Trip Report

by Maxime Turgeon

Everything is calm. I can’t tell were I am, all the sensations of my body are gone except for a warm feeling all over. No more pain, no more sore muscles. Slowly I can fell a pressure building up in my bladder and suddenly I feel my nub limbs come back to life.

My body is floating between those two phases for what seems to be an eternity, until the pressure is too big and my arm start searching for the zipper pull. It’s nowhere to be found, but nothing seems to restrict any of my movements, and as I move, the cotton fabric on my skin creates a nice tickling sensation all over my body. It feels like I am riding a cloud. I take a big breath and an incredible flowery aroma envelopes my lungs. My eyes pop open. I’m at home. Clothes, soft shell and puffy jacket cover my floor. Journal, memory cards and books cover my desk. Intense sunrays are coming through my window. Outside it is warm. It’s summer!

I left home exactly a month ago. Barely 10 days before that, I was in a depressive late winter mood when I received an e-mail from Freddie Wilkinson. He and Ben Gilmore were going on a trip to the remote Yentna glacier in the Alaska range and they wanted me to join them for an attempt at probably the highest unclimbed peak of the Alaska range. I met Freddie years ago after my climb with LP on the South face of Denali and since then we have been trying to get together to climb. Ben, on his side, is one of those Bad Asses that inspired me to climb in Alaska in the first place. It didn’t take much to convince me to go. They were going from April 19th to May 8th. My girlfriend Zoe Hart was going to be in Alaska for her last Ski Guide’s exam and was going to be free from May 8th as well and we already had made plans to climb together. I couldn’t ask for better timing.
 
On the 21st Paul Rodrick from TAT landed Freddie, Ben, and me right at the Wilderness Boundary of the Denali National Park, at the base of the Yentna, under a perfect blue sky. The high pressure lasted for the next 3 days allowing us to set up camp and cache gear 2500 ft higher toward the base of the South face of the Bat’s ears, our objective. As soon as we got back to camp, from our little excursion, the weather crapped out and the system lasted for about 5 days, until the pressure took a little shy ascendent curve. The next morning at 2am it was a go. We headed up for what ended up being one of those perfect Alpine climbing days. We climbed a stellar looking linear weakness system that sears  the face directly under the summit. The climbing went as smooth as it gets on super classic climbing at about AI4+ M5+. 12 hours after crossing the shrund we reached the summit and as we walked and downclimbed the steep west ridge the weather was crapping out again.What a perfect sucker hole! 23 hours after leaving camp, we were back from a day of  almost 6000 ft of elevation gain.
 
The upper valley was totally socked in for the next 5 days, so we convinced ourselves that the chances of doing and other route on the Yentna would be a big gamble, that we would have a better chance if we were at Kahiltna to get a good day of climbing in Freddie and Ben’s last 4 days. On May 3rd at 9pm, in the most unprobible weather, Paul buzzed over the ridges. Our books and I-pods all went flying in all directions at the same time and barely half an hour later a big mess of all our stuff was piled full of snow dust left by Paul’s Beaver on the side of the Kahiltna air strip.
 
The three of us were still half a sleep but our jaws all fell to the ground simultaneously when we turned toward the North Buttress of Hunter. It was covered with the most ice any of us had ever seen on it. That’s how the next chapter of my trip began which I would call ‘’The perfect alpine week’’

Monday May 5th at 12:25 A.M. the alarm goes off as the stoves goes on. The blend of coffee, fried bagels, eggs, cheese and bacon aromas finish to wake up all of our senses. It’s 4am when we regroup at the base of the Moonflower Buttress. We pushed it a bit breaking track and we are all sweaty. Ben pulls his socks off and a chunk of skin is hanging from his hell. Fuck!!!! A half dollar size blister is a hard way to start a 4000 ft route. The first block is mine. Three rock bands, three climbers, easy to split. I follow Ben and Freddie's directions as they have already been on this section of the route before. Stellar ice runnels, a steep snow traverse, we are soon at the Prow. It’s like running through a history book. Freddie and Ben scream encouragement from bellow as my tools sink and lock in the thin seam of the Prow. Before I realize it I’m clipping the anchor of the pendulum. I know that Marko Prejzl had done it free and I’m already to far committed in it when I tell my self That sucks! I keep matching front points on knobs and just before I am really going to do in my pants the iced side of the gully is with-in tool’s reach.

The pace was set, we were making good progress but the weather was deteriorating fast. By Tamara’s traverse the spindrift increased on the heavy side. When I passed the rack to Freddie I could see in his eyes that he knew what was waiting for him in the Shaft. With our cameras sunk deep in our jackets we tightened our hoods over our helmets. Freddie disappeared under a white curtain of snow but the rope keep feeding. Every time it came to the end we joined him as fast as we could keeping our heads down. Buy 5pm we had made it to the top of the Shaft, and on to the second ice band, but there was no way we could make it through an open bivy in those conditions. Ben didn’t seem too worry about it too much. He took the rack and pulled us 2 more rope lengths to the left to a snow mushroom that had formed on a rocky ridge. An hour later we were all hanging in a six inch thick snow shell, about two and a half feet wide by twelve feet long and three feet high. Besides the fact that Ben was super pissed that he broke part of one of the walls while digging, he created the best shelter you could have imagined.

That night Freddie had his first experience of the two man snuggle sac and almost didn’t want to leave it at 6:30 in the morning when the light started to come from the window. The bastard snored! At least he is a small guy. We crawled out to a bluebird day. The perserverence of the previous day had payed off. We knew that were were going to the summit that day. Ben cruised through the Vision section climbing it all free, I took over for the ‘’Bibbler come again exit’’, and finally reached at the top of the buttress at 5pm. I could barely lift my arms but Freddie was firing. Climbing as a party of three definitely has some advantages. We left every thing except our puffball jackets, one rope, and two screws and he pulled us all the way up the 1700 ft of elevation gain to the summit in two hours. Except for a few, all the other peaks of the range were standing below us. We could see all the routes every one of us had climbed in the range.
 
The sixth block of the route had come. The descent. Ben was totally up for the task and lead the 26 raps down the face putting in more then 20 V-threads and Wednesday in the  height of the morning we were back in B.C.

When I woke-up it was already Thursday. Trading day! Ben and Freddie were due to fly home and Zoe was waiting by the side of the runway in Talkeetna to get on to the glacier. ‘’Not that I don't like you guys, but what a good trade,’’ I told them as a joke while we were waiting. We all laughed pretty hard. When Zoe stepped out of the plane here eyes were shining as brightly as the pin on her chest. She finished her last Ski Exam two days before and was now the 4th American woman to get the full UIAGM mountain guide certification. On my side I had just did one of the best routes I had ever climbed, we had a lot to celebrate. And that was with the pizza and beer she just brought.

The next morning we came up with a good celebration climb plan. Zoe had been on Deprivation two years before and was super psyched to give it another try. On my side, I was super exited to go back on the North Buttress for a second round.

Same time, same place. Sunday morning I was racking up at the schrund at four, but this time with a nice warming kiss before heading for the pumpy dead vertical ice wall of the schrund. I might be getting soft, but there is something nice about kissing your partner before heading for a hard pitch. Or maybe I just spend too much time spooning with other guys at bivys. We simul-climbed through most of the lower section of the route until the Base of the Death pitch. It didn’t take me long to get the origin of the name. 20 meters from the belay with no screws in yet, on overhanging sugary ice, I was now desperately looking for one. Unsuccessful I pushed one on each of my side in the crumbly substance, both for mine and Zoe’s mental state and stemmed my way up trying to focus on my balance. The rope was totally stretched when I finally find a good anchor crack.
 
The day was superb. We were now swapping leads as often as we could to relieve the second from the pack and barely nine hours after crossing the schrund we were already at the base of the third ice band feeling super good about our progress. There the route does a big 300 meter traverse left and back right the same distance to the final crux pitches. In the process of rehydrating and fueling up for the labor ahead my fingers slipped on the fabric of my DAS jacket stuff sac. As it was speeding between our legs my french roots caught up with me and a “CHRIST DE CALISSS DE TABARNAC!!!!” Slipped through my lips as the bag was cascading over the seracs and desapeared in the abyss. Oh well! “That’s a big chunk of weight right there, we don’t have to carry up anymore,” I suggested to Zoe. Zoe offered me her small puffy and we started to traverse. At the end of the traverse left, we fought the temptation of going right up to the Bibbler exit and decided to pay tribute to Mark and Scott by repeating there route in good style heading back right. All that traversing ended up to be quite time consuming. It was 7:30 PM when we finally got to the base of the steep ice pitches. So much for our good time. The sun was now hitting the face directly and chunks of snow and ice where falling from all around. There was no way we were going to bivy anywhere around there. Up steep hard ice it was. It took us all the energy we had left but at eleven in glowing light we were standing on the top of the last rock band. ‘"Hey Max, what’s the name of the route again? I know it start with a D but I just cant remember it.’’ I thought she was kidding at first but when I tried to tell her the name I had to think a couple time about it before it came back to my mind. Deprived was definitely the case of our state, but 300 meters of calf burning slopes and 2 hours later we were reaching the cornice. We had been climbing for the last 21 hours straight and we were both feeling sick to our stomachs.

As and oasis in the desert, a vertical crack appeared at the end of my headlamp beam. I poked my head in it to find a perfect tunnel that was funning across deep inside the giant styrofoamy mushroom. It felt so secure in there that after minimal chopping I took my harness off and we jumped into the sleeping bag. We instantly blacked-out for two and a half hours. When we opened our eyes a really bright ray of light was coming in from the crack. It was still nice out. To the summit I was going again. We crawled out and regrouped slowly in the sun. At noon I was stepping foot again on the top of the same snowy bump along the snow ridgeline summit of Mount Hunter. My tracks were still visible from couple of days ago. It might seem silly to some time to try to find the highest point of a snowy hill after climbing hard and technical ground but at that exact moment I was reconfirming that it really meant something to me and changed all the meaning of the experience.

The wind picked up as we headed down the raps on the Moonflower but despite the cold of the spindrift pouring on me, my hart was warm. The weather allowed me to share that amazing experience with my loved one. I was the happiest man on earth. The mountain could pour anything on me now.

Statistics:

First ascent of the South face of the Bat’s Ears peak, 11 040 ft, AI4+ M5+, 3000 ft, Yentna glacier, April 30th, with Freddie Wilkinson and Ben Gilmore.

Two ascent of the North Buttress of Hunter to the summit in a week:

Free ascent of Moonflower Buttress, AI6 M7, 4000 ft, Schrund to the summit in 40 hours, round trip from base camp in 52 hours, May 5th and 6th, with Freddie Wilkinson and Ben Gilmore.

Deprivation, 95 degree (AI6), 4000 ft, Schrund to top of the buttress in 21 hours, to summit in 32 hours, round trip from base camp in 41 hours, May 10th and 11th, with Zoe Hart.

-Maxime Turgeon