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MarkWestman
Trad climber
Talkeetna, Alaska
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Nov 16, 2014 - 02:23pm PT
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Just before we hiked in there in the summer of 2000, my recollection is that what little intel I could find was that the route hadn't been climbed since the early 90's, and only like 6 or 8 times in total. I don't recall my sources but this was also in the earlier days of the internet so there wasn't as much out there as now.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 16, 2014 - 03:33pm PT
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Thanks Mark, your view adheres to the prevailing thought. It looks like it was a long time between drinks, regarding successful ascents.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Nov 16, 2014 - 04:23pm PT
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5, Scott Backes and Bill Bancroft (1990) 5, Scott Backes and Bill Bancroft (8/1990)
The logbook entry looks like "g 15th", so I think that is "Aug 15th" with the Au out of view.
It sounds like the logbook entries themselves could be pretty entertaining.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 16, 2014 - 04:59pm PT
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North Face of Alberta: Jason Kruk and Joshua Lavigne.
From September 6th to the 9th I teamed up with my good friend Josh Lavigne from Canmore for a rare ascent of the north face of Mt. Alberta. I hadn't had a good Rockies alpine hit for almost a year. I'm usually a pretty easy going guy, but I was going to start flipping tables if I missed my shot at trying a big Rockies rig this time. The weather was going to be splitter but a large amount of fresh snow had already accumulated in the mountains and temps were looking fresh overnight. Conditions on the north faces seemed pretty wintery. Mount Alberta immediately came to mind as a good objective. The snow was hopefully forming good névé on the boilerplate ice face and the headwall, while steep, wasn't as big as say, something really big like the North Twin. We'd hopefully have more than enough good weather to deal with the particularly slow nature of the difficult alpine drytooling we expected to encounter.
The long hike up the Cromwell valley and over Whooley Shoulder to the ACC's Alberta Hut was very familiar, having done it on two previous occasions. This time my mind was at rest. To be honest, after dropping in on two epic attempts at the neighboring North Twin, it felt like I was on a bit of an alpine vacation.
We left the hut at 4:20 the next morning, and followed our noses to the base of Alberta. We took only one 30L backpack and one small hydration pack for the leader. Shockingly light, modern gear is incredible. At the bottom of my pack was one of those new deluxe therm-a-rests and a small ovular tarp Josh had stitched up, hopefully our slim bivy setup would remain unused. Ha ha. Unfortunately, we bumbled around a little bit in the dark, unable to locate the rappel necessary to gain the glacier below the north face. We ended up committing to a few new rappels, just to get it over with. Sometimes a little beta on route finding ain't so bad. We were climbing in my favorite style: with new route eyes. Meaning no topos, no beta, just climbing what looked best. Pure adventure climbing. It gets me fired up every time!
Day light broke and we got our first look at the face. During an ascent of the north face in winter conditions, every climber must be drawn to the incredible WI5+ pillar that forms seemingly reliably halfway up the headwall. It's one of the classiest stretches of ice I've seen on a big mountain route, and provides easy (or easier) passage around what would otherwise be very time-consuming steep drytooling... At least for a pitch. We were aiming for the water ice, and would drytool above and below it, that was the plan.
We soloed around a gaping-schrund and belayed two easy mixed rock pitches to get established on the ice face. Coiling the ropes, we soloed the ice to the base of the yellow band. I thought conditions were pretty good, we climbed through everything: supportive, boot-top powder; névé; hard, old ice; fresh blue stuff. The pitches through the yellow band were low-angle and easy, but insecure and required care, with lots of fresh snow over supremely chossy stone. Eventually, we were below the headwall, staring up. We followed ground climbed by Steve House and Vince Anderson in 2008 to the top of the ice feature we were gunning for. Stacked pitches of real deal M7 gained the ice. Josh did a bang-up job at the lead here. At the crux of the House-Anderson, Josh whipped off the sloping, snowed-up holds four times, eventually ripping out the shaky pin placed on the first ascent. Finally, only upon my suggestion, he conceded and stepped in a shoulder sling to get past the move troubling us. This was the only bit of aid for the leader or second on the entire route.
Wow, the waterfall ice pitches were stellar! Wildly overhanging, but with a good stem out right on rock where needed. Josh and I have both climbed a lot of this stuff, and ranked this ice feature very near the top of the list of all time classic ice. A short stretch of mixed lay above and I climbed this to the point where the ice was flowing from. I mantled on top of an icy ledge and peered inside the cave feature, it appeared to be a pretty stellar bivy. The small opening at the back of the cave was also intriguing, I wondered if the cave continued deeper. We knew we had to climb up and right from this point if we wanted the easiest way off the headwall. It was longer and steeper up and left. I explored a ledge out right leading hopefully to a system we spied from below.
The ledge was choked with snow had a bulging wall above it, forcing you off balance. As I awkwardly switched from wallowing across on my knees to tip-toes, I tried to imagine a couple of big dudes like Vince and Steve balancing across this ledge and really couldn't! An email from Vince I later received confirmed they had in fact used this ledge to traverse to easier ground. From this perspective I also got a good look at the thin crack systems that led back out left, straight up and through the steepest part of the headwall remaining. Wild-looking climbing, but too tempting to resist. The rock quality up to this point had been reasonable. A real connoisseur might call it choss, but it was sufficiently held together by cold temps and snow and ice to protect adequately on the bits where you needed it most. We still had a bit of time before dark to continue upwards, but I reckoned a decent night’s sleep would be better for the steeps above, and besides, I really wanted to explore the cave!
Josh joined me at the cave entrance and we agreed a stop here would be the best tactic. We poked our heads inside the cave and a large room appeared. A horizontal oasis in a vertical desert. It was great to take off helmets and harnesses and move around freely. Josh dealt with the gear and I grabbed my headlamp to go explore. Right away the cave opened to flat ground and easy walking. A very fine yellow silt lined the ground, the smooth twisting walls were coated with very large rime ice crystals and there was a very slight breeze. I explored deeper into the cave for about 5 minutes until I became a little scared by myself. I turned around to go get Josh.
We must have walked that thing for 20 minutes or more, going deeper and deeper into Mt. Alberta. I was sure we would dead-end soon, but we'd turn a corner and another hidden hallway would appear, luring us further. After several hundred meters of exploration we both decided we should probably get back to the task of climbing this big face. Were we going to follow this thing to the end? We came to climb, not cave, really. We were pretty hungry and thirsty, so we turned around to go brew up.
At first light I led out around the left side of the roof of the cave, directly up the headwall. The exposure was an intense wake up... way better than the Starbucks instant coffee we had just gulped down. Steep, thin drytooling with awkward feet. The rock was pretty sh#t. I left the gear at the lip of the roof and climbed further and further above it. I was conscientious of the shift in my focus from my initial terror as I entered the no-fall zone to a very deep mental clarity. I maintained a sort-of acute attention to every detail, my mind completely free of excess noise. Slow, systematic upward progress, crucial for survival up this terrain. I was jolted into reality when without warning a large, unstable pillar of rock I was stemmed around collapsed, hitting me in the chest and falling between my feet. It brushed by the ropes, I felt a tug on my harness but I maintained hold of my tool placements torqued in a thin crack. Had the ropes been clipped through any gear I would have likely been pulled from my strenuous stance. I was hoping the trundled rock would reveal solid protection behind it but no such luck. I gave myself a quick mental pep talk. It's hard to fully relax with mono-point crampons balanced on small edges. I reminded myself this is the very thing I live for and there was no other place in the world I'd rather be in this moment. My only way out was up. It's always a weird feeling for me to leave a resting point mid runout and continue questing onwards. I delicately hooked and scratched my way up the remainder of the pitch, locking back into meditation and striving for complete precision and perfection of movement. The belay required time and creativity to construct and I was feeling very tired mentally upon securing myself to the anchor.
Josh swung through and led a shorter pitch up and right. Another steep pitch on better rock followed, still forcing large runouts though. Briefly on this pitch was the only time during the route I would remove my gloves and crimp on the thin edges instead of hook them with my ice tools. I stopped short at a sheltered stance out left, brought Josh up. The next pitch looked like a blockbuster. I could feel we were nearing the very top of the highest point of the headwall. Above, a slightly overhanging feature of stacked changing corners continued out of sight. Josh was stoked to swing through on lead. Steep, psychical drytooling, good gear and tool placements when needed kept his momentum going through the wild terrain. After following a full pitch of strenuous climbing I reached the final crux overhang that Josh had pulled way out from the belay. I was overwhelmed with appreciation for the outrageous position and difficult climbing we were blessed with on this adventure. Another outrageous pitch of M7+++. The summit ridge was now in our sites, but another long pitch of low angle mixed ground remained between us and the end of the difficulties. This sort of climbing is frustratingly insecure; my periodic efforts at digging for protection were pretty much pointless. I balanced upward on my frontpoints, knowing it would be over soon. I reached solid glacier ice and sunk in two bomber screws, relieved to have it in the bag. Josh swung through up the ice to the ridge and we simul-climbed the remainder of the double-corniced ridge to the summit of Mt. Alberta.
We traversed over the summit and along the long ridge south to what we were pretty sure were the top pitches of the Japanese Route and committed to a rappel descent. Deep snow obscured a few of the rappels, forcing us to leave behind a few pieces, but likely reduced the amount of rockfall we endured while pulling the ropes down after each rappel.
The lower eastern flanks of Mt. Alberta are somewhat confusing to descend onsight. The scrambling required to navigate around the steep cliffbands was super in-obvious in the fading light, then dark. We likely could have made it back to level ground that night if we committed to more rappelling directly, but we conceded to another cold night under the soggy tarp, spooning on our single thermarest.
We were tired, satisfied, and happy back at the hut. After a brief meal and siesta, we shouldered our packs and started the long trek back to the highway at a slow, steady pace. The reality of a perfect mission was starting to set in. It's always a bit of a guessing game choosing the right route and hoping for certain conditions. Sometimes you guess right.
As far as the satisfaction of a successful climb, I was already thinking about the next adventures to come. It's nice to just be able to relax and enjoy every step along the way in the process of alpine climbing... and life in general. It's all just a pretty neat adventure.
Many thanks to Jason Kruk
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 16, 2014 - 06:58pm PT
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Thanks Clint, I don't think I would've noticed otherwise!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Nov 17, 2014 - 10:04am PT
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More fantastic accounts!
Anyone know how to get in touch with Tim Auger now that he is retired?
I suspect that he has kept track of ascents of the grand courses and would have some interesting input historically.
While he worked as the Banff Warden, Tim was the most reliable source of information and background in the area and always my first call when a trip was taking shape. I still owe him a steak and a bottle of his favorite spirit for all the help BITD. Never a trace of attitude in his advice unlike the fare at the climbing shops.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 17, 2014 - 01:00pm PT
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Mt Alberta, North Face: Will Sim and Nick Bullock. cont...
Thanks to Will Sim
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Nov 17, 2014 - 04:17pm PT
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We must have walked that thing for 20 minutes or more, going deeper and deeper into Mt. Alberta
That merits nomination for quote of the decade. Holy frozen bat cave, Hard Man!
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Synchronicity
Trad climber
British Columbia, Canada
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Nov 17, 2014 - 05:24pm PT
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Just wanted to bump this up and say thanks for one of the best threads on ST in a long time, quality content from the mouths of those involved. Brilliant stuff and amazing stories. Cheers Avery
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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Nov 17, 2014 - 05:42pm PT
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Steve, PM sent.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 18, 2014 - 01:15pm PT
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MT Alberta, North Face: Will Sim and Nick Bullock cont...
Thanks to Will Sim
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Gregg Cronn
Mountain climber
Bellingham
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Nov 18, 2014 - 10:27pm PT
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Barry approached me on a Saturday in the middle of a rock course with a crazy plan: Leave Sunday night from Canmore, climb the North Face of Alberta Mon-Fri, and teach the next scheduled beginning rock course the following weekend. We were not given much of a chance at pulling it off. "Everyone, said Chris Miller, walks into Alberta, no one actually climbs it."
We did get up the route, thanks to Barry's seasoning in Yosemite, brilliant climbing and our youthful drive and enthusiasm. It was a blessed experience that Barry has written about eloquently in his book.
A few memory's from the climb:
We were in awe at:
1. Tobin's last flight down the face. It was horrible to think about. The poor guy (RIP brother); and
2. George Lowe. We repeated and laughed over our favorite phrase during the climb, "George wasn't f*#king around." George got a chuckle out of that when I shared that with him on K2 in the summer of '86.
We actually did break 3/4 tools on the climb. It is comical to think that we would launch up these big faces with 70 cm Forrest ice axes and ice hammers. Although it did make walking easier on the glaciers.
Alberta is easily one of my best experiences in the mountains. Incredibly beautiful mountain with a lovely drape of alpine ice to complete the ascent. (I wanted to name my daughter Alberta but my wife refused!) Plus it cemented a lifetime friendship with Barry. We were in our early '20's and it was the start of some great days in the mountains through the mid '80's. Well before the losses of so many good friends and companions started racking up: Dave Cheesmond, Kim Momb, Ian Bult, Dan Guthrie, Catherine Freer...Some fine people who paid the cost of a frenetic period of Alpinism.
Folks in Canmore were quite worried for our well being. It rained hard all week in town and people grew concerned when we didn't come dragging back to town.
We did actually make it back for the next weekend's rock course. James Blench was kind enough to lead the Friday night session as we were driving back from the Icefields. Ah, the strength of youth, Barry slept in the back of van while I drove us back to Canmore-finishing the day that started at a bivy on the summit ridge in the bar at midnight. We were so proud. We took turns that weekend slipping off into the woods for naps.
Barry and I got to recently do what I would wish for all mountaineers: sharing some beers in the bar, long in tooth, telling stories. With love.
Great thread and stories. So impressed with some of the ascents cataloged here.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 18, 2014 - 11:30pm PT
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Many thanks Gregg, I really appreciate your input.
I was going through all the names of the successful Alberta NF climbers, and realized to my embarrassment that I missed you altogether. My apologies for a monumental blunder!
Correcting that blunder was one of the more satisfying outcomes I've had on Supertopo.
Your views are very interesting and counterbalance Barry's nicely.
Cheers!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Nov 18, 2014 - 11:34pm PT
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Great photos and stories, Gregg - thanks for sharing.
With all the smiles in the photos the climb starts to seem friendly...
until I look at the lack of pro and rope hanging out from the wall on the headwall. Yikes.
So good that you guys pulled it off and are still around to enjoy the memories.
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Bushman
Social climber
The island of Tristan da Cunha
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Nov 19, 2014 - 01:36am PT
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Avery,
As many know, Tobin Sorenson is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in our home town of Covina, California. I have always believed that my brother's heart and essence remain on the North Face of Mount Alberta. For all of the years since he perished there I have often wondered at the grandeur and allure of this enigmatic mountain. Being only proficient at rockcraft during my climbing years, I had never pursued mountains in a big way, and have been ever curious about the ascents on Alberta that have been done before and after when Tobin paid the ultimate price for pursuing his passion and love in the region that he so ultimately and ironically wanted to call home.
These past few weeks I have learned so much more about the history and legacy of the place through this thread, with all the climber's stories and photos documenting their forays on to the mountain. I am humbled as I read it and grateful to you for your work in compiling this history and chronology of climbing that face, and am looking forward also to see of any more accounts of ascents posted here.
-Tim Sorenson
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 19, 2014 - 02:58am PT
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Thank you so much Tim,
This for me is the ultimate approbation. When I first started climbing way back in 1981 Tobin was my hero and inspiration. By the time I found out he had died, almost eight months had passed. I found out from my friend Rob Hall, who has also joined Tobin and a whole host of others who found death in the mountains. I know Tobin, only by reputation and an almost universal affection from the climbing world of that time.
Brothers have unique bond, I know this from doing nearly all my climbing with my own brother. I know I would've be devastated if he were taken during those most exciting of years, when every day was so different from the last. I can only guess about the memories of Tobin you have, some 34 years latter. My experiences with Rob Hall are, sadly, nothing more than a slowly dispersing trail of memories. However, the unpardonable march of time still trips me up, from time to time, I'm happy to say.
Thanks again
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Dave Hough
climber
Keene, NY
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Nov 19, 2014 - 09:49am PT
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Wow one the best threads. I can add a tick to the history of failures column from late summer 1979. If memory serves it was a very warm, hardly any ice, lots of rockfall and not much of an attempt. In fact this was one of a string of failures from a month of climbing in the Canadian Rockies. An incredible humbling, spectacular, scarey place. I kind of loved it.
Keep the stories coming.
Dave
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Nov 19, 2014 - 06:33pm PT
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Great stories. Thanks for making this one happen!
Not much into failures but Alberta was a BIG one for us. I/we went in 3 and .5 times. Trip down memory lane for sure.
On the way into the "black hole" years prior to the Alberta Hut install.
Gregg called me a few hours ago and for a while we were kids again talking smack and laughing at our bravado and luck from 35 years ago! #1 was '78 just prior to a fall trip to Europe. Alberta makes the Alps look "easy" in so many ways.
Another failure.
Next time was fall of '80 just after Tobin was killed. We didn't know of the accident at the time. But at the shoulder and base of the North face it was obvious something bad had happened. I picked up a few trilobite fossils and unknowingly found evidence of who had been their prior. We all knew of Tobin. Once we figured out some of what had happened, we were done. It is a long way in and a scary place to be alone. At least for me anyway.
Then a trip with Tom and Jeep. '81 iirc? Just below Wooley shoulder I tripped in the creek an needed stitches in my shin at boot height. Wearing runners of course. Bone was showing so back to Banff to get sewed up. Wade the river again, after the bivy at the base of the face pictured above. Rock fall cuts up my hand leading back up the rap gully to the shoulder. Still have those scars.
Last walk in ('82) rock fall drove us off the yellow band? Just prior to the headwall..which looked really hard fwiw. By the fall of '83 the face had been done a third time. I decided rock climbing on warm granite was more fun and less painful about the same time :)
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Nov 19, 2014 - 06:44pm PT
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Thanks a lot, RDB
Great pics, truly evocative of the period.
If you have anymore, don't hesitate to post...
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