[TR] Serra Five- From Asperity/Serra Five col 7/26/2004

[syudla]

Climb: Serra Five-From Asperity/Serra Five col

 

Date of Climb: 7/26/2004

 

Trip Report:

7/24

We had all the base camp nessecities flown in with us to Sunny Knob. Beer, nachos, salsa, Bailey’s, you know just the stuff you really need. The plan was to do a modified Waddington traverse, starting with Serra Five and traversing Asperity, Tiedeman, Combatant, NW and Main pk. of Waddington. Then for shits and giggles maybe Bravo on the way down. Ambitious plan. Weather forecast was good. We packed and planned for a 3AM getaway the next morning.

7/25

I cut Tom’s sleep short by waking him at about 2AM and making him look up at the awesome display of Northern Lights being played out overhead. The best I’ve seen in many years. So it wasn’t much more sleep after that. Stumbling down the slopes of Sunny Knob and out across the morainal debris of the Tiedeman by headlamp we headed for the base of the Serra glacier and climbed up to it through a veritable bowling alley of shattered rock. Then across the lower apron of the Serra I led up into a complex crevasse field that we hoped would lead to ‘Carl’s couloir’. We climbed up the ice slope and through the crevasses often on front points until finally we were on easier ground and off battery power. The double bergshrund ahead looked pretty intimidating and we had no idea if we could find a way through. I hit the shrund first and probed to the left hand moat. Much to my relief there was a small slot we could climb but too narrow for packs. We would have to haul. Tom came up and insisted on checking the right side. It just looked ridiculous to me. He climbed about 100 ft. of rock and lo and behold! The moat on that side looked climbable...with packs! Good on ya Tom! Up we went through the moat and came out into the upper ‘shrund. Tom started for the moat again but I spied an avalanche cone that appeared to run through to the upper lip, right into another avy funnel that all the rock and snow came sliding down. Well I climbed through as fast as possible and Tom followed on immediately after. We were through the ‘shrund’s! Then it was just several thousand feet straight up to ‘Carl’s camp’. My right ankle started screaming at me about halfway up. I damaged it permanently years ago in an ice climbing accident. 7 advil later it seemed to doing OK again. 11:30AM and we were at Carl’s. Off the snow and on the rocks for a moment we took a lunch break. Then came an under estimated, totally bullshit traverse into the back of the Serra cirque. From the pictures I had it had looked to be a stroll. I have not ever been on a more tedious and mentally draining stretch of ground. Not more than 1/4 mile, it took hours to cross terrain that varied constantly from soft avy prone snow, to a few inches over ice that would constantly skate away dropping your foot until your crampons caught, to hard ice and dozens of avalanche runnels. We were waxed by the time we crossed the final dicey as shit bridge to the easier ground of the upper Serra glacier. Eventually after sitting and waiting for the final couloir leading to the Asperity/Serra Five col to be shaded we stood beneath the final bergshrund, comparing how many bridges we had each punched through on the glacier. The rock fall coming down the funnel in this couloir had abated somewhat with the lack of direct sun. I couldn’t wait any longer. I crossed the open ‘shrund on the avy debris and started climbing directly up the final face of the upper lip. Sun rotted ice made it difficult to find good tool placement but I made it up and climbed out of the funnel as fast as my legs would take me. Then I stood watch for rocks coming down as it was Tom’s turn. He made it to the upper lip before I shouted a warning

“ROCK!!”

Stupid me was still looking up slope while yelling and Tom didn’t hear me until the last instant ducking his shoulder as the basketball sized rock flew over it. 1500 ft above our high bivy on the col awaited. The rocks weren't through yet though. Near the top we danced in place dodging more rocks that came flying at us with our names engraved on them. We arrived to a bone chilling wind that made diving into a small bivy tent a distinct pleasure.

 

7/26

Slept in today. Lots of big wind last night, but the little ID tent took it well. Finally Tom got up to look around and came back after about an hour.

“Well hows’ it look?” I ask.

“Not too bad, maybe we should try Serra V”

OOOH let’s go” is my enthusiastic reply. “And tomorrow we can go up over Asperity.”

No response.

So I get dressed and we head out for Serra V and climb a little snow and mixed ground to the base of the summit tower. Then followed 3 of the best mixed pitches I have ever enjoyed. It was a surreal pleasure to be climbing in this place on this peak. On the summit Tom gives me a look and say’s,

“You know, I’m looking at the ground ahead [on the traverse]and there is just a shit load of work.”

“Yeah” I say starting to feel the other shoe about to...

“And I just don’t feel up to it. I’m going to get myself or you killed”

THUMP. The shoe dropped. I guess it wasn’t totally unexpected. He had been mentioning how beat he was and out of shape. I didn’t say anything immediately. But it is not my style to push someone when they feel unsafe, sick, or old and broken. I have turned back in the past when someone has been unable to go on.

“Umm, If you really feel that way then I guess we go down tomorrow..?”

“Yeah, I just don’t think I can do it.”

Unexpectedly we found a summit register in the rocks. We opened the can and read the register entry’s. Three ahead of us but we realized that at least one party had not signed. Hesleden and Richardson. Then we discovered why. No pencil. No freaking pencil!!!! We scoured our clothing for something to write with, nothing, nada! We toyed with chocolate, lichen, and debated writing in blood as appeared Davis and Diedrich had in ‘89. Nothing worked and we just weren’t as hard as Davis and Diedrich, time to go down. Three raps into the wind faced us. On rap 2 Tom lost a BD rage as it levered itself out of his holster and bounced into the abyss. Rope snarls slowed us considerably but eventually we were back at the base of the tower and from there we down climbed back to the bivy tent. Wind was less and though we were going down we were both in good spirits, but I did feel disappointment.

 

7/27

Sort of a leisurely start, we were out of camp about 8. We rapped down the couloir using bollards, threads and rock anchors. I was dreading going back across the traverse to Carl's. Sure enough it sucked just as bad and we took a lower line that was no better. We had some rock to work with but the runnels were much deeper so it was about a wash. Tom was sitting on some rock about to start out into the shit again when a wet slushy avy poured down the runnel a couple feet away.

“Well it missed, right?” he says.

We made it Carl’s camp and decided to bivy for the night. The couloir below was in no good shape to descend. A more spectacular bivy spot one could not ask for. Perched on a narrow crest that diverted slides off to either direction, the walls Asperity framed the view across the gulf of the Tideman to Mt. Munday. To the other side side lay the walls of the Serra's and Stilletto. Unfortunately the fires that had been burning delivered so much smoke that the view was somewhat stunted. We had most of the afternoon to kick back and relax. Tom kept us entertained with lots of scottish humor.

 

7/28

Sling a rock, rap. Dig a bollard, rap. Drill a thread, rap. I made all the anchors while Tom struggled with pulling the lines down off the bollards. The process went on a long time until we reached the crevasses of the Serra glacier.

“How did we get up through this shit in the dark” I said as I led off into the maze. We slowly worked our way to just above the apron where we we drilled a final thread and rapped down to the flats. Then it was haste back through the bowling alley and an easy walk back up to Sunny Knob. The base camp nessecities we had brought proved ample on our return. The trip was mightily abbreviated but we had managed to pull off what appears to be the fifth ascent of a very elusive summit.

 

 

Gear Notes:

Ice gear, no cams were used or carried. Set of hexes, nuts.

 

Approach Notes:

whirly

[Dru]

[Don_Serl]

this info was posted with weissner-house, so will be duplicated here to keep the thread together...

 

this is the 5th or 6th ascent of serra 5:

 

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 also up the thing; possible variation of NW corner. not sure whether before or after colin and mark...

 

cheers,

[Dechristo]

You know, you're right Syudla. I did say because of my condition I was concerned that I would only kill you or me or the both of us. BUT, in retrospect, I don't know how that would have happened (short of me sticking you with an axe) because we were soloing everything. After what you and I soloed all the way up to the col, I felt like we could have soloed the north face of Serra V. Shit, we just about did. On the first two leads, you'll remember, I placed only one piece of pro per lead. I think you only placed two, maybe three, on the last lead to the summit. We were so empowered by the Absolute Beauty of the entirety of what we'd climbed through, what we were climbing, and by the crystalline focus on what we were doing at the moment that I often recognized a quick thought of the rope and pro being extra baggage. Do you remember our bravado in saying, "we only carry ropes for rappelling"?

 

Funny how quickly those sentiments would have dissipated had I taken a good whipper!

 

Do you think we should inform future visitors of Carl's Camp of the location of the toxic waste dump you made?

 

Syudla is an excellent, savy, and considerate climbing partner. Any would count themselves fortunate to have his company.

 

Thanks for your graciousness in allowing me to bow out when I deemed it necessary.

[Colin]

You guys climbed it first. We not only used your tent platform at the Asperity-Serra Col, but we took your nice new spectra rap slings on the way up, and promptly left then on the east face. We also found ourselves without a pencil, so Mark selflessly wrote our initials with his blood, ala Diedrich and Davis.

 

I'll write a full report of the traverse when I'm not so tired.

[syudla]

Do you think we should inform future visitors of Carl's Camp of the location of the toxic waste dump you made?

 

Let's let the spirit of exploration live on!

[Dechristo]

My fucking elbow is still sore from the knock it took during the tumble I took during one of the rappells off.

[Dechristo]

Some photos from the climb

[Dechristo]

again

[Dechristo]

as you can tell...

[Dechristo]

I don't know...

[Dechristo]

how to attach...

[Dechristo]

all the photos...

[Dechristo]

in one...

[Dru]

load em into the galley and use image tags!

[fatswaller]

hi

interesting thread.Carl and I visited serra five-asperity col in august 1990.Like you,we had high hopes and aspirations.So we flew into what is now sunny camp hoping to do the south face of stilleto.But un settled weather and

in sufficiant gear cancelled that.So we decided to climb

Asperity and serra 5 from the A-S col.Unsettled weather

caused us to stop and build what must now be called Carl's

camp.Next day was a little better so we continued to the top of Asperity.A supposed new route except it was previously decended.I remember it was very cold on the summit with smoke from fire in the area.That night we camped at the col with hopes of climbing serra 5 the next day.But that night we were hit by a big storm that bent the pole of the tent in half.So we tucked everything underneath us and waited out the howling gales.Next morning the weather was bad so we limped back to sunny camp with our tails between our legs.The route sounds like it is much more broken then when we climbed it.The Waddington area is always an adventure,Hopefully the weather will be more cooperative on my next visit.

Edited September 12, 2004 by fatswaller

[syudla]

Very cool to hear from you fats. Your camp is in an amazing position. I ended up scraping out another small ledge just below your platform as the weather was good and no need to spoon

[Dechristo]

Fats, ditto Syudla's comment about the position of Carl's Camp... it felt as if the bivy was suspended high in the middle of that amazing cirque out of reach of avalanche and rockfall. And though I did fight off Syudla's numerous amourous advances, still, his choice of building another platform was not due to his disappointed romance-aimed ego nor his fears of receiving another pummelling for his ill-placed affections. His choice of building another platform around the boulder from your twin-sized construction was due to the pestilent pile of poop he left under one of the platform's pavers while on our way up to the Col. As I prepared for the night on that now malignant bed, I begged he tell me the location of his bowel bomb, but, to no avail. Location by nose-tation was pointless... the whole site was enveloped in a toxic cloud that reeked of three-day-dead animals and partially-digested cheap cheese. I found the hidden offending pile later as I lay in my bag. A paver that initially offered resistance to my hip slowly oozed lower to comform to my comfort. Also, Syudla's radioactive deposit had not come close to reaching its half-life providing a subtle heat to the platform. I put my earplugs in my nostrils, breathed through a balaclava, and settled in for good night's sleep... and prayed my sleeping pad would peel free from the platform in the morning.

[Dechristo]

Thought I'd include a short parody of the climb written in haste to quell calls from a couple friends for a TR. The lack of seriousness of the piece just pissed 'em off.

 

Day One: Drive together in Climblight's beautiful new truck from

Bellingham, WA to Bluff Lake. I soil the upholstery of the truck's

seats due to gastronomic distress caused by fear of the impending

climb. Clean up mess with Climblight's balaclava and stuff it back in his pack before he notices. Use jet fuel from White Saddle Air to cut resultant grime from my hands.

 

Day Two: Fly in to Waddingtons by helicopter. Different seats, same

mess, same cause, same remedy. Drink beer at basecamp... lots o'

beer... 'till we're singing Tony Orlando and Dawn songs.

 

Fall asleep, CL with his balaclava on. I awake to screams. CL is waving his arms and garbling in tongues during an obvious nightmare. I catch a few intelligible phrases amidst the blathered syllables to discern his hellish stupored scenario of drowning in a cesspool. Convicted in my heart of the invisible stains on the dark balaclava, I wake him from his torment with a well-aimed rock.

 

THUNK!

 

CL: "WTF!!!"

 

DeC: "it was just rockfall, man... go back to sleep."

 

CL takes a few moments to enjoy the "pretty colors" he's seeing due

to the concussive blow to his head; he thinks they're Aurora

Borealis.

 

CL: "DeC! Look at the freakin' awesome Northern Lights!"

 

DeC: "Yeah, uh, great."

 

Day Three: Start away from BC at 3:00AM. CL complains of a rat

shitting in his mouth while he slept to explain the foul vapors

emitted through the balaclava. I tell him it's just beer breath...

admittedly, wholly noxious beer breath.

 

CL kicks my ass climbing. We establish advanced camp on the

Asperity/Serra V Col.

 

Day Four: CL kicks my ass climbing. Summit Serra V. Find summit

registry. No pencil. I suggest to CL he use the pencil in his

pants.

 

CL: "Fuck Off!"

 

Dec: "Hey man, easy on the umbrage. It's just that your wife told

me, before we left, that you had a pencil in your pants."

 

CL inexplicably attacks me with his axes. We fence for hours, up

and down, back and across the bouldered summit of the lonely spire

through hail and sleet and howling winds (aforementioned gastro

distress), the clash of axes sending sparks as though the summit

were a cheap, though gigantic, firework. We finally tire, forget

what we were fighting about, and begin the rappell and downclimbing

300m descent to ABC.

 

That evening, CL has an epiphany on the source

of his balaclava's stench.

 

We finish eating dinner, the usual

alpinist fare of tasteless gack, and bed down for the night. CL

returns my ritual extension of "goodnight" with his own, but through

sneered lips and narrowed eyes. I awake, motionless, to the sound

of rustling nylon fabric. From the corner of my eye, I see CL

exiting his sleeping bag and discern malevolence in his person.

Within the confines of the tent, CL rises to a squatting position

and begins to turn with the aim to position his ass over my head.

Fully aware of his intentions, I take a gamble. As he turns, while

grasping the still raised waist of his polypro pants, I bellow a

gargoyle roar. The combination of CL's surprise and loss of

sphincter control due to aging deposits CL's large lamentable load

fully in his knickers. We exit the tent, take up axes, and once

again resume the life and death battle I thought we had left up on the

summit. We parried till the morn’s first light.

 

Day Five: Five 60m rappels and crevasse elusion to a mind and body

numbing quarter mile traverse across an ice slope that varied 45 to

50 degrees. Unroped, CL and I swung axes and kicked crampon teeth

into the unconsolidated, wet, crumbling ice, seemingly interminably;

CL kicked my ass at this, too. Halfway across the slope, after

seeing a flash of CL's arm from the corner of my eye, a heavy

avalanche flew past me to fall 400m over the precipice to the hungry

maws of the gaping crevasses below. The flush missed me by four

feet. I turned to look at CL as his face turned away; was that

disappointment I saw written upon his now obscured gaze? And why

was he wiping dirt and rock chips from his throwing hand?

 

CL arrived at an impossibly suspended aerie named Carl's Camp thirty minutes before me. As I arrived, CL greeted me with a proposal.

 

CL: "Thought we'd bivy here and let the snow firm up overnight. It'd

make the rest of the descent easier. Besides, have you ever seen a

better view from a bivy in all your life?"

 

I couldn't argue that. Our position left one feeling suspended in

mid-air, as if the subject of a Maxfield Parrish painting, in the

middle of a great alpine rock cirque. The exhilarating power of serac-fall and rock-fall thundered around us; this secure location would allow concern-free enjoyment - but suspicions of ulterior motives by CL

haunted me. Would he try to pitch me over the edge as I slept

cocooned in my bag? Would he attempt to drive a snow stake through

my heart? There were any number of villainous deeds he might try

whilst I slumbered. He was right, though; in the warm late

afternoon, wet snow avalanches and rock-fall would have constantly born

down on us if we attempted to descend the next leg of our journey:

the 800m Carl’s Couloir. I assented to the choice to bivouac.

 

The sun went down, we bedded down, but I tried to keep my eyelids up... to no avail. I was plain knackered from the arduous traverse and a strange warmth emanated from a rock below my supine neck that seemed to massage my spent muscles. My nose twitched at the unwelcome

scent of what I thought was the balaclava. But, that couldn't be the origin of this new and potent offensive olfactory assault: I had watched earlier in the day as CL had dropped his gastro-greased garment into a huge crevasse.

 

Horror! I now realized CL must have

shit a large, partially decomposed animal under my rock-paved bivy-platform minutes before I arrived. I was laying square atop MT. CLPoopPile. I accepted my fate and succumbed to the clutches of sleep

while in his sleeping bag CL quietly snickered.

 

Day Six: I awake to a beautiful dawn. My acceptance of CL's

retribution is complete. CL shrugs off his slumber, rolls in his

bag, and meets my gaze with his smug facial declaration of triumph.

 

His only comment, "An eye for an eye and a poop for a poop."

 

I smile and nod in agreement and relief. The battle is over. We

break camp and make twelve 60m rappells, from snow bollards, v-threads, and rock

horns, to the valley glacier and the waiting helicopter below.

[Alpinfox]

 

 

[Alex]

lol

[AllYouCanEat]

That was classic.