Trip: Mt. Huntington - Nettle-Quirk
Date: 3/12/2007
Trip Report:On March 10th, Jed Brown (Fairbanks, Alaska) and I flew from Talkeetna to the Tokositna Glacier below Mt. Huntington. On March 12th we climbed to the summit of Mt. Huntington via the West Face Couloir (Nettle-Quirk), and descended via the same route, in just under 15 hours roundtrip. We believe this might have been the first ascent of Huntington during the winter season. Although many teams descend from the top of the ice ramp, we found it to only be half-way to the summit, in terms of time and effort. Conditions and weather were excellent, although the temperatures were quite cold; we both frostnipped a few digits. After a few days contemplating other objectives, we gave in to the cold nights and flew out of the range on March 16th.
A few lessons learned:
-bring two pee bottles instead of one
-bring mittens that you can actually do technical climbing in
-bring a face mask that covers your nose
-bring a sleeping bag rated to -30F instead of -10F
-bring a larger than 2-person tent to basecamp
-bring a thermarest to basecamp
-muffins are very difficult to bite at -20F
-bring basecamp down booties
-don't go to Alaska before April!
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