Beta for Sultana Ridge on Mt. Foraker?

[AlpinWeiss]

I'm planning a trip out to Foraker to climb the Sultana ridge this summer and was wondering if anyone on CC.com has climbed it before.

 

I'd love to hear some beta and ask some logistical questions, etc...

[DPS]

I think W and joepuryear have done it. Maybe send one of them an email. Alex climbed the lower section to Mt Crossen. He might be helpful as well.

[jano]

Try Westman, Joe's in Nepal and about to head out.

 

[ScaredSilly]

Post up what you up want to ask. We had the ridge wired in our minds for coming down if we managed to get up and over. Unfortunately the weather kept us off the other side of the hill.

[AlpinWeiss]

Appreciate the offer (sounds like you were planning on Infinite Spur?). Here are a few of the things on my mind - half of which don't apply / you'd think of differently if you were descending the route, but I figured I'd throw it up anyway:

 

1. How long did you plan on fro the route? (did you just go with the AK standard 3 weeks?)

 

2. What was your plan of attack for the ridge? Alpine style straight from the Kalhitna? A double carry to the summit of Crosson? The route seems to be fairly committing given that retreat involves climbing all the way back the ridge, up Crosson, and back down the steepest parts of the route - how did y'all amange this risk?

 

3. What time of year did you go (we're planning mid-June)? How were the crevasses along the ridge? How were the 'crux' pitches up to Crosson (icy or just snow)?

 

4.Any other thoughts / comments?

 

Thanks a lot!

[genepires]

I assume you checked out the supertopo alaska climbing book with fairly detailed advice.

 

as per book:

double carry up crosson w 2 weeks supplies if acclimitizing on route. if already acclimitized, then you need 5 days.

 

manage risk: 60 to 100 wands! for along the ridge due to tricky route finding through crevasses. there is a photo of the ridge and damn if there isn't a ton of cracks.

 

check it out if you hadn't already. tons of things to do there in the kahiltna if you get shut down from foraker.

 

It looks like a small single wall tent is a good idea due to narrow ridge camping is expected. Also, it looks advisable to go as a larger rather than a smaller team. (shared trail breaking, load carrying, crevasse rescuing, ect) If you are a team of two or three, maybe look at mating up with another team while you got time to plan on it.

 

I haven't been on the route but have spent a fair bit of time in the range on other routes. Just my 2 cents. Ask Westman for a experienced answer to your questions. Maybe try some alaskan equivelant to cascadeclimbers?

[wfinley]

RE: Crossan

I've climbed Crossan. The "crux" pitches were the first 500' or so of ~50 degree mellow snow leading up to the ridge. We climbed it in early May and climbed to our high camp in the morning before the route was in full sun. Once you actually reach the ridge of Crossan it's pretty straight forward all the way to the summit. We camped at 9500' and easily climbed to the top and back to camp in a day. The next day we slept in and then descended to the Kahiltna in early afternoon which is a bad idea -- the bottom slopes were wet and heavy and lots of point releases and rocks were coming down.

 

RE: Dates

Mid-June is too late for anything in the AK Range other than the West Butt and rock routes. I'd suggest early-mid May.

 

RE: Time

The people I know who have had good luck on Foraker all acclimatized by first slogging up to 14 camp on Denali.

[AlpinWeiss]

Thanks a lot for the info guys. It sounds like mid-June is getting a bit late for Foraker. I'm going to see if we can swing earlier in the season, but unfortunately commitments in the real world may get in the way... We'll see.

 

Once again thanks a lot. I'll be sure to post a trip report if I do get out there.

[Mark_Husbands]

I climbed Sultana with a couple buddies in 1999.

 

1. How long did you plan on for the route? (did you just go with the AK standard 3 weeks?)

 

I think we were on the glacier 23 days and budgeted a month for the trip. I had that kind of time then. We did sit several days at the airstrip waiting to fly in.

 

2. What was your plan of attack for the ridge? Alpine style straight from the Kalhitna? A double carry to the summit of Crosson? The route seems to be fairly committing given that retreat involves climbing all the way back the ridge, up Crosson, and back down the steepest parts of the route - how did y'all amange this risk?

 

Our plan was to double carry to summit of Crosson then go from there. As it turned out we double carried and cached on Crosson, retreated to Kahiltna basecamp for 2-3 days to sit out a storm and let some minor lung sounds dissipate, then completed the climb without additional carries. We tried to summit three days in a row and retreated twice due to severe wind - made it the third try in light wind.

 

3. What time of year did you go (we're planning mid-June)? How were the crevasses along the ridge? How were the 'crux' pitches up to Crosson (icy or just snow)?

 

April. Crevasses were real big (for a ridge) and real easy to hike around - often filled in. Steepest section on Crosson (which is not very steep) below the "thumb" camp were all snow. Good snow going up Crosson, total nasty sticky balling mush going down Crosson. Some parts of the Sultana ridge near Foraker and the Northeast Ridge of Foraker itself were perfect styrofoam. Other places on Sultana were postholing in wind deposited powder, yet other spots wind stripped.

 

I have heard of people gettng shut down from exposed rock on Crosson. Some pictures of the route seem to start well to the left of where we started, and that looks rockier. We pretty much started out to the right of the toe of the ridge and maybe 1/3 of the way up gained the crest of it.

 

4.Any other thoughts / comments?

 

There is a pretty tall peak behind Crosson you have to just about go over. We tried to get cute and traverse across to avoid the extra climbing. Mistake. Basically go right over the top of it almost.