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SKI MOUNTAINEERING IN THE EASTERN ST ELIAS
| Trip Length: |
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two weeks |
| Trip Dates: |
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April 19 - May 1, 2003 |
| Report Submitted By: |
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Cam Shute |
| Participants Names: |
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Cam Shute, Mark Parminter, Mark Tinholt, Steve Ogle, Brian Cutts, Jeff Krueger |
| Sponsors Names: |
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G3, SBC Skier, MSR, Arc'Teryx, Julbo, Patagonia, Black Diamond, Intuition Sports |
| Route Followed: |
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Cathedral Glacier, McKim Peak north face and north ridge, Mount Hubbard SE Face and north ridge, Mount Kennedy west ridge |
G3 Equipment Used:
G3 2003/4 Prototype Skins, G3 Targa and Targa T/9 Bindings, G3 Avitech Shovels, G3 Profesional Series Probes, G3 Ski Straps |
Comments on Gear Performance:
Awesome results with the new skins - they stuck really well right down to -25C at 14,000 ft. No issues with Targas, they are burly! Good performance with the shovels, we actually bent a voile shovel blade digging a camp out, and the G3 blade cut through it like butter! Good work. |
Trip Description:
In early fall of 2002 after a kayaking trip Mark Parminter, also known as Parm, said to me "man, we gotta go skiing in Alaska this winter." Sparks and wheels started turning in my mind, and I began to start sending out emails to the usual suspects to gauge interest. After determining that one of the crew couldn't "legally" enter Alaska we decided to compromise and go into the Yukon, ski to a summit on the Alaskan border and piss into America. With this as our guiding inspiration, the POA expedition was born.
After hundreds of emails and many trips to the library our plan was hatched, we would converge in Whitehorse and fly into the south side of the Alverstone-Hubbard-Kennedy massif with the hopes of doing some skiing and mountaineering. Having never been to the St. Elias range before it was hard to know what to expect, and how to interpret the topo maps. The area is known for it's brutal weather, and in 1998 a British group went in to the same area for 21 days to try and climb the unclimbed McKim Peak (formerly South Kennedy) , but wound up being storm stuck for 18 days, and only reaching around 10,000 ft. We prepared ourselves for the worst, and brought 21 days of food for climbing, and an emergency cache of 8 days of food to be left at the landing and pickup location just in case.
On April 20 we flew in to 6,000ft on the cathedral glacier after a night of hoping for good weather. We had heard horror stories of people waiting weeks to fly in, and figured that being able to fly in on our first day we were probably a week ahead of schedule. Our first day consisted of hauling our gear and all the food up through the first icefall which was a good intro to glacier travel in the St. Elias. The terrain was much larger than anything we were used to and the distances were very deceiving, especially on the massive valley glaciers. After managing to weave a path through the broken terrain we established our first camp above the icefall at around 7200ft.
The following day we decided to haul 9 days of food up the glacier to try and establish a higher camp, so we skied up about 5 km to just below the second icefall at 8800ft. The glacier was very straightforward and unbroken between the first and second icefalls. We moved our camp up to the food drop in the morning, and enjoyed the rest of the day consuming vast amounts food while enjoying the amphitheatre that is the cathedral glacier.
The next day we chose to attempt the unclimbed South Kennedy peak which would be good to get acclimatized and see how everyone was doing (~11,994 ft we are currently trying to get it named "McKim" peak in honour of our friends Guy Edwards and John Millar who we lost this April). Staring at the very broken section of the second icefall required careful navigation, so we got to bed early to get an early start. We left camp 2 at around 6am on our fourth day of the trip, and managed to work our way across the broken ground to gain the eastern flank of the mountain allowing easy access to the north face which we climbed to the summit. Arriving at around 11 am we had fantastic views of Mount Hubbard, Mount Seattle and Disenchantment Bay. We hung out for maybe an hour or so, had lunch, and then strapped the skis on and got back to camp by around 2pm to relax.
The weather was holding, and it seemed that pressure was constantly on the rise. We couldn't believe our good fortune, and not wanting to waste any of the good weather we decided to reckie a route through the second icefall the following day to find out how we could access the SE face of Mount Hubbard. We weren't aware of a previous ascent of the face; however, we later found out that in 1981 a Canadian party climbed Mt. Hubbard via the southeast face. Information in the CAJ article was sketchy at best without any photos, and the party had to bivouac high up on the mountain.
The next day we cruised up through the second icefall crossing many crevasses without incident and found it extremely straightforward to get through. We stopped at around 10,000 ft and scouted out our route for the following day, and then returned to camp to get some much needed rest for the big day to come.
We got up at around 4am to begin our climb of Mount Hubbard since we had to climb 6,000ft from our "not so high" camp. We made good time that morning, and having skis and skins proved invaluable for quickly moving through the terrain we encountered. The crux of the lower bit was summoning the cajones to cross a huge crevasse on a solid but narrow bridge.
We reached the 12,500 ft shoulder of Mount Hubbard by around 11am with only 2,500ft to go, so we decided to wrap around the shoulder to get views of Mount Vancouver, Mount Logan and Mount St. Elias which were spectacular. It was at the base of the SE face that our group decided to split up a little. One group wanted to scout a line directly up the face in the hopes of skiing it, and the other group chose to climb the big patch of blue ice directly up to the summit. In photo of the SE face the red route on the left shows the face we climbed (1000 ft of which was blue ice up to 45 degrees, and the last 1,500 ft consisted of steep snow slopes up to 50 degrees). It was easy climbing, but one of our party managed to do a backflip while trying to get through an awkward bergshrund.
The purple route on the right was around 600 m of steep snow slopes, and intersected the yellow route which is the east ridge to get to the summit. The end of both of these routes is obscured by the mountain, and consist of mellow snow slopes with the occasional schrund.
We topped out at around 8pm, and after pissing in to America we skied the down the north ridge to meet the east ridge which we skied down to connect with the upper cathedral glacier which we had never seen before. Skiing roped together in challenging snow conditions was interesting, but after several "hog tying" incidents we got the system dialled in. We all arrived back at camp by around midnight and celebrated by making dinner and passing out. The following day was spent having a much needed rest day. I hadn't even had time to knock off a single page of my book, but the good weather was holding and we were keen to climb and ski while we could.
Mount Kennedy was chosen as our final big objective, and after our day of rest and eating we felt refuelled for another day out to climb the west ridge of Kennedy. We again left pretty early and made good time skiing with only really one icy shoulder that slowed us down a little and required changing into crampons. Arriving at the base of the west ridge at around noon we had a lunch, and then climbed the final 700 ft up the exposed ridge to the summit. Fun climbing, excellent scenery and great people made for an amazing day out. We skied back to camp on amazing spring corn in a Mike Wiegle V formation to leave pretty tracks, and got back to camp mid-day for dinner.
The weather continued to hold, and we were feeling tired and happy with having bagged a couple of fun ascents and descents, so we decided to descend and go play in the "small" mountains before we left. Our sights were set on a peak we called the shark's fin, and some other spots on the southern edge of the lower cathedral glacier. After a couple days of skiing for fun with no big scary things the pressure started to drop, and we decide to head out to civilization. After one day of missing a flight, Andy Williams swooped in with his heliocourier to take us out.
Altogether we spent 12 days on the cathedral glacier in pretty much perfect weather. An unreal experience in one of the most beautiful mountain ranges I've ever been to, and I'll definitely go back.
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