Of Ice and Men -- We Bailed 200 m from the Summit of Mount Joffre скачать в хорошем качестве

Of Ice and Men -- We Bailed 200 m from the Summit of Mount Joffre

This one has been on my list for about a year but I was not expecting such an adventure!! This was our three day adventure trying to summit Mt Joffre in Kananaskis County. Our adventure began at Upper Kananaskis Lake. Day one was the approach hike into Astor Lake Backcountry Campground. This hike was spectacular and is worth doing in its own right!! All six tent pads were booked but we did not see anybody for 3 days up there. Trip Report: It had snowed overnight (2cm at camp, 2200m and much more blowing around on the glacier) and we made our way to the headwall that guards access to the Mangin glacier (the one before the high bivy by the tarn). We had to do some careful routfinding to make it up the headwall as the slab was covered in verglas and what moraine was there had frost in it but the larger rock were loose. It took considerable time to make it up to this section. We considered turning around here as we did not know if conditions in this section would improve or become worse (they improved and we had found a somewhat questionable rock we could have slung to rap off of if things got really bad). We knew we had to get back to this section before nightfall because route finding here in the dark would have been impossible. Once we made it to the glacier, we roped up and made our way towards the north face of Joffre. It was probably unnecessary to be roped for a large section of the flat part of the glacier as there was only about 3 to 5 cm of snow on the glacier but it was good practice for rope management and I knew we would have to rope up later anyway. The glacier itself was in relatively good shape. The ice was soft enough for good bite with our crampons. Visibility was poor before we got on the glacier (and decreased as the climb went on) and we were unable to see the upper glacier from a far to evaluate the conditions. I knew that from the hot summer we would have to go far climbers right to cross the bergschrund. We made our way up to the bergschrund and were able to see that indeed... It was a gaping mess... I was able to find an ice bridge above a very steep part of the glacier (basically at the far right side of the north face). I built an anchor and Nate belayed me as I made my way across the schrund. The snow was hip deep and it was not completely bridged but we made it across with some exploration. Being so far right, the glacier was very steep here... 50 degrees at least. I led a few pitches up the face. Visibility was at the point where I could not see Nate at the top of my pitches. We could see a faint cliff band above but decided to call it here as we knew we would have difficulty retreating down the steep face and would have to deal with that headwall on the way down to the flats below. We later found we were about 250m below the summit, with what looked like at least 2 pitches left to "easier" ground. So it was time to make some V threads. I will admit It took me two attempts to get the first thread in... and my Gravel hooker was hopeless at threading the rope through (very frustrating with frozen feet and hands!). On the first rap I put my Escaper in and did a 60m rap. I had to dig down about 6 inches to get bomber ice to build each station. Nate made it down and we began pulling on the escaper to release... about 50 to 75 pulls later and it did not release... I put a progress capture on the questionably secure rope and reclimbed the 60m pitch to find that the Escaper was close to releasing but was kinda stuck in some snow and ice. I again built an anchor and did 2 raps to get back to Nate. We rapped over the shrund and did a few more raps to get back to walkable terrain. I never missed on another thread after the first one. I built the V threads as I gave Nate a fireman's belay. We were so far right to cross the shrund that the slope and ice conditions made it impossible to walk down until we got back to a more mellow, snow covered section of the glacier. Visibility did improve (occasionally)! The visibility improved and we could see that indeed we were close but made the right call with only 3 hours of daylight and we still had to make it down that icy headwall. Thankfully, regardless of the bitter cold, snow and wind up on the glacier, it was warmer down below and the frost had lifted out of the moraine and the snow had melted allowing us to see what was slab and what was scree we could make our way down. Some good route finding by Nate let us get down this worrisome section and make it back to camp just before dark. Good communication throughout and identifying issues with the retreat on the way up made for us to be very happy with how the climb went and we had no issue with not reaching the summit. The truth is I never thought we would summit because of the conditions so it made bailing an easy choice when we looked at the amount of daylight left and the challenges below us. This is just another great excuse to go back!