Robson - Emperor Face New Route

[Dru]

quote:

---

Eric Dumerac, Barry Blanchard and French UIAGM Phillipe Pellet.

They put up a new route on the Emperor Face in 3 days during a timely weather window.

Lucky Bastards - well done!

---

Bubba finally makes it up!

[Rick_Sharpless]

WOW - way to go.

 

pictures don't do the Emperor face justice, especially since it won't even fit in a standard 35mm frame unless you are way up Berg Lake or you use a wide angle lens. It is BIG like nothing I've seen in the PNW or the Rockies.

 

The latest American Alpine Journal talks about the Stump Logan climb of 1978 (p 75 or so) and mentions it remains unrepeated.

 

There was a rumour that some party from Europe had attempted the face in late August this year but I never heard how that went.

 

Robson by some other route is on my list of unfinished business - what a peak!

[Dru]

That August team was two Slovenians. Here's the beta from Raphael Slawinski:

 

Two Slovenian alpinists, Matej Mosnik and Jure Prezelj, climbed what they originally thought was a new line on the Emperor Face in August. This is the obvious big gully on the far right side of the face which leads to the base of the steep step on the Emperor Ridge. They reached the ridge, bivied, and descended back to Berg Lake. However, this line had in fact been attempted several times before by Blanchard, House and Josephson, who reached the same high point as the Slovenians. So although any activity on the Emperor Face is noteworthy, the Slovenians did not in fact climb a new route. As to whether the route in question is in fact complete depends on whether you consider a new route finished when it joins an existing line, or only when the summit is reached.

 

Below I have pasted in a portion of an email from Matej Mosnik in which he describes their effort. Pretty impressive! And to further put the depth of climbing talent in Slovenia in perspective, neither is well known back home.

 

"I and Jure climbed in 16.august. We start at 3 am from our tent. After we crossed a river we start to move up trough moraine to the snow. We climbed up inline with big couloar and reached first short rock section (4+,UIAA). After that we came to the snow field and moved up to the rock at right at the bottom of the big couloar. We got roped then. The next was a five or six pitches of snow and ice climbing. It was an intresting climbing because of a big, 3 meters deep gully in the middle of the couloar. We have to traverse it several times. It gave us some fun. And we were lucky, because there wasn't any rockfall at all. In next two pitches we have to climb a rock section (5, UIAA) to the upper couloar. We just start to climbed a rock when the snowfall began. So, in upper part of the routh we were attacked by avalanches all the time. Upper we climbed the bigger avalanches came down. After a steep ice chimney we were in the bottom of the last couloar which leads to the Emperor Ridge. But we were forced to move to the right. The avalanches in last couloar were too often and too big. In next two pitches of mix climbing we reached the Emperor Ridge. The weather were still bad, and we decided to go down. At 11pm we were in the bottom of Emperor Ridge. We climbed about 13 hours to reach the ridge and next 5 hours to the point where we take a bivouac. The next morning we moved back to our little tent."

[Marko]

Weren't Blanchard, House, and Josephson trying that route in winter!?! I think I just frost-nipped my fingers thinking about that.

 

Mark

[Rick_Sharpless]

Any route on the emperor face counts as new. Re the face, Dougherty says something to the effect that once a party tops out on the ridge they will be "so mentally fried" that all they will want to do is descend and head out. So new route or not, great climb, guys.