Ham & Eggs
Hey All,
I know this is kind of a long post. Jared, let me know if you need me to adjust it. I just got back from the Moose's Tooth and wrote this up. I'm hoping to get it in the press, but I need some feedback. I still need to add a bit of historical stuff, but the main stuff is here. Please give it a read-through and let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Moose’s Tooth
4/29/05 – 5/6/05
Climbers –
Aidan Loehr
Matt Hage
Jonathan Hughes
I’m pissed. I’m standing dejectedly in thigh-deep snow with my shoulder against the cold blue vertical face of a glacial serac. The clear blue sky above taunts me as I try to think of excuses to get my partners to continue.
“I’m only 30 feet from being able to see around the serac.” I plea into the radio hanging from my neck.
“Naw, It’s just taking too long. We need to head down.” Aidan replies.
“It would make me feel a lot better if I could see around the ice.” I spit back -I’m desperate now.
Inside I know that he and Matt are right. It’s almost 8:00 pm. It’s too late. Resting my helmet against the ice, I say nothing. The disappointment is boiling inside me, but I know I haven’t a leg to stand on in this argument. I’m too angry to talk.
“At this rate we’d be on the summit at midnight and have to get back though all of this in the dark.” Crackles the radio.
He must know what condition I’m in and is trying to talk some sense into me. I relent.
“Fine. I’ll clean this pitch on the way back.” I transmit quickly so not to betray my uncontrolled state of emotion to the rest of the team.
I follow the rope back to the last ice screw and start to pull it out of the ice. “I need to get better about turning back,” I tell myself. “This is how people die, you idiot!” This alpinism stuff is tough. I know it isn’t supposed to be all or nothing, but it hurts right now.
When I’m back to the col, Matt gives me an empathetic look. “I’m sorry man, I wanted it too. It’s just too late.” I’m still too angry to engage the topic. I force myself to focus on getting down. We identify the area that will be our first rappel anchor. I start to drill the V-thread, two angled holes in the ice that meet at the back. I push a length of cord into one hole and fish it out of the other with a sharp hook. The process is repeated to provide a back-up V-thread in case the first one fails. “It’s a long way down,” I think before belaying the others over to me.
****
The Ham & Eggs couloir is one of the most direct and safest lines to the summit of the Moose’s Tooth. It was first climbed in 1975 by Blah, Blah, and Jon Krakauer. It has become popular in recent years due to increased accessibility. In the past, climbers would land on the Ruth glacier and then ferry loads up 2,800 feet of ice fall to the Root Canal glacier at the base of the route. Paul Roderick pioneered landing ski equipped planes on the Root Canal itself. Climbers can now fly practically to the bottom of the climb, take the afternoon to acclimatize, and start up early the next morning. At the moment, Talkeetna Air Taxi is the only outfit transporting to the Root Canal. Dave &&& and Paul Roderick are the two pilots currently doing the flying to this ice shelf. It’s a tight little spot to land a plane, and you wouldn’t want an amateur at the controls.
More will be added to this section.
****
On our visit in late April/early May this year, we found the route to be in thin conditions. The first ice pitch didn’t appear to have much ice on it through the binoculars. The ice crux looked passable from where we were standing, but the constriction pitch above that didn’t appear to have ice in it at all. Above that, well, we’d just have to see.
Aidan turned out to be our secret weapon on the route. He tackled the first rock pitch with gusto. It was unnerving to be using my crampons on bare rock, but it seemed to be working. I led the third pitch, at the belay we discovered that my borrowed radio had an encryption feature that made it impossible to understand. So we resorted to screaming at each other until we traded it for a working one. The ice crux was next. Aidan gave it a go. Then another. Then another. Water was running down his arms and legs. He kicked off most of the ice that was left. He gave up. Then he decided to give it one more go. In a show of brilliant climbing, Aidan managed to get his ice axes up and over the lip and into the good ice above. His crampons scratched up the now bare rock to follow. We could continue.
Matt and I decided to let the rock star continue, as he seemed to be so enthusiastic about it. That, and it would take a lot of time to reconfigure the ropes to switch leads. A long snowfield took us to the ice crux. There was a good ice screw placement near the bottom, but that was all. Aidan did it in one go, with a slight rest in the middle. When it was my turn to follow, I had to lean back into the air to swing my axes into the overhanging ice above me.
“You . . . are . . .a . . .great . . .climber . . .dude!” I panted as he belayed me up.
We’d hoped that it would get easier from there. It didn’t. We followed the recommendation of one of the departing climbers at the constriction pitch. “Go left and climb the rock, man”. He’d advised. We found ourselves on terrain rivaling the steep routes found at the local rock gym. We screeched and scratched our way over it, constantly looking at our crampon points as we balanced them on little nubbins of rock. Occasionally, they’d pop off suddenly. The steel would scrape against the granite and produce a curious burnt smell. It was a smell that I was quickly associating with fear.
This pitch deposited us at the bottom of more ice. The altitude was yielding better ice the higher we went. It was more solid, took the bite of our tools nicely, and wasn’t running with water. It was however, running with spindrift. Spindrift is a collection of fine snow particles that obscure your view and get into any of the weaknesses in your Gore-Tex“ shell. As Aidan traversed out under the falls, he disappeared from view in spindrift that flowed from above as if produced by a fog machine at a dance club. He just laughed and kept climbing.
Some of the gifts from above weren’t as easily laughed off. A Japanese team of two had passed us much earlier and was sending down chunks of ice and rock as they climbed. As the debris tumbled down the face, they gathered speed. “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsssssssst,” was the noise we heard. This was new to me. I’d had lots of ice kicked down on me while ice climbing during the winter. Of course that ice was hardly ever more than 200 feet above me. Here, the heights were much greater and the speeds much faster. It reminded me of the time I’d inadvertently camped at the wrong end of an informal shooting range that someone decided to use early the next morning. Bullets flew over me as I’d tried to meld with the ground. This felt exactly like that experience. I often couldn’t see what was coming at me, but the noise made me instinctively push my nose against the wall. Our helmets took a beating a few times. Matt took a hit to the thigh and I took one to the hand, but we kept going.
On the upper pitches, the climbing angle backed off. We enjoyed fine alpine blue ice in an environment with slower moving missiles. The sun warmed our backs and we were almost to the top of the climb. Matt and I simul-led the last snow/rock pitch to the col. We could see the peaks to the north, Explorer’s Peak, Mount Dan Beard, and the enormous east buttress of Denali. After some discussion, we decided to try and go for the summit. The GPS said that it was only 2/10ths of a mile away and 300 feet up. The path was blocked by a huge blue serac of ice. I grabbed the snow pickets and ice screws, and set off to find a way around it.
****
The rappels are going slowly. We want to be safe. Rappelling is one of the most dangerous parts of a climb. The climber must trust his weight to a single point of gear. The route was described as having obvious rappel anchors in place. We assumed this to mean bolts, which are extremely solid rock anchors. We were wrong. Each anchor is a hodgepodge of rusted pitons, nuts, or some other combination all tied together with old nylon webbing. We’re spending huge amounts of time adding more gear to the mix, and replacing the old UV-weakened webbing with new cord. It’s worth the time to feel safe, but the daylight is fading fast.
Out come the headlamps. We only descended six rappels before the darkness hit. Now we hope our batteries hold out for the next ten. Our pace slows. In the dark, you can’t see the tangles in the rope until you’re on them. Each piece of the anchor system must be inspected more closely with the glow of the lamp. Our crampons create brilliant shows of light as they spark against the rock on decent. We’ve been up almost 20 hours now and the fatigue is setting in. “Ok, nice and slow. Let’s be careful.” I say for the nth time.
It’s 2:00 am and we’re still making our way down. We took a short break at the only ledge on the route, which was about midway. I’d furiously consumed my peanut butter and jelly bagel sandwich –the last of my food. Matt couldn’t manage to stomach his salami sandwich and implored help from Aidan. We were all out of water. Matt and I are tied to a rock waiting for Aidan to set up the anchor below. He’ll radio up when it is time for Matt to go. Then I’ll pull the backup gear and follow. We’ll pull the ropes and repeat the whole thing.
On the glacier below, I can see lights. Headlamps huddle over flaring gas stoves, as they are primed to make an early breakfast for the climbers wishing to head up. My tired mind has trouble processing all the flashing lights. “Dude,” I say to Matt. “The cops are here.”
****
The sun is coming up back at camp. It’s 5:00 am and we’re now fiddling with the stoves to make hot drinks. Trail mix and pretzels are crunched to assuage the calorie needs that our bodies scream. We’d taken 25 hours round trip. The water refuses to boil quickly. I’m standing in the dug out kitchen talking to Aidan when I suddenly fall over. I’d fallen asleep standing up! The hot drinks finally come and I take my hot chocolate into the tent. I fall asleep immediately and dump the brown liquid all over my down jacket. I don’t care.
After sleeping for most of the next day, we finally have the opportunity to think about the climb. It had been a stout endeavor for sure. The climbing was exciting and challenging. We were pleased to have managed it without any serious injuries. We named ourselves “Team Stamina” as we’d taken much longer than a fast two-man team would have taken. But we did it as a team. I learned to trust my climbing partners that much more. My anger had vanished. I was proud of what we’d accomplished. There is no shame in coming back alive. I’m learning to be a better alpinist.
I know this is kind of a long post. Jared, let me know if you need me to adjust it. I just got back from the Moose's Tooth and wrote this up. I'm hoping to get it in the press, but I need some feedback. I still need to add a bit of historical stuff, but the main stuff is here. Please give it a read-through and let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Moose’s Tooth
4/29/05 – 5/6/05
Climbers –
Aidan Loehr
Matt Hage
Jonathan Hughes
I’m pissed. I’m standing dejectedly in thigh-deep snow with my shoulder against the cold blue vertical face of a glacial serac. The clear blue sky above taunts me as I try to think of excuses to get my partners to continue.
“I’m only 30 feet from being able to see around the serac.” I plea into the radio hanging from my neck.
“Naw, It’s just taking too long. We need to head down.” Aidan replies.
“It would make me feel a lot better if I could see around the ice.” I spit back -I’m desperate now.
Inside I know that he and Matt are right. It’s almost 8:00 pm. It’s too late. Resting my helmet against the ice, I say nothing. The disappointment is boiling inside me, but I know I haven’t a leg to stand on in this argument. I’m too angry to talk.
“At this rate we’d be on the summit at midnight and have to get back though all of this in the dark.” Crackles the radio.
He must know what condition I’m in and is trying to talk some sense into me. I relent.
“Fine. I’ll clean this pitch on the way back.” I transmit quickly so not to betray my uncontrolled state of emotion to the rest of the team.
I follow the rope back to the last ice screw and start to pull it out of the ice. “I need to get better about turning back,” I tell myself. “This is how people die, you idiot!” This alpinism stuff is tough. I know it isn’t supposed to be all or nothing, but it hurts right now.
When I’m back to the col, Matt gives me an empathetic look. “I’m sorry man, I wanted it too. It’s just too late.” I’m still too angry to engage the topic. I force myself to focus on getting down. We identify the area that will be our first rappel anchor. I start to drill the V-thread, two angled holes in the ice that meet at the back. I push a length of cord into one hole and fish it out of the other with a sharp hook. The process is repeated to provide a back-up V-thread in case the first one fails. “It’s a long way down,” I think before belaying the others over to me.
****
The Ham & Eggs couloir is one of the most direct and safest lines to the summit of the Moose’s Tooth. It was first climbed in 1975 by Blah, Blah, and Jon Krakauer. It has become popular in recent years due to increased accessibility. In the past, climbers would land on the Ruth glacier and then ferry loads up 2,800 feet of ice fall to the Root Canal glacier at the base of the route. Paul Roderick pioneered landing ski equipped planes on the Root Canal itself. Climbers can now fly practically to the bottom of the climb, take the afternoon to acclimatize, and start up early the next morning. At the moment, Talkeetna Air Taxi is the only outfit transporting to the Root Canal. Dave &&& and Paul Roderick are the two pilots currently doing the flying to this ice shelf. It’s a tight little spot to land a plane, and you wouldn’t want an amateur at the controls.
More will be added to this section.
****
On our visit in late April/early May this year, we found the route to be in thin conditions. The first ice pitch didn’t appear to have much ice on it through the binoculars. The ice crux looked passable from where we were standing, but the constriction pitch above that didn’t appear to have ice in it at all. Above that, well, we’d just have to see.
Aidan turned out to be our secret weapon on the route. He tackled the first rock pitch with gusto. It was unnerving to be using my crampons on bare rock, but it seemed to be working. I led the third pitch, at the belay we discovered that my borrowed radio had an encryption feature that made it impossible to understand. So we resorted to screaming at each other until we traded it for a working one. The ice crux was next. Aidan gave it a go. Then another. Then another. Water was running down his arms and legs. He kicked off most of the ice that was left. He gave up. Then he decided to give it one more go. In a show of brilliant climbing, Aidan managed to get his ice axes up and over the lip and into the good ice above. His crampons scratched up the now bare rock to follow. We could continue.
Matt and I decided to let the rock star continue, as he seemed to be so enthusiastic about it. That, and it would take a lot of time to reconfigure the ropes to switch leads. A long snowfield took us to the ice crux. There was a good ice screw placement near the bottom, but that was all. Aidan did it in one go, with a slight rest in the middle. When it was my turn to follow, I had to lean back into the air to swing my axes into the overhanging ice above me.
“You . . . are . . .a . . .great . . .climber . . .dude!” I panted as he belayed me up.
We’d hoped that it would get easier from there. It didn’t. We followed the recommendation of one of the departing climbers at the constriction pitch. “Go left and climb the rock, man”. He’d advised. We found ourselves on terrain rivaling the steep routes found at the local rock gym. We screeched and scratched our way over it, constantly looking at our crampon points as we balanced them on little nubbins of rock. Occasionally, they’d pop off suddenly. The steel would scrape against the granite and produce a curious burnt smell. It was a smell that I was quickly associating with fear.
This pitch deposited us at the bottom of more ice. The altitude was yielding better ice the higher we went. It was more solid, took the bite of our tools nicely, and wasn’t running with water. It was however, running with spindrift. Spindrift is a collection of fine snow particles that obscure your view and get into any of the weaknesses in your Gore-Tex“ shell. As Aidan traversed out under the falls, he disappeared from view in spindrift that flowed from above as if produced by a fog machine at a dance club. He just laughed and kept climbing.
Some of the gifts from above weren’t as easily laughed off. A Japanese team of two had passed us much earlier and was sending down chunks of ice and rock as they climbed. As the debris tumbled down the face, they gathered speed. “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsssssssst,” was the noise we heard. This was new to me. I’d had lots of ice kicked down on me while ice climbing during the winter. Of course that ice was hardly ever more than 200 feet above me. Here, the heights were much greater and the speeds much faster. It reminded me of the time I’d inadvertently camped at the wrong end of an informal shooting range that someone decided to use early the next morning. Bullets flew over me as I’d tried to meld with the ground. This felt exactly like that experience. I often couldn’t see what was coming at me, but the noise made me instinctively push my nose against the wall. Our helmets took a beating a few times. Matt took a hit to the thigh and I took one to the hand, but we kept going.
On the upper pitches, the climbing angle backed off. We enjoyed fine alpine blue ice in an environment with slower moving missiles. The sun warmed our backs and we were almost to the top of the climb. Matt and I simul-led the last snow/rock pitch to the col. We could see the peaks to the north, Explorer’s Peak, Mount Dan Beard, and the enormous east buttress of Denali. After some discussion, we decided to try and go for the summit. The GPS said that it was only 2/10ths of a mile away and 300 feet up. The path was blocked by a huge blue serac of ice. I grabbed the snow pickets and ice screws, and set off to find a way around it.
****
The rappels are going slowly. We want to be safe. Rappelling is one of the most dangerous parts of a climb. The climber must trust his weight to a single point of gear. The route was described as having obvious rappel anchors in place. We assumed this to mean bolts, which are extremely solid rock anchors. We were wrong. Each anchor is a hodgepodge of rusted pitons, nuts, or some other combination all tied together with old nylon webbing. We’re spending huge amounts of time adding more gear to the mix, and replacing the old UV-weakened webbing with new cord. It’s worth the time to feel safe, but the daylight is fading fast.
Out come the headlamps. We only descended six rappels before the darkness hit. Now we hope our batteries hold out for the next ten. Our pace slows. In the dark, you can’t see the tangles in the rope until you’re on them. Each piece of the anchor system must be inspected more closely with the glow of the lamp. Our crampons create brilliant shows of light as they spark against the rock on decent. We’ve been up almost 20 hours now and the fatigue is setting in. “Ok, nice and slow. Let’s be careful.” I say for the nth time.
It’s 2:00 am and we’re still making our way down. We took a short break at the only ledge on the route, which was about midway. I’d furiously consumed my peanut butter and jelly bagel sandwich –the last of my food. Matt couldn’t manage to stomach his salami sandwich and implored help from Aidan. We were all out of water. Matt and I are tied to a rock waiting for Aidan to set up the anchor below. He’ll radio up when it is time for Matt to go. Then I’ll pull the backup gear and follow. We’ll pull the ropes and repeat the whole thing.
On the glacier below, I can see lights. Headlamps huddle over flaring gas stoves, as they are primed to make an early breakfast for the climbers wishing to head up. My tired mind has trouble processing all the flashing lights. “Dude,” I say to Matt. “The cops are here.”
****
The sun is coming up back at camp. It’s 5:00 am and we’re now fiddling with the stoves to make hot drinks. Trail mix and pretzels are crunched to assuage the calorie needs that our bodies scream. We’d taken 25 hours round trip. The water refuses to boil quickly. I’m standing in the dug out kitchen talking to Aidan when I suddenly fall over. I’d fallen asleep standing up! The hot drinks finally come and I take my hot chocolate into the tent. I fall asleep immediately and dump the brown liquid all over my down jacket. I don’t care.
After sleeping for most of the next day, we finally have the opportunity to think about the climb. It had been a stout endeavor for sure. The climbing was exciting and challenging. We were pleased to have managed it without any serious injuries. We named ourselves “Team Stamina” as we’d taken much longer than a fast two-man team would have taken. But we did it as a team. I learned to trust my climbing partners that much more. My anger had vanished. I was proud of what we’d accomplished. There is no shame in coming back alive. I’m learning to be a better alpinist.
posted by Jonathan at 10:57 PM
2 Comments:
Jonathan, you lead an exciting life. That's good stuff, and I look forward to the finished version.
Hi Jonathan.
Sounds like an amazing trip. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but will try to do so soon and give you more feedback.
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