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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 6, 2014 - 10:48am PT
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STARLIGHT AND STORM
The Great North Faces of the Rockies
by David Cheesmond
A long time ago there was a young Frenchman called Gaston who wrote about climbs he knew best the great north faces of the European Alps. That book has inspired many aspirant alpinists to do those beautiful faces, sometimes in preparation for greater things on less well known mountains. It seems ages ago that I, still a beginner, read the accounts of these climbs that were still only a dream at the end of the long tunnel of experience. Over a period of five years I was to do some of them. and experience the cold bivouacs, incredible sunrises and warm friendships that Rebuffat wrote about so well in his stories of the mountains. Later I was fortunate to come and live in an area where there are week-end climbs comparable to those great north faces of the Alps - just as challenging. equally exciting, on mountains as beautiful and always more remote. One night. lying in a bivy high on Mt Assiniboine it struck me that the well documented attempts of the Eiger Nordwand were not that different to the lesser known tries at establishing large mixed routes in the Rockies: the brilliant ascent of the North Face of the Matterhorn no greater an achievement than the equally ethical first ascent of Temple's North Wall. The times and places were different - in many cases the atmosphere and style of the participants were the same. Thus was born a need to write about some experiences on the great North Walls of the Rocky Mountains of Canada.
Robson
The first of the true north faces to be climbed, this entirely snow and ice route was opened in the still respectable time of ten hours. Modern ice wizards with drooped picks and "Footfangs” still find Robson's peculiar mix of loose snow over hard ice disconcerting and time consuming, and ascents in better time are rare.
In early August of 1963 Pat Callis and Dan Davis hiked in via the Kinney Lake trail, and climbed up to bivouac at the Robson/Helmet Col below the north face. Starting in the dark they found the slope in good hard snow conditions, and so were able to make fast progress up to the first of the layered rock bands which protrude from the slope. From here on. in common with most subsequent parties, they found unconsolidated snow over ice and made slower progress but still were able to stand on the summit by noon. A fine new climb on a mountain which sees many failures due to unpredicatable weather.
Once the North Face Proper had been climbed, attention turned to the Emperor Face further to the right. Slightly larger than the north aspect. it was apparent this would be a far more difficult undertaking due to the large quantity of steep rock showing through. First attempts on the wall probed the lower sections. but no one seemed able to get 'established' on the face. The highest point reached with these attempts was a prominent gully named The Jaws by the team who first approached it - Pat Callis and Jim Chancellor. The face finally fell to the determined efforts over a number of years to Jim Logan. In 1978 he teamed up with Mugs Stump for four days of exciting climbing ending in a stormy finish onto the Emperor Ridge. They had avoided the dangerous 'Jaws' and been able to do a 'relatively safe' route by climbing straight through the various rock bands.
In 1981 another technical route on the face was done by Tony Dick and David Cheesmond. Taking a line to the left of the Logan/Stump route. this ascent also required four days of difficult mixed climbing. For those looking for new places to go on limestone there is still room for further routes on this vast wall. a more difficult twin brother to the Eiger.
Kitchener
No face in the Rockies is more easily visible or impressive than the North Face of Mt Kitchener. As you drive north to Jasper, passing the high point of the Banff-Jasper highway at the Columbia Icefields and beginning the drop to the Sunwapta River drainage, an awesome wall slowly unfolds from the cutback on the edge of the ice cap. The face is perhaps most noticeable because of its size almost two miles wide it rises in a continuous vertical wall, nearly four thousand feet high, capped by the huge cornices of the Columbia Icefields.
Due to the seriousness of even the easiest route on this face, it took numerous attempts over a long period before a party was able to claim the first ascent of Kitchener from the North.
The opening years of the seventies saw some keen competition for the big new lines in the Rockies. In 1970, George and Jeff Lowe attempted the face but were turned back by serious rockfall. The following year Chris Jones and Gray Thompson were on the face early in July. After two days on the route they turned back in the face of extreme difficulty and blank rock. It was merely four weeks later that the pair, joined by Jeff Lowe. climbed the lower ice slope and the rock/ice ramp leading out right to the top of Kitchener, for the first ascent of the North Face. Once again, determination had paid off in the face of technical difficulties and poor weather.
The Ramp Route, as it is now known, has become somewhat a classic and is still considered a major undertaking. In spite of modern innovations such as micro-nuts and Friends. this is one of those climbs that still requires the 'neck' for long leads with minimal protection.
To the left of the Ramp Route lies the most obvious break in this great face. Named The Grand Central Couloir by Jeff Lowe, it was avoided by early parties on the wall due to the exposure to collapsing seracs and rock fall. In the right conditions it is relatively safe however, and Lowe and Mike Weiss climbed through the night to make the first ascent in the summer of 1974. Five years later Tobin Sorenson and Jack Roberts made the first winter ascent, and since then this route has been done more often in winter and early spring than in summer. There is one other existing route on the face the so-called Rock Pillars route opened by Greenwood, Homer, Wood and Beale in 1972. Although following an impressive spur overlooking the Grand Central Couloir, this climb has never become popular due largely to first ascent reports of poor rock and even worse belays.
Whether the rock wall towards the right hand end of the face is equally terrible will only be known when some adventurous party attempts another new route on this great wall.
Mt Alberta
‘…perhaps the best Alpine climb of my life.' With a recommendation like that from one member of the ascent party, this route just had to be done many times in the ensuing years.
This being the Canadian Rockies, however, and the climb being a day's hike from the road, it took nearly ten years before a party managed to pull off what at the time was one of the most prestigious second ascents in North America. Between Lowe and Glidden (1972) and the Swenson/Lewis ascent (1981) the North Face of Alberta only saw one proper attempt. This audacious undertaking by Tobin Sorenson, at 25 already an extremely experienced alpinist, would have been a solo climb ranking with the best in the world had he pulled it off. Sadly something went wrong - early on October 5th, 1980, he fell, his self belay pulled loose, and he plummeted 1800 feet to the bottom of the face.
This accident once more focused attention on the climb and the next year, late in the season, Steve Swenson and Kit Lewis quietly walked in over Woolley Shoulder to camp below Alberta. In four days they completed the route and yet another face lost some of its aura.
North Twin
Few teams can field the combined experience of George Lowe and Chris Jones. When they teamed up for North Twin in 1974 they could between them claim ascents of routes amongst the hardest in Europe, North and South America. Both already had large and serious routes to their credit in the Rockies and they must have been feeling confident as they hiked over the depressing scree slopes leading to Woolley Col. It was Jones' first look at the face, and he admitted being impressed by the foreboding nature of this remote wall. For six stormy days they were to live and climb on this wall, and more than once retreat must have seemed the only option left. With the determination born of experience, however, they were able to continue in the face of cold, snowstorms, hard climbing, poor belays and what must have been a frightening fall by Lowe near the top of the route. The route stands today as an example of the outstanding challenge the Rockies has to offer those who have the audacity to push the limit and venture into places previously thought impossible. Many years and attempts later it still awaits a complete second ascent. Tim Friesen and David Cheesmond came close to doing this in 1982, but were forced off onto the north-east ridge by wet conditions on the upper wall. For generations of climbers this wall will stand as a test piece of the same calibre as the North Wall of the Eiger. Ten years after the first ascent it is still arguably the hardest of all the North Faces in the Rockies.
Mt Temple
The trend that is still prominent in the Rockies, that of tackling ever more difficult and larger mixed faces, perhaps started way back in 1966 when three local lads gained the central snow couloir of Mt Temple's North Face. Starting in the early hours of the morning in order to avoid rockfall on the lower sections, Brian Greenwood, Charlie Locke and Heinz Kahl were soon kicking steps up the snow of the 'Dolphin'. This couloir, showing up from the Lake Louise townsite as a huge creature from the sea eternally caught in mid-flight, is the key to rapid progress on this side of Mt Temple. A short while after starting Kahl became ill, a portent of his eventual death from cancer, and while he descended Greenwood and Locke continued unroped to the top of the 'Dolphin'. Reaching the rocks they found the way straight ahead barred by blank, slabby rock, and were slowly forced to the right hand side of the rockband. From their bivouac that night they had a grandstand view of the serac fall that raked the entire central portion of the face. A convincing argument that they had chosen the safest line! Next morning they climbed some more free and aid rock pitches before making the summit slopes in the early afternoon. They had made the first ascent of the North Face, but the problem of a direct route still remained unsolved. In 1971 cousins George and Jeff Lowe took up the challenge. Approaching directly up the central rock rib, they forced a way through the prominent serac barrier, using aid from ice screws. Their route has become popular due to its aesthetic line, but climbers on it are exposed to ice falling from the serac barrier. No one has yet been on the face when the barrier calves, but the chances of anyone surviving such an occurrence would be minimal. A sobering thought for those wanting to climb a route
on one of the classic North Faces of the world.
Mt Assiniboine
With the easiest of all the North Faces, Assiniboine needs more than just technical difficulty to make it appealing. And it sure delivers - remoteness, a perfectly formed peak and beautiful countryside combine to make the trip in well worthwhile. The history of the peak is comparable to that of the Matterhorn - a definite element of competition. being involved in the first ascent in each case. In fact the climbing on the two peaks is surprisingly similar, the North ridge being the standard route in both cases. Luckily Assiniboine does not have the hordes of people so prominent on its Swiss counterpart.
In 1967 when Chris Jones, Yvon Chouinard and Joe Faint opened the North Face, they were surprised that such a fine face still was virgin. Considering the ease of their ascent, it does appear that harder faces had already been climbed. Nonetheless they were able to do a first ascent in good style, and the route has since become a classic of its type in North America. Perhaps the route was put into perspective by Raymond Jotterand when he made the first winter ascent in 1978. Climbing alone in poor weather he was up the route in a mere three hours climbing time, and was to write later that the route would perhaps rate 'D Sup' at the most in the Alps! For a long time it seemed that a magnificent mountain like Assiniboine should have at least one route of suitable difficulty to match the general aura surrounding the mountain. The obvious arena for the action was the East Wall which, although not being a true North Face had all the characteristics of the greatest of faces. Chris Jones had a look at it during the North Face climb and commented that he was 'appalled by its appearance.' Billy Davidson and Archie Simpson climbed the buttress bounding the face in 1969, but the challenge of the face was not taken up until 1982 when Tony Dick and David Cheesmond spent three perfect autumn days climbing the main line right in the centre of the wall. At last a truly difficult way exists to the summit of the 'Matterhorn of the Rockies.'
Conclusion
And what of the future? Some people maintain the Rockies offer no more challenges, others feel the nature of the rock will not lend itself to ever more difficult routes on these impressive faces. This of course is absolute nonsense. The Golden Age of mountaineering in these mountains is just beginning. On the great faces mentioned above there is still room for limitless adventure for those with the vision to see what is possible. There are also the numerous lesser known peaks with their own classic routes, and their yet to be opened faces. The Canadian Rockies are not just the North American equivalent of the Alps. They are one of the finest ranges on this Earth with unique possibilities for excitement in all aspects of mountaineering.
Summary: A brief history of serious, high grade mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies
Mountain 98
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Thanks Ed.
A forgotten gem.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Many thanks, Ed.
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nah000
climber
canuckistan
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Ed Hartouni:
first: thanks, this is great stuff!
second: did you type out the whole article by hand? if so, double thanks! if not, what is the sorcery that you used to generate the text?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2014 - 10:15pm PT
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scanning it to a .pdf file and the scanner software will perform "OCR": optical character recognition...
in a .pdf reader you can select the text "under" the image... if you have a .pdf and an old version of Acrobat you can have it do the OCR...(I don't know about new versions of Acrobat...)
I usually try to put a "regular text" version up so when people do a web search they will find it...
I used to type them in by hand, not so bad and good practice typing... but technology is relentless
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Gregg Cronn
Mountain climber
Bellingham
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Nov 18, 2014 - 09:41pm PT
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That is my photo of the north face of Alberta taken in 1983 at a bivy prior to the 3rd ascent.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 27, 2014 - 11:00am PT
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Real Climbing Bump...
The Rockies guidebook cover shot was taken near the shot above.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Dec 27, 2014 - 12:57pm PT
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Let's not forget that Cheesemond was also in on the FA of the South African-themed Springbok Arete on Les Cornes in the Cascades.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Dec 27, 2014 - 04:47pm PT
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I could, but the bottom 3.5 pitches are cut off by Steinbok.
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Camster (Rhymes with Hamster)
Social climber
CO
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Dec 27, 2014 - 05:04pm PT
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Didn't he also solo the Cassin? I think Mike Kennedy told me something like that.....
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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May 10, 2015 - 04:47pm PT
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Nice looking peak.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 10, 2015 - 07:21pm PT
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I still miss Dave. I remember our meeting in Oakland after Georges, the third member of our El Cap team, died hunting crystals.
Then I made friends with Catherine, and was greatly saddened when they didn't come back.
What greatness they could have accomplished.
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Ottawa Doug
Social climber
Ottawa, Canada
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May 12, 2015 - 01:13pm PT
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Thanks a ton Ed for posting this up. I once climbed at grade 4 ice climb at the back of Lake Louise in the winter of '82 with Dave. It was minus 10 degress F and was a very cold adventure. It was really exciting to climb with a top level climber. And yes...........
..............he did solo both the West Rib and the Cassin on Denali. Thanks for remembering one of the greats.
Cheers,
Doug
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