 |
Mt. Athabasca, North Face By: George Backos | Climbers: George Backos, John Fitzgerald, Troy Hoffman, Tom Coffey|Trip Dates: March 15-19, 1998 |
|
Photo: Joe Catellani |
® The author(s) and naclassics.com | |
|
We summited, and as near as I can ascertain from the climbers' register, we were the only party to do so this winter. Sunday, March 15: John Fitzgerald, Troy Hoffman, Tom Coffey and I arrived at the parking lot in changeable conditions. The mountain was pretty heavily shrouded, and there was a light snow falling; the forecast was for partly cloudy skies and scattered snow showers. We headed up the moraine. Instead of pushing to the regular campsite, we stopped about 10 minutes away from it on a high yet protected spot that received a good amount of both morning and evening sunlight. The skies had begun to clear and we were feeling pretty good all around. Monday morning came too fast, yet too late. We lazed around camp until close to 8 am, feeling a little troubled about the 2 inches of fresh snow on everything. It was still coming down, although the clouds were displaying isolated patches of translucence. After we were moving for about an hour, it became apparent that we were pushing the limits of sensibility with such a late start; this glacier approach seemed interminable, and that was before the first of the crevasse falls! I was breaking trail for the first hour and a half, punching a leg through here and there. We had gotten reports that the dry winter had left all of the crevasses exposed. I beg to differ. John dropped through a snow bridge, falling about 15 feet in before the belay caught him. He was uninjured, thank God, but this ate up another 30 minutes. Just below the 'schrund, we stamped out a platform and re-roped for the climb. The face was sloughing off lightly, and it seemed as if it wasn't loading at all. But the snow had begun to fall a little more steadily and I was getting concerned. Maybe I should have spoken up, but even my words would have been half- hearted; I really thought we could knock this face out in 4-5 hours. It was 1:00. The freight train waited to pass until I was bending over closing my pack. Judging by the speed and volume of it, it must have come down from above the face. As it thundered overhead, I could hear Tom cry out "I'm going!", then nothing. I crouched, preparing an air pocket for myself in case this 'slough' settled over me; little patches of light ripping past through the thin spots gave me a good feeling about my chances of getting out when this thing stopped moving. It was over in about 10 seconds. Tom and Troy were still on the platform next to me, somehow Tom had managed to stay put after he felt himself getting knocked over. John, our resident Joe Simpson, went for a one hundred foot ride and was able to swim to the surface before coming to a halt. We recovered all of our gear and head back down in what had become near whiteout conditions. Was someone trying to tell us something? After a day in Jasper and a phone conversation with some rangers and an avalanche control team, we headed back up to base camp, hopeful about the condition of the mountain for Wednesday. Next morning, we started moving before the sun did. As morning twilight hit the upper mountain, the Hourglass revealed itself still snowed in. Even if the face was clear, weren't going to chase a death wish up through the crux and the upper slopes. The North Face regular route was our new objective. 11:30am we were crossing the bergschrund. Troy moved up a 6 foot step about 30 feet to the right of John and me, while we banked on a 10 ft thick snow bridge that was visible to Troy. I had the first lead. I had no idea how rock hard that ice was going to be. Chopping stances to place screws was brutal; thank God we had opted to move on running belays. Troy and Tom were a little slower, however. The pitched the lower half of the face, until Troy snapped a pick and the painful reality hit that they need to speed up dramatically, or risk being benighted up high. John led into the rock band as shadows bled long trails across the valley floor. As I took the sharp end around a corner, Troy called out from 200 feet below "Is that the route?" I responded that I would know in a few minutes, and the resultant barrage of expletives let me know that they were a couple of hurtin' units. That steep snow/rock chute I entered took us the two remaining pitches to the summit. I left screws and a belay station built for the other guys and pulled onto the corniced ridge at 8:30pm. John was right behind me. We waited in what felt like 40-50mph winds for over 30 minutes, and the thermometer had dipped below 0°F. I told John we needed to move and find a sheltered spot to dig in and wait for them. There was only one bivy sack between us. We moved to the saddle approaching the Silberhorn and John watched for headlamps on the summit as I dug to warm up. About 2 feet down, I might as well have hit steel. The ice was a hard and blue as any we encountered on the face and stood firm against my feeble hacking. At least we were out of the wind. 15 minutes later John's hooting and hollering signaled good news. A very miserable night gave way to the most spectacular sunrise. The grandeur of the scene diluted our pain long enough for Troy and me to plan for our next N.F., Bryce (summer, please). The waning 3/4 moon was directly over it; this was a moment Ansel Adams would have loved. The descent through the AA col back to the trailhead was wonderfully uneventful, and the reward was positively decadent! I'm sure laying on the blacktop in the beating sun played a huge part in the recovery of my digits. I'm not sure if the mountain gods were applauding, warning, or just being that indifferent to us, but we paused our loading of the truck when we heard the crack and rumble. Innumerable tons of ice, snow and fragments of rock raced down the north bowl of Snowdome sending a boiling plume a thousand feet high. It seemed a fitting farewell. We spent the next two nights in Banff, eating and drinking our capillaries into submission. Funny, no one raced out to jump on the Weeping Wall. Go figure. I can't speak for the others, but I came away from Athabasca with a lot more than I arrived with. Technically it was very straightforward, but it proved quite the exercise in commitment, humility, and endurance. In warmer conditions, it would likely be a delightful climb; on March 18th, a delight it was not. We all agreed, however, that we would love to do it again. P.S. All 80 of our fingers and toes are intact. |
