The Second Knife-Edge

3rd June
Load carry from C3 to C4. Up early in the cold – moving by 7am. It was -20deg over night and it was cold getting up. – The increasing altitude means the temperatures are falling at each camp as we move up the ridge. We head up out of camp and the terrain immediately gets steeper (as of course it dose when you are camped on a flat spot J ). Marcus got this lead and did very well. The ground is about 60 degrees and mixed rock ice and snow. Marcus got quite gripped there for a while sine it is steep and difficult to climb and the mixed terrain is not that easy to put in good protection for the rope anchors. Needless to say, the exposure here is huge and if you fall you are going to go a long way before any rope stops you – that is assuming that the anchors hold and that you don’t just continue down the thousands of meters into an anonymous grave in the icy glacier valley below!

After Marcus gets to the top of the pitch and the others of us move up to join him, the terrain gets easier again but only for a short distance...

Then it starts getting steeper again and this time I’m in the lead. Yep, it gets very steep and I stop to put an ice screw in when things are looking sketchy and there are absolutely no anchors between me and Marcus who is down about 40m below me – that would be quite the fall if I slipped! This takes quite a while because the surface of the snow/ice is really crappy and I have to dig away to find good ice for the anchor.
I get the screw in and head up again and am over the top of the steep bulge but I see that the second crux of the route is just ahead. It’s the second knife-edge section… but no time for that now!
The guys below are freezing their buts off while I have been sweating away climbing. The weather is cold, snowing, and windy and they can barely move their fingers by the time I have managed to set up a top anchor with another screw and a snow picket.

I belay them up and we take a look at the next section of the route as a team.
Russell decides to lead off again as I am belaying up the last guy from the pitch below, and as usual he does it without fuss. This one is not as bad as the first one but the consequences of messing it up are just as severe!

We all get across and soon after we reach the next camp area with a large snow structure known as “the mushroom” by about 1pm (C4). We cache the load of food and fuel we were carrying and head back down the route to camp again. This involves rappelling two pitches and lots of down climbing and takes quite a while but we make it back to camp by 6pm. The weather was kinder in the afternoon though and the last couple of hours were even pleasant in the sunshine though we were again all very tired. We just don’t seem to have time during the day to even stop and eat munchie bars – flat out climbing!

4th June
We packed up and moved off with full loads by 8:30am. Again we were familiar with the ground ahead this time and we moved more quickly despite the heavy loads. We did the mixed pitch, the rounded dome, the ice wall, the knife-edge, past the cache and up over the mushroom to our new Camp 4 all by 11am. When we started the climb in the morning, the weather was OK but the sky was dark to the South. By the time we reached the next camp things are deteriorating rapidly. The wind is up, the temperature is down, and cloud base is coming down the ridge rapidly.

One of the challenges with the East Ridge route is that the weather systems come in from the West which is on the other side of the massive mountain we are on. This means that we get very little warning about what the weather is going to do. There are no weather reports or maps and we have to guess at what is happening in the West by the little that we can see to the North and South. – Just part of the game when you are climbing in these sorts of places.

At the new camp site, we again spend two hours digging very deep tent platforms. The weather keeps deteriorating and we are now in the clouds. We then go back down the ridge to the mushroom and retrieve the loads we dropped there yesterday. By the time we get back to camp it is snowing and the day is done. – ahhh rest :)

Its Marcus’s turn to do the cooking again and I’m not envious because the weather has now become something of a blizzard outside… I’m sure Ill get my turn in the snow one of these nights though! While he is in the vestibule of the little tent doing the cooking I’m looking at the maps – We are now at about 4000m of altitude which is still too low down for a “summit dash” from this camp site. We also still have to much gear/food to carry it in a single load, so we will do double carries for at least one more camp. This is a bit of a bummer because we make very slow progress this way and we are using up lots of energy too
– Oh well, it is what it is.

Bit of a Bliz'

5th June
We had blizzard conditions all through the night and they continue all through the next day as well. We have to take it in turns to get up, put on our GoreTex gear and go outside to dig out the tents which are being constantly buried in snow. It takes an hour of effort each time, and we did it at least three times during the day.
This is the other main reason (other than the effort to make them) that I Don’t like the deep tent platform placements that Marcus likes! The wind and snow just love to fill in holes and it seems that the only place that the snow is accumulating is in the holes where the tents are!!!! – but do you think I can convince Marcus of this! – Oh well, again, It is what it is.

We spend all day laying around and digging out the tents. No one even considers heading up the ridge today. Marcus and I barely see Russell and Ian all day. On the flat ground, at least 30cm of snow has accumulated and many times this in the tent hollows.

In the evening, the wind abated and we got out of the tents and had a look around…
Id have to say that our camp site was a VERY bad choice!
Apart from the snow accumulation problem, we are positioned right at the base of a very steep, convex slope that has just been “storm-loaded” with a lot of fresh new snow and is in all of our opinions a significant avalanche risk!
We all agree that its not very clever of us but then we also decide to just leave the camp where it is and go back to bed for another night!!!!
Now, in hindsight, I’m not sure what we were thinking but I guess the altitude and lack of oxygen may have contributed to these choices J

6th June
Well, we survived the night despite our foolish choice not to move camp. The gods smiled on us and the weather was getting better as we slept. We woke to glorious sunshine, mostly blue skies and magnificent views.

The snow was very deep though and after Marcus spent an hour trying to break a trail up out of camp and dint manage to get more than a single rope length away, we decided to wait around for a while and dry out our gear while the sunshine lasted.
At about 3pm in the afternoon, there was movement above us. We all came out of the tents to see what was going on. It was another pair of climbers coming down from above us. We had also met these guys on a previous day and they were doing much the same as us with a load day and then a camp-move day. They were very cautiously coming down to get their stash and move up to their camp.
Our team all got out of our tents and backed away from the foot of the steep slope so we would maybe be a bit safer if they triggered an avalanche – which looked like a very real possibility!

Again the gods smiled and they got down without triggering an avalanche.
Now this changed things! We had dried out our stuff but the steep ground and deep snow meant that we were not going to head up the slope till the next afternoon. However the guys coming down the slope had broken quite a nice trail and they told us how far the next camp site was.

We rapidly decided that we could get there so we very quickly broke camp and packed all our stuff up – We had managed to relocate all our buried gear over the course of the morning in camp. It was still hard work breaking trail since up-tracks and down-tracks are rather different in their step sizes. But we were well rested and we pushed on up the ridge to a height of 4400m. At this point the ridge was still quite steep but very broad and there were some crevasses/’schrunds around to provide a measure of protection from avalanches.This was to be our Camp 5.

The sky was clear and we had magnificent views in the cold evening air. We dug shallower platforms (at last) along side the two other climbers that had made the down-hill trail and had magnificent views of Mt Vancouver as we had dinner and finally made it to bed at about midnight with the definite prospect of making it up onto the plateau at the top of the ridge the next day :)

The Plateau

7th June
We got up early and packed again. We depot ed some gear here at this camp having decided that we would push on in lighter weight fashion from this point – The altitude was making it very hard work, we were now getting close enough for a summit push, and single carries instead of double carries would make us much faster.

Again, Marcus broke trail out of camp and had a very hard time of it. He was up to his groin in fresh snow for a good way. Things did get better though and we all took our turn wading in the new snow at the front of the trail. There were also six of us now that we were with the other two climbers for the day and that helped with the trail breaking too. The slopes stayed very steep at 50 – 55 degrees and it was hard work for many hours.
Then the terrain got a bit more complex again and we had to wind around a bit to find our way past the massive bergschrund formation at the top of the ridge.

A bergschrund is a type of crevasse. It forms at the top of ridges and snow slopes and it marks the point where the snow and ice above it are fixed to the mountain and not moving. The slow below the ‘schrund though is not fixed to the mountain and is essentially working its way ever so slowly down to the base. Bergschrunds are often the crux in climbing routes and are often simply huge impassable crevasses.
On a mountain of the scale of Mt Logan, the ‘schrund is not just a single crevasse but is a huge structure of several large crevasses and it is difficult to find a way through without the benefit of a view from further away – much like crevasse fields on glaciers.

In this case though, there was no insurmountable obstacle and though we wove around a bit, we got through OK. It was not without a bit of very steep and exposed climbing which fell to Ian to lead which he did in good style and again without fuss (I was very happy with the skills of our team I must say).

After that the slope got far less steep and the soft snow almost disappeared. We were up on the top of the mountain now which in this case (is a plateau of quite several kilometers in every direction (Mt Loan is a very big object!).
We kept moving up till we were well and truly on the flat. It was overcast and very cold and the wind was whipping by at 40 –50 Kmh.

There was no shelter anywhere that we could find so we just stopped on the flat and set about pitching the tents in the random spot that became Camp 6. We got them set up with full effort from the whole team and then we set about trying to create some shelter from the wind – This is why Marcus likes the deep tent platforms!

The snow was very firm, so we set about cutting out blocks of snow to make walls around the tents. This took several hours and we did OK. In the end we retired to our tents with the gale blowing outside and felt we had done very well for the day.
However, tonight was my turn to cook and that wind was just getting stronger. I set about cooking the evening meal, huddled down in the little vestibule of the tent, but the wind just blew straight through under the edge of the tent and every time there was a gust, I would get absolutely covered in -20degC spindrift (snow dust). This would leave me cursing very loudly as I was getting very cold and very wet… Marcus on the other hand found it all quite amusing from his warm dry position inside the zipped closed tent – I cant blame him :)

The night passed with the constant howl of the very strong winds. It even managed to blow aver a section of the wall we had built outside and had not let up when morning came. I didn’t manage to get any sleep at all that night – Due mostly to the high altitude of about 5900m.

Summit Day

8th June
It was still cold and very windy in the morning and it took us a while to get organized and on our way.
We left camp intact since we were aiming to be back before we had to sleep again. We were moving by 10am and although the wind didn’t help, the fact that it had blown away all the loose surface snow meant that we were able to cove distance quite quickly. This was good since we were about four kilometers from the East peak that rose up out of the summit plateau like a cone. We moved steadily in toward our objective over and around various undulations, hills and crevasses in the path.

About half way there, we met the Ukrainian team on their way back down. It was hard to figure out what their story was because of the language barrier but I gathered that they had summated the East peak but failed to reach the main peak which was located a further 10Km away. We felt they had done very well and `congratulated them but they seemed a bit disappointed with their result (no doubt not up to the standards of the old boy!). Anyway, they were out of food and fuel and had to head back down the ridge.

We continued on and came to the base of the East peak summit cone. The wind was still strong and the sky was staying mostly overcast with occasional blue hole – to keep us going :)

The summit cone was really hard work for me (last 500m of altitude up to 5910m) and I was the slowest of our team to climb it. It was frustrating for Marcus but I now know with hindsight that I was suffering badly with the altitude and that my body does not acclimatize to these heights (lower than most people can adapt to).

Anyway, with much effort we got to the top and the others waited a few meters from the peak so that when we were all there, we could all take the last few steps to the summit together. There were the obligatory summit photos and hand shakes all round. It was then 4pm and there was not much else to do but head back over the four km to our camp. We had all looked at the option of heading on to the main summit but the weather was not good enough, the distance was far and none of us felt like pushing our luck. We were all very pleased with the East peak as our high point and we had all said way back when the trip was initiated that this was the main goal – So back we went.

There were no issues on the return and we were back in camp by 7pm (much easier going down than up at those altitudes).
It took us six hours to climb up and three hours to get back down.

The Descent

9th June
I managed to sleep that night and the wind was lower now too so that helped.
Next morning, we packed up camp and headed back down the ridge. We were following the trail of wands that we had marked our upward route with (wands a little bamboo stakes with brightly coloured flagging on the end used to mark the trail so that even when tracks get covered buy snow the route is still clear). The terrain was steep though and we moved fairly slowly.

We got back to C4 and stopped there for a while as we dug out our food and fuel cache. We got rid of a fair bit of the excess food and fuel though by dumping it in a large crevasse. It was too heavy to carry and we were now on our way down and would not be needing it any more. Then we put our HUGE packs on again and headed back over the second knife-edge, down the two rappel pitches and made it down to just above the mixed terrain pitch that Marcus had led on the way up, just above C4. The snow however was quite deep and very soft at this time of day, so we decided not to test our luck with our very large loads. We dug basic tent platforms (ahhh at last :)) and set up camp for the evening, and then we sat around and melted water to drink and enjoyed the views.

10th June
We got up a bit late and packed up the camp and headed down again.
I got the lead of the mixed pitch we had stopped above and true enough it was not great with the big pack. It took me an hour to get through it but it was then much quicker for the other guys. In truth, I think that Russell would likely have moved much faster through it than I would have (he is very bold) but I felt like I did a good job anyway.

Then it was back across the second knife-edge, and then the two rappels, followed by the still steep snow ridge. I was carrying my maximum load and it was very hard work to descend this steep ground. I went cautiously and Russell and Ian moved past me and headed down more quickly. We got back to C3 and had a break and some food.

We threw out more food and more fuel and then headed along the mixed ridge toward the col where we first got onto the ridge. I was tottering my way along the ridge here when suddenly my foot just went straight through the snow and I was on my face. It turned out that I had wandered slightly to the left (half a meter , no more!) and Id put my foot through a cornice. I was just lucky that I went down gently and had not collapsed the whole thing and gone for a very long ride down to the base of the mountain! – There is no way Marcus could have stopped the fall with the size and weight of my pack and the terrain we were on. It took absolutely all my strength to manage to get myself back up and onto the correct route. This would not have been the case a week before! – Just shows how tired I was after the climb and how much strength I had lost. I moved forward very slowly and carefully after that. When we caught up with the other two guys, Russell told us how he had just about fallen off the same cornice at a different point as they came down! Then we did the short rappel to the col and headed down the steep snow slope off the side of the ridge to Advance Base Camp.

The snow on this slope had been very bad when we had climbed up it over a week ago but now it was absolutely terrible. With the big packs on, every step we took we would sink in upto our groins. We half fell, rolled, staggered, and flopped our way down the hill, too tired to worry too much about avalanches – besides this was a lower risk than some of the other stuff we had just done.

We made it down to camp at 11:45pm and were absolutely beat. There ensued an interesting discussion about what to do next. We were all very tired from the climb and then the very long days of descent with big packs. The base instinct was of course to set up the tents on this safe ground and have a good long sleep. But Marcus had a different view…

Getting Out

11th June
Marcus’s point was that the snow down here in the valley was clearly in much worse condition than it had been in on the way in over a week ago. If we rested for the night and tried to haul our sleds out in the day time, the crevasses field would be far more dangerous and the 10Km ski back to base camp would be really tough work….. He was definitely right.

So, after some discussions and a rest for food and drink, we loaded up the sleds and headed off again at 2am.

There was a good crust on the snow at this hour and Marcus was a far better skier than I was. So, I went first and he went as anchor at the back of the rope as we wound our way down through the crevasse field.
He did a great job though and I think it was the right choice. If we had done it the other way around and Id been at the back. If he went into a crevasse id have had no chance of arresting the fall. As I said the snow was very firm and thus very slippery for our skis… We nearly lost a ski pole in a crevasse after one tumble but we made it through without going into any crevasses and we were then out onto the flat area of the glacier.

We decided that it was safe enough to take the ropes off (form what we knew of the rout from the trip in and the current snow conditions). So, now it was every man for himself and we all moved at our own pace skating along over the frozen snow and towing our sleds.
Predictably Marcus beat us all back to base camp with the rest of us coming in within an hour of him.

Marcus idea of skiing this section at night with the hard freeze was an excellent one and even though it was hard work and we were very tired, it made this 10Km section far easier and it only took a couple of hours.

The night was clear and fine. The temperatures were not even that cold compared to higher up the mountain (maybe neg5degC) so we just didn’t bother with setting up the tents and slept out in the open with our sleeping bags and mats on top of ground sheets.

In the morning we broke out the Sat Phone and made the necessary call to the pilot to say we were down and ready to get picked up. The weather stayed good and we were all picked up and flown back out to the airport again by mid afternoon!

This was very quickly and the four of us were a bit stunned to be so suddenly back in relative civilization and moving amongst normal people who had no idea about mountaineering or the types of things we had been doing. – Very strange!

I don’t even remember the details of getting back to Vancouver but it took us a day or so to get transport back to Whitehorse and after a single night in a hotel (with a nice dinner and a few beers) there, we were on our flight and then back home in Vancouver before we knew it.

It was all a blur but we were all basking in the pleasant glow of our successfully achieving our goal.

After-Word

And that was my experience of climbing on Mt Logan’s east Ridge.

It was a great trip.
It took about six months in preparation and about two weeks in the execution.
It cost about $2500 for each person (ex Vancouver and return)
It is definitely a significantly technical route on a very big mountain in a very remote location.

I have nothing but praise for the other members of our team and Id be happy to climb with any of them again on equally dangerous ground.
The climb definitely took a lot out of me, physically, emotionally and mentally but it was well worth it and I got a huge personal reward for our successful climb.

There is something very special about expeditions to remote and dangerous locations/objectives that I feel deep in my soul. I’ve done this sort of thing a few times and it has always been incredibly hard work but incredibly rewarding at the same time! In truth, most of the reward comes from the inner journey of discovering yourself rather than the amazing external experiences that you get along the way.
There are other mountains that I would like to climb if the right opportunity presents its self but I’m happy with what I’ve done and if it is the last big mountain I climb then Ill feel very satisfied as it is.

I heartily encourage anyone to take on their fears and to push their own limits and dare to grow

– well worth the effort :)