Ice Cliff Glacier TR

[Smoker]

This has been posted elsewhere but,what the hell? It is longish.

ICE CLIFF GLACIER MT. STUART

6/30-7/2/00

So the season is May-June? We are just on the end of its best shape then? We were at the trail head sorting gear and getting the route details tucked away.

THE PLAN: Fri evening pull into high camp. Sat morning check weather and decide if the Ice Cliff is a go. Climb Ice Cliff Glacier, descend to the Sherpa col and descend the Sherpa Glacier back to camp. Fluids, Food and bed. Sun rest day. Mon, if we are into it, the North ridge of Sherpa Pk. Out Tuesday, the 4th.

The approach is a bit of a mystery, we know that there are 2 ways into the basin below the Sherpa and Ice Cliff Glaciers. We chose the high traverse going in, by default. I have never crossed talus fields full of house sized boulders, I hope to never again. It went on for a long time.

We left the trailhead at 4:30p.m. and arrived at high camp promptly at 10:00 p.m. All day there had been weather high on the ridge tops. It helped keep the valley temps down but the hatch was in full force. I was lucky not to have been carried off by the little buggers.

We set camp after a quick search, and went to bed.

I love climbing! The biggest problem we all face is weather. It can make or break you, sometimes swiftly (like shutting the door before even getting to base camp) or it can be cruel and tease you. It was teasing us.

My alpine start began at the sunny hour of 7:00 a.m.

I have got to describe the basin. We are in the head of a high hanging valley. Below us 25 feet in elevation and 200 feet distant is a large marsh. All along its edges are silvering pines and Larches. The live trees crowd in on the silvered snags as they fight their way up the cliff walls that close us all in together. High camp sits at 5,400ft. It is the accumulation zone for some of the Stuart Glacier, Ice cliff Glacier and Sherpa Glacier. We watched rock fall high, tumble onto the Sherpa glacier straight towards camp numerous times. Fortunately the snow line has receded just far enough to put a sizeable blockade of boulders between us and the landing zone, making us relatively secure.

 

My alpine start began at the sunny hour of 7:00 a.m. I awoke to the most contented feeling I can remember. I slept the night and felt rested. I got up and broke out the espresso! An hour later and 2 cups each, Chris and I started to get things moving. The weather was beautiful! Bright warm sunshine everywhere, the top of Stuart showing some vapor or something of a stubborn cloud, stuck on the west face. A few screws, a hand full of wires biners and slings everything went in the pack. As Chris back was sore (how convenient), I was left with being the mule. ” Well we could always trade off later” my much wiser partner offered.

We were ready. It was 10:00 a.m. and time to start moving. We marched to the southwest and climbed to the top of the Ice cliff Glacier’s moraine. As we gained the top of the moraine the Ice Cliff dropped a small serac that cascaded down across the recommended line in the guide book. The Ice Cliff Glacier sits on the east side of the North Ridge. It hangs in a largish pocket that constricts somewhat at the snout. The glacier flows over a vertical step and calves off. As it drops it runs down and fills the moraine to the point that the glacier is pushing/spilling over the top! In the center it towers above 80 feet tall and overhanging.

From the moraine we mulled over our options. The glacier looked to be turned on the far west or the far east. The problem was that the west side was dropping ice and while the east portion was in the shade it had the same crumbly appearance as the west. We decided to ascend up and east into the shade to a sheltered spot to gear up.

This was it. We were both humming like a high voltage line. We had 2000’ of climbing to do and a bad ass glacier in the way. Chris shortened the rope and handed me my end, I silently tied in. We both gazed quietly as the glacier cut loose and expelled more ice, I was in awe, Our chosen line climbed up to a point about 70 ft off the far left edge of the glacier where falling seracs had piled up to within 20 feet of the top of the Ice Cliff’s snout. The ice blocks were filled in with snow nicely, with sections of ice beginning to show. We climbed to below the 20 ft section and set a belay anchor.

I have gotta say, vertical ice is not something easily found in my state. So unless your face climbing a glacier, the picking is pretty thin. That being said, Chris and I had never looked or hooked an overhanging ice pitch. We had both done a short vertical step on the North Ridge of Baker last year, but that was then. From below we had been able to see most of the route and it appeared that this was the only step like this that we would have to face.

The ice was crap. Before any tool would stick the ice had to be cleared in large amounts, naturally most of it sluried upon me. Chris turned the lip on his third try. Not bad for a gumby on ice. I followed in even worse form. After Chris lowered the tools and I sent up the axes it was my turn. As I heaved up on one tool to place the second tool higher the first tool spit out sending me back. While I was being belayed tightly the rope stretch dropped me 8 feet. Then the pack weight flipped me upside down. No big deal, besides the 2ft ledge I started out on it would have been a fairly clean 800ft fall. Glad I’m good at and used to falling! Chris just lowered me and I started again, (after he beefed up the anchor). I sent it no problem on the second try.

As I stepped up onto the top of the ice wall I could see for the first time what had been blocked from our view below. In front of me stretched the glacier, gradually rising as it fills the pocket it lies fitfully in. The glacier stretches wall to wall, east west. It is about a half mile across this ice river and it calves off along its entire length at random and tumbles 800-1000ft below to fill the moraine. At the top of the glacier to the south the cliff walls of the North ridge on the west, and a towering rock rib separating the Sherpa from the Ice Cliff glacier on the east, come together and form the exit couliar. It climbs from the bergshrund 1000ft + at 50 degrees that seems more like 60. It tops out on the East Ridge about 1000ft below the summit.

From the base of the shrund the glacier spans down somewhat calmly for a half mile, it begins to break up and progressively get more disjointed as it approaches the ice fall. Chis and I marveled at how it reminded us of waves in a storm. At the top of the ice fall the ice was fractured mostly east west as it begins to tilt towards the valley floor. I gazed blankly down at Chris as I took in the scene. He had climbed down into the shade of the slot formed by the overhanging block we had just surmounted. I say block for lack of a better term but really the ice formed long thin ice walls that twisted and curved east to west separated by bottomless voids of blue turning to black ice. We had climbed back into the sun and it was good to feel the warmth after the long belay below. Chris had climbed into a narrow “v” formed by the separation in the ice. He had punched an axe through a ice curtain and then slotted the shaft from the back and backed up a couple of pickets with it. Solid anchor!

The seriousness of our undertaking was beginning to set in. In front of us lay a meandering path that lead west and up over countless slots some filled others wide open requiring a long step, still others crossed on narrow ice fingers that run in great curving arcs often spanning voids fifteen across. Scary!! Up at the shrund ¾ of a mile distant lay the next real challenge. On the far right it looked as if it might provide a route through and up on to the upper slopes with a couple of short mixed pitches.

By now I realized I was going to be humping the pack all day. Time was slipping away and I was not even half way up the route. There would be no dicking around trading the pack off if it could be helped. I slipped into the mentality of the second with out effort. As we both share the glory of leading, some times there are routes better climbed with no lead changes, this is one of those routes.

I am not sure what I expected to find but it is hard to describe the feelings I had as I surfed my way over the icy waves. We rested and ate some after we left the immediate danger zone. The conditions were perfect. Lower the snow and ice had been wet, soft and heavy. Here, even though in the sun the temps were cooler and the wind beginning to bite. The snow under foot was firm enough to stand upon with only my points penetrating, but a firm kick would send my boot down into a solid step. The vapor we had eyeballed before was now a growing cloud. It was growing and expanding gradually covering the entire top of Stuart and billowing down into our couliar. It was not enough to be worried about, just something to be aware of. We closed the distance on the shrund and made for it’s right side.

The last obstacle before we could plod our way up the couliar. By now we were numb to the rumbling of the glacier. It was groaning and spitting up chunks fairly regularly. So unless it shook the ice I was on (as it did a few times) I quickly had pushed that crap out of my mind. The downhill side if the shrund is built up thickly from slides up above on the upper cliff walls. The snow tumbles down, sometimes filling the moat that forms, sometimes passing the lip and forming a towering wall of snow rock and ice in front of the slot.

As I climbed into the shrund, Chris was already 30ft out hooking his tool and freeing his way up to a stance, 20ft above my position. After digging out a slot in a crack with his tool, Chris then girthed the slot by using the point of his axe to convince spectra through the narrow opening. I followed and was surprised to do a few moves of 5.7 in my pons. Chris was really in a grove. I made the belay and Chris moved out and right again. He followed the snow edge on the rock up above a boulder and set another anchor. This time he protected the traverse out and soloed up the entire 38meters or so of rope we had out. It was mostly 5.5 or so climbing with a few moves of 5.7 and 5.8 the rock is fractured and polished at the same time. Edges and pockets abound making pointing easy to attain. I followed up to the stance, the climbing was fabulous! Chris set off for the last bit of climbing back onto the ice and up the couliar. Soon he called to break down the belay and follow as the climbing was mellow back onto the snow.

We had made it! We knew that to top out now it would take focus and caution. We were on easier more comfortable terrain but we were facing 1000+ ft of it. I was out of gas. My stomach had long since quit rumbling but now my intestines had begun emitting noxious odors that made the stench of the MT. Hood crater smell fresh. Chris was in no better shape.

We ascended the right side of the couliar hugging the west wall when we could to protect us from danger from above. The pace was slow. Step step plunge,Step step plunge. There was no sign of anything having come loose and down the couliar recently. The cornices at the top were only 6-8 ft tall and looked to be done dropping for the season. We are still roped together although it would make more sense untie at this point. Being roped for this section ensures that if there is a fall both will go. Time was definitely not on my side at this point and neither of us wished to stop and remove the rope knowing that we would probably need it out for the descent. We had long since crossed out of the sun below as we approached the bergshrund. Now as the cliff walls narrowed in on us funneling the wind and clouds down upon us, we began to cool. The rope had stopped soaking up water 800 ft lower and now it was beginning to resemble braided cable instead. Chris noticed a few coils frozen together and asked if I had managed to dance a knot into the rope. I don’t remember if I even answered. Step step plunge, step step plunge……

…..ep step plunge, “hey when you get here you can fill the poly’s” Chris called down. I returned to the grind. I reached the spot Chris had indicated a week earlier, and anchored my axe. I clipped off the pack and myself. It’s weird how things are automatic with out ever having to think about it. As I rummaged in the pack I was careful to keep everything inside bringing only the bottle out to be filled. Only to have it drop clumsily out of my numb hands and bounce down the couliar out of sight. I am so lame.

A side note here: I have a very tolerant partner most folk would get a little distressed at their partner discharging valuable gear mid route. I have been known to discard items at the wrong time but Chris has always taken it in stride.

Anyway I still had one more bottle to discharge. I carefully took the lid off in the pack and removed the bottle. I drank deeply then filled the bottle and successfully placed it back in the pack. Hooray! We were close now, Chris was shaking from the cold and ready to be moving. I finally obliged him by shouldering the pig.

We had less than 300ft to go. The wind was swirling about blowing grit off the walls in our eyes. We were tired and most of all we were ready for a mental break. After hours of unrelenting exposure we were due for some safer ground. After a while I finally passed the cornice that tops off this sweet and tasty climb. I didn’t even look around, just followed the rope that acted as my path to a bare rock. I sat down next to Chris, it was about 7:30. We put on every piece of clothing we had including dry gloves and found that we had enough. We ate the food that we had not stopped to eat earlier, (could not stop to eat after a certain point). We spoke quietly as we ate, of what I do not remember. I do remember being grateful that I had kept it together all that time and that while we still had to descend a unknown route I knew that the hardest work had been finished and I began to unwind just a bit. It felt great!

We didn’t stay long, the setting sun and swirling winds forced us to move sooner than either of us were willing. The Sherpa glacier has 2 couliars, one rises towards Sherpa peak and is the standard route, the other rises up towards us and Mt Stuart on the East Ridge. There was an extra mile of traversing involved for us to do the standard so we opted to drop in the closer couliar and take our chances. It was the right call. The line descended cleanly to the shrund at the top of the Sherpa Glacier and a bridge that could be seen from camp was used to gain the glacier. A short stroll lead us to the first of 3 glissades that dropped us 100 ft from camp.

It was 10:00 p.m.---2hrs to descend-10 hrs to climb.