Dreams of Brown Moose, Portage, Alaska 11/15/09
Marcin and Gregg were kind enough to let me tag along on a trip out to Portage. The idea was to climb Dreams of Brown Moose (Rating: WI4 , Length: 160-170 meters, 3 pitches, FA: Jim Hale & Gary Bocarde, 1975)although to be honest I had no idea where it was or what the difficulty was. They waited for me to grab all my gear and off we went.
We roamed along the trail off in the wrong direction for a while then bushwhacked our way up to the climb. It is further up the large avalanche gully then it looks. Also I would not want to be in this gully later on in the year, Death trap for sure! We pushed our way to the base of the climb and geared up. I took some time to admire the views.
The route looks a lot shorter then it is as well. There were guesses at "just a few pitches" I felt it was deceiving us however, thankfully I was right.
The rest of the criminals.
The first small tunnel on the way to Whittier
a completely unnecessary shot of my ice tools and my home made harness leashes (better system coming soon).
So we continued along the climb. The first pitch was some ice to snow and ice again. Easy WI2 or so with only one screw placed in 60m. We had heard it was going to be thin and this was the first indication.
Gregg brings Marcin up the first pitch
A cluster, yet organized. Its like the desk of a businessman who spends to much time at his desk. It looks like it blew up, but we still know whats going on...
Marcin took off for the second pitch which turned out to be a good calfburner. It went to where he is now and he hooked right into more protectable territory. After wading through a slight tinkle it meandered back left and just seemed to keep going. Each belay fully stretched out the rope.
I followed next and then Gregg. I was testing the new boots out and found them to work pretty well. Now if I can just gain some technique i'll probably have this climbing thing figured out.
It certainly is beautiful here.
I took the final lead which looked like about 30m of odd WI3. I set off finding good ice and a few decent placements until I came to a steep corner. It was either take the corner or step out onto hollow unprotected ice bulges that were like rubber duckies on a frozen river. Just waiting to take off. The corner ended up being the steepest portion of the climb and from the previous water dousing I couldn't grip my ice tools and longer! It was getting annoying and I was starting to slip well above my last protection. I did the only thing I could think of which was take my gloves off. The temperature which was into the negatives didn't feel to bad and the grip was great so I pulled through and onto easier ground. Then it was just a tense massive runout on a mix of hollow ice and snow, through semi-steep and not so steep ground. I reached the anchor with enough rope to barely clip the anchor at a stretch. Everyone followed up and by then it was dark, of course. So we headed down in the dark lowering off v-threads, which seem a lot safer then those damn bolts at the top. If anyone goes up there bring a few bolts and a hand drill, those things are really bad! A nice hike out through the "trail" and we were back to the car around 7:30pm.
We roamed along the trail off in the wrong direction for a while then bushwhacked our way up to the climb. It is further up the large avalanche gully then it looks. Also I would not want to be in this gully later on in the year, Death trap for sure! We pushed our way to the base of the climb and geared up. I took some time to admire the views.
The route looks a lot shorter then it is as well. There were guesses at "just a few pitches" I felt it was deceiving us however, thankfully I was right.
The rest of the criminals.
The first small tunnel on the way to Whittier
a completely unnecessary shot of my ice tools and my home made harness leashes (better system coming soon).
So we continued along the climb. The first pitch was some ice to snow and ice again. Easy WI2 or so with only one screw placed in 60m. We had heard it was going to be thin and this was the first indication.
Gregg brings Marcin up the first pitch
A cluster, yet organized. Its like the desk of a businessman who spends to much time at his desk. It looks like it blew up, but we still know whats going on...
Marcin took off for the second pitch which turned out to be a good calfburner. It went to where he is now and he hooked right into more protectable territory. After wading through a slight tinkle it meandered back left and just seemed to keep going. Each belay fully stretched out the rope.
I followed next and then Gregg. I was testing the new boots out and found them to work pretty well. Now if I can just gain some technique i'll probably have this climbing thing figured out.
It certainly is beautiful here.
I took the final lead which looked like about 30m of odd WI3. I set off finding good ice and a few decent placements until I came to a steep corner. It was either take the corner or step out onto hollow unprotected ice bulges that were like rubber duckies on a frozen river. Just waiting to take off. The corner ended up being the steepest portion of the climb and from the previous water dousing I couldn't grip my ice tools and longer! It was getting annoying and I was starting to slip well above my last protection. I did the only thing I could think of which was take my gloves off. The temperature which was into the negatives didn't feel to bad and the grip was great so I pulled through and onto easier ground. Then it was just a tense massive runout on a mix of hollow ice and snow, through semi-steep and not so steep ground. I reached the anchor with enough rope to barely clip the anchor at a stretch. Everyone followed up and by then it was dark, of course. So we headed down in the dark lowering off v-threads, which seem a lot safer then those damn bolts at the top. If anyone goes up there bring a few bolts and a hand drill, those things are really bad! A nice hike out through the "trail" and we were back to the car around 7:30pm.
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I Live at http://www.alaskamountainforum.com
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