Ruth Gorge, Alaska - the Eze routes 5/2/2009
Posted By: wfinley in Alaska
Trip: Ruth Gorge, Alaska - the Eze routes
Date: 5/2/2009
Trip Report:We were in the Ruth Gorge from May 2 - 13, 2009 and climbed Mt. Barrill, Mt. Dickey & Freezy Nuts and "attempted" (if you can even call it that - "scoped" might be a better description) the West Face of Dan Beard. I'm a tad long winded in my writing - so if you're really interested you can read my full trip write up here:
http://www.peakaweek.com/index.cfm?secti...&viewpost=2 In short... it was freakin' hot when we flew in there. It was one of those trips where you get there and everyone says
"Duudde... you should have been here last week. It was EPIC. Things like The Escalator and Wake Up got climbed. It's too hot now to do anything."We dug in and the next day went for a ski tour up 747 Pass... and after watching a cessna sized snow bomb from the upper slopes of Dickey go careering over our heads we decided to read the fine print in the front of the climbing guide about avalanche danger.
After sitting around a while the weather changed and we managed to climb the Japanese Couloir on Mt. Barrill, the West Ridge on Mt. Dickey, Freezy Nuts on Werewolf Tower - we also spent 2 days heading up the NW fork of the Ruth to scope the West face of Mt. Dan Beard but I wasn't too into the icefall on the route so we skied back to base camp.
Below are some select pix.
Barrill's Japanese Couloir:
Dickey's West Ridge:
The view from the summit is awesome!
Freezy Nuts:
Yes - that is a tiny 2 inch by 1 inch pebble chockstone. I can't believe someone (a) rapped off of this and (b) actually went through the trouble of leaving a chain link on this rap station. This is like when you read about alpinists rapping off
a frozen snickers bar on Annapurna becuase they're too hypoxic to know better... except the elevation here is 7000'.
Gear Notes:Lots of heavy food; both ski and climbing boots; Pynchon's Mason & Dixon that's been on the shelf for a year staring you down.
Approach Notes:Drive to Talkeetna, get your CMC at the NPS, eat sourdough pancakes at the Roadhouse, argue with TAT over airline miles.
