FFA of UAF Museum TR

[willstrickland]

Lacking anything better to do I decided to scope out the under-construction UAF museum expansion for possible lines.

 

Settling on a probable line on the SE face, I geared up w/ axes, cramps, windstopper gloves and a balaclava and left the car as the last of the construction crew left the job trailer.

 

Starting up I mixed dry tooling between insulation panels and along the edges where the next panels will eventually interconnect like jigsaw puzzle pieces, with a couple of free moves to a horizontal gap filled with ice. A mighty swing and blam...no more ice, the whole ice ribbon fell out.

 

"Hmmm, I should traverse..." So I work a little left and down, moving from the far right side of the face to the middle and more ice. I swing again, but delicately this time. The ice is about 2 1/2 inches thick, but good enough and I pull up, lock off, and mantle off the right axe to hook the next edge where the panel end. I grab the side of the column of panels and pull into a stance at what I thought was going to be an ice ribbon in a handcrack. Instead it was snow in a finger, hand, fist and OW crack. I clipped the tools to my pack (no harness) and continued. After two sketchy moves the feet were good on the edge of the panels and stemming the other foot to the right was secure.

 

At the end of the crack between the panels and the wall was another ribbon of ice dripping from the roof. It was about 6" to 8" wide and about 4" thick. Two very very delicate moves up the ice and I grabbed the rooftop and mantled over.

Descended the construction ladders from the roof through the inside and got the F-outta-dodge.

 

SE Face of UAF Museum FFA free solo Grade I, 5.6, M3, WI2+

 

Live video cam of this face at http://137.229.42.101:8080/view/view.shtml

[Bronco]

Nice job will! Mixed buildering is the future!

[catbirdseat]

Damn that looks steep. Are the green insulation panels dense enough to hold weight? What holds them on? Probably just glue.