Mt Hunter: North Buttress

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Avery

climber
New Zealand
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2016 - 12:15am PT
Moonflower: Doug Shepherd, Chris Sheridan, and Phil Wortmann. 2014.

By Phil Wortmann

Doug Shepherd, Chris Sheridan, and I climbed the North Buttress on a long weekend in May 2014. We left work on Wednesday, landing in Anchorage at midnight, then flew in to KIA mid morning. after trying unsuccessfully to nap, we setup base camp and skied off at around 7 or 8 pm and were climbing around 9. We definitely started off in a sleep deficit and I know I was feeling it hard after the first 20 hours. We got a little off route on our first block, but gained the prow through two scrappy mixed pitches, which I led and felt they were mentally more taxing than the prow itself. I remember thin ice and small, sparse gear there. At the Shaft, we traversed to Deprivation and followed it to above the Vision. This was essential for both our safety and time. We bivied for about three hours before the come-again exit and then rapped the wall from above the Exit. Our KIA-KIA time it think was around 50-51 hours. We flew out of the range Sunday, and were all back to work in Colorado on Tuesday. Overall, the route was leaner than I've seen in the other pics of previous ascents, but still felt pretty reasonable.


Thanks to Phil Wortmann
Avery

climber
New Zealand
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 28, 2016 - 08:25pm PT
Deprivation: Alastair Robertson and Will Harris. 2013.

By Alastair Robertson

ALASKA!
Right, well I've just got home from my much anticipated trip to Alaska. To cut a long story short we flew out to Kahiltna Glacier in perfect weather and managed to get a couple of great routes in before jumping on the North Buttress of Mt Hunter, making an ascent of Deprivation with the Bibler Come Again finish to the top of the difficulties (top of the last rock band). As we descended however, the weather warmed up considerably forcing us to abandon plans for any other ice routes as the whole glacier started to melt out alarmingly. With the big tick under our belts though, we were pretty happy to hire a car and go on a sport climbing/animal spotting road-trip for a few days before flying home. An awesome trip!


Background

Will and I have been planning this trip since I realized that I had a month off from uni between mid-May and mid-June. Alaska seemed the obvious place to go for what would have to be a 'quick-hit' alpine/ice expedition with only 4 weeks to spare. I had initially been keen to target an ascent of the stunning Cassin Ridge on Denali, a classic alpine test-piece which is committing and high, but with moderate climbing. Will fancied something a bit meatier however, and informed me that despite a bit of research he hadn't come across a British ascent of Deprivation, a Mark Twight route on the towering North Buttress of Mt Hunter. I was well aware of the 'Moonflower' buttress and it's reputation but had never really considered it as something that a punter such as myself would be able to climb. Following some reading, and looking at photos, and studying Mark Twight's topo of the route (you just have to ignore the skull & crossbones', and the "psycho-death-mixed" annotations that litter the page) the climbing all seemed possible and the psyche/trepidation began to build.


And We're Off

We left the UK on the 18th May, and after a day of food and gear shopping in Anchorage we headed up to the little village of Talkeetna where 7 climbers (and all their gear) were shoe-horned into a DeHallivand Sea Otter for the short 40 minute flight onto the glacier. The flight was great fun, and puts not only the size of the mountains, but also the skill of the specialized 'bush pilots' into perspective as they weave through the peaks before daintily landing a fully laden plane onto a makeshift runway on the glacier. Once on the glacier we set up camp a little up the hill from the airstrip in the vicinity of a few other climbing teams, leaving the pitches next to the runway for the Denali climbers. The North Buttress of Mount Hunter seems to loom over the base camp despite the base being an hours ski away - an indication of its size - and I admit to feeling somewhat apprehensive when I worked out that I hadn't swung an ice axe in anger since I climbed the Droites with Will in 2011. Nothing like some huge Alaskan faces to get back into the groove... We found an abandoned campsite which we easily parasitised, meaning we didn't have to dig our own walls, toilet area or kitchen - and we were set.


Getting Ready

The weather was still perfect 5 days after landing on the glacier and we were running out of excuses to not get on something a bit bigger. Unfortunately the crux pitch of Deprivation, usually a steep pitch of fairly unprotected snow-ice I believe, had fallen down a week or so before - a risk we took I suppose with being out relatively late in the season. A fairly strong American team who we were camped next to had previously been up the lower slopes to recce Deprivation, and then made an attempt a day later but were eventually turned back by the 'missing' crux pitch through the first rock band. They had now turned their attention to the classic Bibler-Klewin or 'Moonflower' route on the North Buttress - the established hard test-piece on the buttress which saw numerous attempts and several successes during our time on the glacier. We were both keen to try and get on Deprivation as it was the route we'd both been reading about for months, so with this in mind we planned to climb the 'Moonflower' (Bibler-Klewin) as far as the first iceband where we could then traverse across to join Deprivation, hopefully climbing this to the third iceband where we could access the Bibler Come Again finish (this is not the original finish to Deprivation, but it is probably a more logical finish from where Deprivation joins the third iceband and seems to be the most popular way to climb the route in recent years).


To clarify, although the North Buttress on Hunter is often referred to as the Moonflower Buttress, 'Moonflower' normally means the classic North Buttress route, which was first climbed by Stump-Aubrey in 1981 to the top of the buttress, but is often called the 'Bibler-Klewin' as they were the first team to climb to the summit (in 1983), and their variation on the route is the one which is usually followed (they climbed a slightly different start, and the 'Bibler Come Again' exit in the fourth rockband).

Deprivation - North Buttress, Mount Hunter

We packed as light as we dared and set off early on Sunday morning with food for 2 days and enough gas to melt snow for 3 days (at a push), and crossed the bergshrund at the toe of the buttress at around 5:30am. The original plan was to climb the 'Mugs variation start' to the Moonflower (as this was the easiest start this year), and then follow the Moonflower to the first iceband. As it was, we went wrong almost immediately and followed a vague set of tracks into the starting gullies on Deprivation. Will led off on the first block of pitches and we climbed several hundred metres of brilliant ice runnels, moving together apart from the odd steeper pitch or 80 degree steps. We were moving well until Will traversed left into the continuation of our route, entering what looked like a large chimney system just out of sight. He disappeared round the corner before climbing back down out of it to belay on one of the walls. When he brought me over to join him I immediately recognized the chimney system as being the crux of Deprivation - only the crux pitch was missing - which was exactly the dead-end we were trying to avoid climbing into.



There was surprisingly little discussion about what to do next, Will handed me the rack with a cheery "your lead", I left my sack at the belay and set off. There was a steep ice chimney visible about 40m above, but the ice smear we were on terminated in a series of gently overhanging granite walls which I clearly wasn't going to be able to ascend. There was a thin crack over on the left wall though, so I placed a screw at the top of the ice and traversed left into the crack - at its top there was a roof and then a steep groove which looked like it might contain ice in the back. A mix of aid and 'french-free' allowed me to slowly make progress up the crack to reach the roof, but the groove above was steep, smooth and full of soft snow. I carried on up the groove, but I was in full-on aid mode by now. With no seam in the back of the groove for good gear, I was aiding for placement after placement on a sling round the tip of my axe picks, with a hammered wire and a tied-off blade being the only reasonable gear I can remember in the groove. I managed to get stood on a small block at the top of the groove and stood there, scared, with the good ice visible only about 6m above me. Back into free-climbing mode I somehow made it to the ice above, but not until I'd done some of most terrifying 'front-points-on-matchstick-edges-and-crimping-like-a-demon-on-verglassed-seams' climbing I've ever experienced. Suffice to say that my first belay screw was placed in double-quick time. As we didn't have ascenders Will then seconded the pitch as best he could, wearing his sack and hauling mine up alongside him which took a huge amount of energy. Following that I led the short vertical ice chimney above, and then Will led a long hard pitch of sustained poor ice to an overhanging chimney exit which thankfully deposited us on the first icefield at 5pm. Tired but full of confidence - having climbed the technical crux of the route - we kicked a ledge and sat down for a couple of hours to melt snow and eat a dehydrated meal.


We left the ledge at 7pm climbing up and left across the first icefield towards the large ramp system that splits the second rock band, stopping only briefly at 8pm to pick up the weather forecast on our radio - "high pressure persisting". Unfortunately despite what the forecast may say, the 'big three' mountains in the Alaska Range (Denali, Foraker, Hunter) are all capable of creating their own weather and that night it was the turn of Mt Hunter. The cloud rolled in, the visibility dropped and it was snowing quite hard as we made progress up the ice ramps above - with retrospect the arrival of this wet snow probably signified the rise in temperatures that started to strip all the lower elevation ice routes over the next 24-48 hours. Then the spindrift started. If you listened carefully you might get a couple of seconds warning, as the eerie silence was broken by a faint whooshing sound before the barrage of snow arrived, trying it's hardest to fill your jacket, and gloves, and sack with soggy cold. I'd got quite wet clearing snow leading the crux pitch and was suffering from the cold through the night as the wet spindrift turned the down in my belay jacket to mush and sapped the heat from me on the belays.

We kept climbing through the night to keep warm, making progress up through the second ice band and onto the rightwards traverse that gains the long diagonal snowfield in the third rockband. I think we may have gone the wrong way here, taking the hastily drawn line on one of the topos a little too literally and ending up on a narrowing snowfield that stopped just short of connecting to the big snowfield we needed to be on. An overhanging rock section barred the way to the snowfield which was only about 10m away, yet was out of reach. The only way to access it was for me to squirm through a flared and snow-filled stomach traverse, aiding on ice screws placed in a detached ice block in the back of the cave. On the other side a bit of scratching on snow-covered rock gained the snowfield, and Will seconded (carrying both packs again) with the help of a backrope on the other side of the cave. The pitch had taken me a long time and it was now Will's turn to get rather cold - we were both struggling in the wet and constant spindrift avalanches pouring over us.

We knew there was a chopped bivi ledge on the third iceband which we were aiming for but we were both shattered from over 24 hours on the go - climbing much slower than we usually would and pitching ground we would normally move together on with ease. Eventually the snow stopped, and we reached the bivi ledge on the third iceband at about 10:30am. Here we stopped for some food, melted some snow and slept for a couple of hours until the sun came onto the face. In the afternoon we ate, drank and soaked up the suns warmth until we felt a bit more energetic.

Leaving the ledge at about 5:30pm we moved together up the icefield for several ropelengths. As for all of the icebands on the route it consisted of hard ice covered by a layer of snow which made for awkward and quite time consuming climbing. Once into the fourth rockband we climbed the Bibler Come Again exit, where Will led a long pitch of fantastic icy steps and runnels, and then me leading the final 'overhanging offwidth' pitch which is supposed to be M5 but felt reasonably steady. From here about 4 pitches easy snow/ice slopes lead to the top of the buttress but we were more than happy to descend after the night of spindrift hell which we'd just endured. With retrospect, it would probably have been easier for us to climb up to the bivi at the top, and get a descent nights sleep before descending the next day but we were both quite keen to get back to our tent!


The descent

The descent was more of an epic that the climb in many ways. We decided to descend the Bibler-Klewin rather than Deprivation, as the former is a more direct route and was already equipped with v-threads from previous descents. We good off to a good start when the pulled ropes jammed round a flake on the first abseil, "If you go and sort this one I'll get the next one" said Will, something he'd later regret saying. I re-led the bottom of the pitch to free the ropes, climbing back down to the belay. From there the descent went quite well until we were descending 'The Shaft' pitches in the second rockband where the ropes were getting wet and then freezing; the ropes were freezing like cables, belay devices and 'biners were icing up and our gloves were frozen into useless claws. Eventually the ropes jammed solid, they had frozen into the ice in the time it took us to abseil, so Will valiantly prussicked a full 60m up a single 8mm ice line to free them. Fortunately I had a ropeman on my harness which Will used to jug up - prussic loops were next to useless on the iced ropes so without it we would have been stuck there unable to ascend the rope. I think one of those will become a permanent feature on my alpine/winter rack.


After Will had spent a couple of hours re-ascending and re-rigging the abseils we carried on descending off the in situ v-threads down the Moonflower. We were both struck by how good the climbing looked; pitch after pitch of brilliant sustained ice climbing. I can see why the Bibler-Klewin 'Moonflower' is an absolute classic and whilst perhaps not as difficult as the crux on Deprivation it looks like a more complete and sustained route - definitely something I'd be keen to return for.


Our final stroke of bad luck came after abseiling down a rock wall to an in situ ab station about 50m above the bergshrund. We pulled the ropes, and had the knot in our hands when the rope above flicked through the last anchor and wrapped itself round a flake, jammed solid. The pitch we'd just abseiled was near vertical rock wall with few gear placements so climbing or prussicking the pitch wasn't really an option. We pretty quickly decided to ditch the rope, untying the stuck one and carrying on down using a single rope for a 30m abseil. This reached a short snow slope just above the bergshrund at about 7am, but there were no obvious anchors or ice anywhere so we built a large snow-bollard. Will went first and the bollard held up well until he started the free-hanging section over the bergshrund when, suddenly, the rope shot through the bollard and was gone. I didn't even have time to yell a warning as Will fell over the 'shrund and bounced all the way down the icy slope below onto the glacier, eventually rolling to a halt in a horrible tangle of rope and gear.

He lay motionless for a couple of seconds as I started trying to figure out how on earth I was going to get down to him (with no rope), but then he picked himself up and dusted himself down. He was pretty beaten up, and had some nasty scratches on his hand where he lost a mitt, but was fortunately essentially unscathed. He then climbed back up the snow slope to below the bergshrund and threw me up an end of the rope - I'd managed to pound a peg in behind a rock flake which I cautiously abseiled off to cross the 'shrund.

It was about 7:30am when we reached the skis again, wearily packed the rope up and headed back to our tent so we were about 50 hours round trip from the base of the route. The next couple of days were spent recuperating: eating, drinking and sleeping in the sun. The American team who were thwarted by Deprivation had started up the Bibler-Klewin the evening before us, but had retreated during the second night due to the snowfall and huge spindrift avalanches which were also hammering us (although the Bibler-Klewin is a more natural funnel so I suspect there was a lot more stuff falling down it than Deprivation).

The next few days continued to be unseasonably warm. No other teams tried to climb the North Buttress and the ice runnels were shrinking daily on the routes in the Kahiltna area. We attempted to go and rescue our stuck rope a few days later but the snow wasn't freezing overnight and the bergshrund was pouring with water at 7am in the morning so we decided it wasn't worth the risk on a big thawing face. We flew back out to Talkeetna the next day for a slap-up feed and some beer-fueled celebrations in the local bar with a couple of Swedes who'd just come back from a successful ascent of the Cassin Ridge.


http://alastairrobertson.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/alaska.html?m=1

Thanks to Alastair Robertson



Avery

climber
New Zealand
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 29, 2016 - 04:20pm PT
Deprivation: Alastair Robertson and Will Harris. 2013.


Thanks to Alastair Robertson
Avery

climber
New Zealand
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 30, 2016 - 12:35am PT
Deprivation: Alastair Robertson and Will Harris. 2013.

By Alastair Robertson

http://alastairrobertson.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/alaska-logistics-gear-and-tactics.html?m=1

Alaska - Logistics, Gear and Tactics

A quick post with some logistics beta for anyone else wanting to climb in Alaska. We got quite a lot of really useful information from others who have made the trip out there so here is my take on it.

Getting There

Flights to Anchorage cost us about £700 from the UK, going via Seattle (which is still a three and a half hour flight from Anchorage).

We spent a whole day in Anchorage which was useful to get all of our shopping done, but would certainly be possible to arrive there in the morning and get all your shopping done before catching a transfer the next day. We stayed at the Arctic Adventure Hostel which was cheap, friendly and walking distance from REI and Wal-Mart - highly recommended.

For technical gear, go to either REI or Alaska Mountaineering & Hiking (AMH) which is just across the street. The latter is a small independent climbing shop where you'll get good advice from 'proper' climbers!

There are various options for transfer up to Talkeetna, and the prices are all similar (in the region of $50-60). We used Yukon Transfers on the way up, and the scheduled Park Connection Service on the way back. Both were fine although the Park Connection won't drop you at your hostel (it stops downtown and then at the airport). Purple Transfers is another company that seems to be popular with climbers.

For flying into the glacier we used Talkeetna Air Taxi as they came highly recommended from everyone who we spoke to (flights are about $600 with whoever you fly with). I can't fault the service we got from TAT, they helped us sort our gear, provided a taxi service for us in Talkeetna to visit the Ranger Centre and buy gear and then managed to fly us in the same afternoon. They also have a free bunkhouse if you are waiting for a flight in, or a connection to Anchorage. It's probably also worth mentioning that they also have planes equipped with the navigational gear to allow them to fly in limited visibility, which could make the difference between getting flown out, or waiting out a storm on the glacier.

White gas is stored on the glacier so you just pay the air taxi company and collect it in base camp. 1 gallon per person per three weeks is recommended although you can easily collect leftover gas from other climbers, or buy more if you really need.

Food

As we were staying at Kahiltna Base Camp our food didn't need to get carried anywhere so we didn't pack light. A big shop in Wal-Mart provided our rations for the trip and it was well worth paying for a bit of excess baggage with TAT to have the luxury of tinned fruit and bacon (though not together). Be prepared to fork out a fair bit of cash as food is expensive in Alaska (especially anything fresh).
Things that were good:
 bagels - great for lunch on climbing days and rest days though expensive
 tortilla wraps - cheap alternative for rest day lunches but got a bit squashed on the way out
 pancake mix & maple syrup - amazing rest day breakfasts! 1 box did about 5 breakfasts each.
 sachets of porridge mix - a brilliant buy, instant hot breakfasts that just need water. Easy to make up in the tent with a jetboil for those early start days where it's cold outside!
 tins of chilli - good hearty meals
 tinned fruit - good for puddings, you start to crave fruit and veg after a week or so
 big tub of ragu pasta sauce - useful for making all sorts of meals
 bacon - mmmm...
 peanut butter and cream cheese - for bagels or wraps
 budget cereal bars - really quite tasty
 boxes of just-add-boiling-water macaroni cheese

With a bit of care it's actually quite easy to make a snow fridge and keep bacon, fresh mince, cheese, eggs and possibly some veg fresh for quite a while.

Things that were bad:
 fun sized chocolates - small does not equal fun, buy full-size bars (but not Hershey's, it's foul)
 blueberry bagels - taste a bit weird
 baked beans - just didn't get eaten
 smelly cheese - got very smelly
 the fact that we didn't take out beers
 eggs - got broken then froze, although you can buy 'liquid eggs' in cartons

Camping

 Get a stove board (or two) of a good size. It doesn't have to be thick so some 5mm ply would work fine. Makes cooking/chopping/preparing so much easier
 Buy a large (4-8L) pot and use this for melting snow (and melting snow only). Always keep the pot half full of water. Overnight, wrap the pot in a bin-liner and seal it in little snow cave somewhere in the kitchen to stop it from freezing overnight.
 Make sure you have two MSR-type stoves that work well, and lots of lighters. It's nice if one of them is a 'gourmet' style stove with a decent simmer function (e.g. Dragonfly or similar).
 Dig a pit in the porch of your tent for boots etc.
 Wetwipes are useful for washing although a little bottle of handsoap is nice when you want a proper wash with water. Don't forget washing up stuff, and a teatowel is useful.
 A cheap walkie-talkie ($25 from REI) will pick up the weather forecast on the buttress (Ch 1, 8pm)

Kit

 A thermarest and a karrimat/foam bivi mat are nice to have for added insulation. Take a good sleeping bag as, although it was very mild when we were there, -30C is not unheard of in May and that's COLD!
 A small food/kit tent was really useful. A large fly-only living tent, or a one pole teepee-style tent would be a good alternative as you can then dig your living/kitchen and storage areas underneath it.
 Sunhat essential, spare sunglasses would be good as you'd be stuffed if you lost your only pair.
 Snowstakes can be useful for crossing bergshrunds but are not essential by any means.
 Don't forget the sunscreen.
 A snowsaw is really useful for cutting blocks
 It's nice to have plenty of ab tat in case you need to equip a couple of descents. If it's cold enough abseil straight off the thread rather than adding tat.
 Tent pegs are pretty useless. This is where snowstakes come in handy. Alternatively you can fill any spare stuffsacks and the tent bags with snow and bury them.
 Figure out how to leave your inner boots on and take your outer boots off with the crampons still attached - useful for bivis!
 We climbed in ski touring boots which worked OK, although mountain boots would have been a little bit comfier over a long day (though not £500 comfier as we both already owned ski boots!). Some of the Americans couldn't believe we were even considering climbing the North Buttress in ski boots, but I don't think they have the Chamonix ski-climb-ski-beers mentality that we do this side of the pond!

Tactics

For a big route such as those on the North Buttress all of the attempts we saw were fairly light and fast, big push type efforts. Unless it's really cold I don't think a tent would be worth the weight (not that there's anywhere to pitch it unless you're going over the top). If the weather is that bad you can always descend. The bivi ledges marked on the topo all seemed reasonable, although they'd proabably take a bit of chopping if you were the first team of the season (shovel would be useful then).
As well as what I wore (thermals, adidas tracksuit, shell salopettes; baselayer, R1 hoody, goretex shell) I carried:
 Goretex bivi bag
 Very light Rab Quantum 250 sleeping bag (mountain marathon bag - ~600g)
 Down jacket (Rab Neutrino ~600g)
 50cm of bivi mat
 Spare light pair of gloves, spare mitts and balaclava

Will didn't have a light sleeping bag so carried a pair of synthetic insulated trousers instead, and also carried a mid-weight synthetic belay jacket (Arc'teryx Atom) as well as his down jacket. He had a 3/4 length bivi mat too.

The pro's of the puffy trousers are that they zip on, removing the need to take your boots off to get into a sleeping bag, and can also be worn for climbing/descending if you get really cold (Will wore them on the descent with no problems). The con's are that they aren't as warm as a down bag. I think they worked really well for him as it was very mild, but I'd have been very glad of my sleeping bag had we been on the route a week or so earlier and trying to get some sleep in the shade. The bivi mat was more useful for sitting on rather than sleeping on to be honest, so you could probably get away with carrying one between two and sharing it at bivi stops. Some form of belay jacket is a must, especially for long belays on technical ground.

Our group kit/food was:
 Jetboil
 Single plastic bowl (10g)
 Gas (1x100 and 1x200 canister)
 3x MountainHouse dehydrated meal (~140g and 800kcal each)
 4x porridge oats sachets (~35g each?)
 Personal supply of cereal bars/chocolate bars/bagels (probably ~800-1200g each when we left the ground). Will was a fan of energy gels whilst I preferred bagels. We found some yummy energy chews - endorsed by Lance Armstrong - which worked well (it was probably the EPO)
 We each carried a knife and v-threader. We had ~15m of ab tat between us.
 Other odds and ends (goggles, camera, laminated topos, radio etc.)

We each carried 2L of water

If I was to do it again I think I'd carry pretty much exactly the same stuff. I reckon we got the kit just right.

What I learned:
 DRINK MORE! I should have drunk more, both whilst climbing and also at bivi stops. I consumed in the region of 7-8L over 50 hours which was stupid. Force yourself to drink even if you're cold, I think my main problem was not wanting to open my bag whilst being hammered in spindrift. It also takes discipline to drink if you're busy belaying a leader, or moving together. Drinking whilst you have your second on autobloc is much easier.
 Drink a full 2L whilst you are at a brew stop, and then leave with a full 2L for the next block
 Brew up regularly, I think you HAVE to stop at least every 12 hours to keep functioning well. That will give you a consumption of 8L per 24 hrs. Whilst you can get away with only drinking a couple of litres on a 24hr route, that isn't sustainable for 2 days.
 The jetboil works really well for melting snow. A small plastic cup would have been useful for collecting snow and pouring it into the jetboil. A 100 canister is enough gas to melt ~8L of snow, and give you hot water for a dehydrated meal (temperature dependent I guess).
 Electrolyte powder or tablets are quite useful, they give a bit of taste and help ward off cramp (we were both suffering from cramp at the second bivi).
 Don't underestimate the reviving effect of a hot meal and a few hours sleep. Had we carried on to the cornice bivi and got some sleep before descending, then I suspect we wouldn't have had the epic descent that we did.
 The Mountainhouse meals are really tasty - I'd carry 4 meals and no porridge if I was to do it again.

Rack

Our rack was quite rock-heavy as we knew there was some hard climbing on Deprivation. For the Moonflower I'd probably leave some of the rock gear behind (maybe take 6-8 wires and a half rack of cams) and carry an extra couple of screws as it's all ice apart from the two aid/pendulum pitches which have in situ gear. More stubbies and 12cm screws could be useful.
We carried:
 13 screws
 set of wires (2-11)
 Friends: blue alien, F0.5, yellow alien, F1, F1.5, red camalot, yellow camalot
 2 blades, 1 lost arrow, 1 medium pecker
 10 draws
 3-4 slings

Hope that bits of this are useful to somebody!

Thanks to Alastair Robertson
F

climber
away from the ground
Oct 10, 2016 - 08:05pm PT
Bump for Begguya
Avery

climber
New Zealand
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 18, 2016 - 03:03pm PT
Christmas Bump!
i-b-goB

Social climber
Wise Acres
Dec 18, 2016 - 03:11pm PT
Kick @ss!
Avery

climber
New Zealand
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2017 - 04:16am PT
Bump for a brilliant chunk of mountain
Spiny Norman

Social climber
Boring, Oregon
May 24, 2017 - 09:47am PT
May, 2017 -- Colin Haley North buttress solo: 'schrund to summit in 8 hours.
JuhoK

Mountain climber
Imatra
Jun 30, 2017 - 02:00pm PT
On the 12.-15.5.2017 we did the 6th ascent of the Grison-Tedeschi (aka French route). You can read my blog here. My English is not perfect so don't mind about that when reading.


Our second objective was Slovak Direct but after my partner got bronchitis, it was over for us. Recently Luca Moroni and David Bacci did the 8th ascent of the Slovak. 5 teams aimed for it this year, but only one succeeded.
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