlight in the valley for the day.
Faced with the choice of a long and hazardous walkoff or tying all our ropes together and hoping they reached the ground past a monstrous overhang below us, we opted for the overhang. I took off down a double ropelength, with a third rope on my back in case I needed to tie it on to reach the ground. After a thoroughly amazing free-hanging rappel off the lip of the overhang, Kelsy followed me down to earth.
It's hard to paint a picture of how much open air there is on this rappel, but it's really really fun.
:D:DDane and Tracy followed us down, and with the last light illuminating the way, we left our ropes fixed on the wall and headed back to camp. Kelsey and Dane packed up their gear and hiked all the way back to their cars in the dark, leaving Tracy and I alone and quite content in the mountains I call home.
Morning dragged on and on as we dozed in our sleeping bags waiting for the sun to climb over the mountain and boil us out of the tent. After a leisurely breakfast, we headed back up the route and assessed placements for permanent anchors at the belay ledges that didn't have cracks available for traditional placements. A quick bolting lesson for Tracy, and she and I take turns pounding away at the drill for the next few hours.
The beautiful skies held out for us, and with late summer temperatures hanging in the perfect range for us Alaskans, we had a blast for the entire day. Here Tracy follows me to the belay ledge atop the first pitch, where we'll place our last two bolts and head to the ground for good.
Lower Reed Lake still sits peacefully below us as Tracy poses at a nicely constructed anchor on the slabby first pitch. We ran out of smaller bolts and I was forced to spend a good half-hour pounding away to place one of the larger bolts I usually reserve for the more demanding work of highlining. Eventually we got the job done and rappelled to the ground with a great feeling, knowing that climbers will likely be clipping these bolts and enjoying this climb for decades to come!
Here's a knot that I personally tied on my first attempt at this route five years ago. It's a little cool to know I've been climbing long enough to clean my own slings and find moss growing on them.
And to wrap things up on a non-climbing note, at every rest stop on the hike back to the car, little flickers of movement revealed the locations of dozens of tiny Pikas in the rocks around us. These little guys store up food during the summer and stay awake eating it all winter long rather than hibernating. They're fleeting little buggers, and hard to catch in one place for more than a few seconds.
Edit: And I almost forgot the final photo of the whole route from afar!
And thus ends another journey into the mountains, coming home a little lighter for a couple bolts left behind, and a lot happier for having finally sealed this personal nemesis and made a route really worth climbing again. As always, I hope you all enjoyed the photos at least a fraction as much as we enjoyed taking them!
John Borland
www.morffed.com
www.morffed.com
0
Comments
Cuong
Excellent photos to go with the narrative. Congratulations and thanks for sharing!