[TR] Mount Waddington - Wiessner-House 7/25/2004

[Otto]

Climb: Wiessner-House

 

Date of Climb: 7/25/2004

 

Trip Report:

Knowing the dangers of glacier travel with only two people, and the fact that our third party member, Jim, could not join us for two more days, had Jake and I worried about leaving the safety of base camp. This was a flat spot on the Dais Glacier under Trundler's Point where the helicopter had just dropped us with all our gear for two weeks. So when we conferred with the other two guys who shared our ride and we discovered we had just the same itineraries, we decided to go for the Wiessner-House route without delay. With four days of clear weather forecast, Jim would understand that we just could not wait.

 

Two hours after arrival by air, we were packed with three days worth of food and gear for the Main Summit of Waddington. The feeling of dislocation was acute, having gone from the hot, brushy landscape along the shore of Bluff Lake to chilly black and white in less than half an hour. I led out with my partner, Jake Larson, just behind, headed for the upper Dais. Our two new friends from Canada, still covering up their gear cache and getting ready for the climb, were Colin the Calgarian and Nick from Vancouver, both of the BCMC. They would prove to be most excellent adventurers and helpful companions in the days to come.

 

After weaving around crevasses and gliding across snow bridges we arrived at the base of the route some four hours later. Colin and Nick were interested in looking up the initial gully, which meets the glacier at a sharp angle, so dropped their packs and walked further up to the head of the glacier to assess tomorrow's initial challenges. Jake and I began digging the trip's first "snow coffins", shelters of delightful security and coziness.

 

Awake at 2:00am and moving at 3:30, we moved up the gully debris fan with its breaking crusty snow by headlamp. This finally narrowed down to the good hard ice of the gully proper and much front-pointing. Colin led the way past the initial "great pyramid" of rock we designated as the first identified feature. Climbing together with little need for protection, we crossed many linked stretches of neve on a ramp perfect for puncturing with picks and front-points. The next waypoint we discussed was the large buttress we would cross in front of, and it soon became clear that this would be tricky traversing on snowy rocks and less secure snow. Traversing into the Triangular Snowfield was itself a bit unnerving, but looking up at the ugly ice runnel that Colin was gearing up for had me worried. Were we following a true Calgarian ice madman, who would take us off route just for a leashless thrill? We didn't know yet, but we didn't need to find out since my level-headed partner led out with the rock bypass around to the left!

 

Eventually we worked up to the Amphitheater, a steep snowy dish with two ugly gashes cut straight up into the headwall - chimneys. Separated by a huge "ear" of rock, the left-hand one looked like it went into roofs and blanked out. The right one was probed by Colin, who went up it about 30 meters and found very loose blocks and sent down a few for closer inspection. After a while, he rappelled back down, and I decided to have a look. I removed my crampons but stayed in the plastic boots and got up about 40 meters, then angled left through two bulges at about 5.9. Then I realized I was at the huge "ear" of rock between the chimneys and the route blanked out. So, I lowered down leaving a nut and its carabiner, back to the 40 meter level. The only possibility must be straight up, and I thought I saw something hanging out of the crack at the overhang above. I climbed the 10 meters up to it, but it was only an icicle and I was almost out of gear, with no good belay there. I down-climbed back to the 40-meter level where there was a stance, and had to decide what to do. The day was getting old, I didn’t think I was on route, and I wasn't sure this would even go past the overhang above. I set up an anchor of three nuts and a piton; I could have called my partner to come up, but instead I rappelled back down. My chance for the "diretissima" was over.

 

The evening was pressing in on us, and Colin had already rejected the original route chimney as too iced up. He started up the Beckey finish variation, much to my relief, glad to still have a potential way up. It was difficult rock with perilous loose blocks. My partner, climbing last, pulled off one as large as a dining-room table and had it momentarily pin his leg to the wall on the way down. He was left hanging on the rope, and had to prusik up to the rest of us. After three pitches of all this, the sun was about to set. There are no flat ledges on this mountain, it seems, so we had to settle for a small sloping one for the four of us. I chopped a seat in the ice so I could at least sit in my bivy sack with my legs hanging down the slope. Jake wasn't so lucky, and had a miserable night of a full-body slide arrested only by his harness.

 

In the morning, I got to lead and found the best rock on the route. Two full pitches led directly to the summit block, and the night's pains were forgotten. It was another cloudless, sunny day with congratulations and summit pictures all around. The descent down the Southeast Chimney was uneventful and joyful, though marred by my stupidly losing my camera and a glove out the top of my unsecured pack. The Stroll was all relief to be moving back towards base camp, with a stinger: about 80 meters of front-pointing up to the area of the Northwest Summit had me planting two ice screws for peace of mind. All this took so much time that we decided to bivy there, on the flat Terrace, while Colin and Nick had the energy to climb the extra distance to the Northwest Summit. It was good be back in snow coffins.

 

However, it meant an extra day of not much food. We found running water at Dais Col, where we lounged and drank and rested. The descent from the Col required only one belayed spot, a picket protecting a step over a crack which spanned the entire width of the slope below the Col. After that, we found our tracks from three days before and followed them back to base camp.

 

Otto in high camp on the upper Dais Glacier

 

Approaching the summit block

 

From the summit

 

Gear Notes:

Rock and ice.

 

Approach Notes:

Bell 407

[chucK]

Way to go Otto!

 

Thanks for the report.

[jefffski]

would that be colin c? and nick --new dad?

[Stemalot]

awesome trips!!!

[Otto]

I'm not sure of Colin's last name, but Nick has baby twins.

[Dru]

did you guys see kurt and crazy over in combatant col?

[Otto]

No, we didn't go down there. We had hoped to move a camp over there and do some routes on Combatant, but my partner's infected toe took precedence, and we left four days early.

[robertm]

Dru, we saw CrazyJZ and AlpineK in the Col. We climbed Skywalk and they had just returned from Kashtrya. There was another Seattle party in the Col as well taking a whack at Skywalk. We also attempted the Angel Glacier route but soft snow and creaking seracs turned us back. 2 guides from Colorado were climbing Flavelle-Lane the day we were leaving.

[Dru]

OMFG if they are letting people from Colorado, and especially GUIDES, climb in the Wadd Range now, that is a sign that we are surely living in the End Times!

[pope]

Dru, we saw CrazyJZ and AlpineK in the Col.

 

Was CrazyJZ sportin' his knee pads? I've never seen him without.

[Fairweather]

Cool TR. The stuff I only dream of! BTW...You might want to add a couple of f-stops for afternoon lighting next time.

[syudla]

They're even lettin NV dudes w/ colorado partners in. We were over on Serra 5 and summited the 26th

[Dru]

what's that 4th or 5th ascent of Serra V?

[Don_Serl]

5th or 6th ascent...

 

serra five history, prior to 2004:

culbert, woodsworth 1964, N face, from radiant.

croft, foweraker, serl 1985, NW face, part of traverse.

davis, diedrich 1989, S buttress.

heselden, richardson 1997, N face, after SE ridge asperity.

 

2004:

i hear colin haley and mark bunker completed the traverse from fury gap to the tellot, so they've obviously climbed serra 5 too.

syudla + friend (who are you? i'll PM you to get details of your trip, if you don't mind) also up the thing; by what route?

 

getting busy...

 

cheers,

[Don_Serl]

btw, that's probably the 8th ascent of the Wiessner-House, depending on whether i've missed any ascents, and whether you count the Anderson climb as complete or not:

 

1. Fritz Wiessner, Bill House; July 21, 1936

2. Fred Beckey, Helmy Beckey; Aug 6, 1942 [right of W-H on upper wall]

3. Jack Tackle, Ken Currens; July 30, 1977 [direct from Triangular Snowfield to Amphitheatre; direct on upper wall via left chimney to upper NW ridge]

4. Bruce Anderson, Joe Bajan, Mark Bebie, Steve Risse, Andy Tuthill; July 30, 1988

5. Henrey Hazbrook, Don Mank, Jon Miller, Hal Tompkins; early August, 1988 [rapped Notch Couloir]

6. Loren Glick, Kennan Harvey; May 14, 1993

see: CAJ’94, p76

7. Mark Anderson, Michael Anderson; June 22, 2000 [to NW ridge crest only]

see: http://naclassics.com/climbs/wadinton/ma_600.pdf

8. Bill Enger, Jake Larson, Colin ? from Calgary, Nick ? from Vancouver; July 25, 2004

 

maybe more to come this summer...

 

cheers,

[Dru]

In the R&I article by Kennan Harvey about the Coast Mts traverse didn't he say their ascent of the W/H was the 7th? Or maybe he meant "Of the south face" and the Bitterlich rte is counted separately?

[Dave_Schuldt]