North Face of Mt Fay
"Alex, you're being a glacier-travel moron! You're going to die in a crevasse!" Gene's words were still echoing in my head as we reached the foot of the glacier, on our way down the Perrin route from the Neil Cogan hut, high above Moraine Lake in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. He was right.
Gene is a guide for (currently) Alpine Ascents International. I've seen him go from High School Calculus teacher and recreational climber to professional climber, and have counted myself lucky to be his partner on some of the better routes I've done; for his easy going attitude, his listening skills, and his competance at his craft. So it was hard for my pride to admit he was right, but I just was not taking the glacier travel seriously. I would learn several days later.
We started this trip on an ambitious note: when we got to Lake Louise, we didn't want to drive right up to the icefields that day, so we decided to try something local. Gene had mentioned Fay and I was game, since we could use the half day we still had to approach the Cogan hut. He had also mentioned East Ridge of Temple, but Temple really intimidates me, so I said no. We approached from Moraine Lake using the Shiessler Ledges, a long, round-about route up some low-angled cliffs between Peaks 3 and 4. It took all day, but at least we got to the Cogan hut, where there were already 12 people (!) spending the night, before the afternoon thunderstorms hit.
High above treeline, in fact the highest structure in Canada, the Neil Cogan hut is a fine place to view thunderstorms. Before the storms hit, we took the opportunity to climb Bowlen, using the easiest and shortest route to any major Canadian Rockies summit, in 20 minutes from the hut.
The next morning we rose early and went for the route, the Central Ice Bulge Direct, which is a 30 minute walk from the hut. It was about this time I discovered I had forgotton the camera, so I have no pictures. The bergschrund proved barely passable, with a bit of vertical floundering above a weak bridge to get established on the face. From there, steps kicked in the snow for the first third of the route made for easy going.
The angle was no more than 50 degrees, but I was very apprehensive: I was climbing with step-in crampons on leather boots for the first time - an unproven system. I had had crampons pop off boots before, so was not too eager to see this happen here, on a large ice face. At the end of the snow, we put in two screws and Gene started leading on my nice 70m single 9.4mm line. Perfect for this sort of work. The pitch was uneventful, and he found a little snow ledge to belay on. I followed and led the next pitch up and right to the edge of the ice face, where I thought I could find some shelter on a small rock ledge, but ran out of rope and there was no rock ledge anyway.
Gene came up and led the third pitch, tackling the ice bulge. While belaying, I had two large rocks, the only rockfall I saw all day, almost take off my balls and my head, repectively. Gene established his belay just below the cornice, and I worked through the last 10 foot vertical cornice problem on little ledges to the flat summit of Mt Fay. It was about 10:45 am. Gene followed, and while pulling over the cornice the little ledges apparently gave way, providing some brief excitment.
People seem surprised when I tell them Fay is only 3 pitches, but this is not a long route. From the Neil Cogan hut, it makes for a casual weekend outing. We tagged the summit and began the very long slog back to the hut, via the Southwest slopes. Again, back at the hut before the storms came through in the afternoon, the party of 12 had left already. I snoozed a little while Gene cooked soup. We were waiting for another party still on Fay - if they wanted to head down today, we would go with them as they knew the Perrin route, but if they wanted to hang out and go down the next day, we would hang out too. We decended the next day.
Skyladder on Mt Andromeda
Looking out over the Columbia Icefields to Snowdome from the top of Skyladder on Mt Andromeda.
The same day we decended the Perrin Route and got back to Lake Louise, we drove North. Our next goal was something larger, icy, at the Columbia Icefields. Gene has climbed in this area several times before, doing things like Silverhorn and the North Face of Athabasca. I had never even seen this area - the only time I had visited the icefields was in March of 1995 when I came with Maurice. The Icefields had been socked in, I saw nothing.
We arrived at the campground, which was completely full, and convinced two young guys from Edmunton to let us park the van in their camp spot. I provided 2 beers, and Gene provided company and entertainment for these two, who otherwise were taking a very easy camping weekend. We spent hours packing and organizing the van, then went to sleep at around 9:30 for the obligatory 3:30 am wake-up. Our goal was Andromeda, the classic Skyladder route, and we would need 2 hours to approach before sun-up.
In the morning, we approached, but got lost in the pre-dawn darkness, and ended up taking a steep scree-hill detour. Dawn found us, and another party, at the edge of the very broken Andromeda glacier, which is fed by ice from the North Face bowl. Getting onto the glacier didn't prove too difficult though, and I led up and through the seracs and then the crevasses and then across the glacier to the base of the route. Here it was clear that the brief comments about rockfall on the route in the climbing register were not exaggerated - the snow on the bottom third of the route was pocked with rocks, and there was continuous rockfall even while approaching.
A great shot of the Skyladder route. Photo credit unknown.
We crossed the 'schrund without a break and kicked steps as fast as possible up the snow on the initial section of the route. It was obvious that to minimize our exposure, we would have to move as fast as possible. At one point, while I was breaking trail up through some narrow chutes, some large rockfall came down and narrowly missed Gene and I. We used large boulders that broke the slope for protection from missiles from above, and eventually, in the lee of one of these boulders, hit the upper limit of the snowslopes. From here on it was 35 degree ice.
We simul-climbed a little higher to a ledge, where we put in a belay. As Gene led off on the 70m, I belayed and simultaneously called down the falling rock for the exposed party below us, coming up the slope. Gene led out to the 70m point by the time the other two got to the ledge, and kept climbing as I cleaned the belay and followed. His lead stretched out to 100m of 35 degree ice, where he stopped at a small blob of water ice and sank some good screws. This was ground to really test and use French technique, and we made good use of Pied Troisieme and Pied en Canard. Gene even pulled a little Piolet Ramasse. I came up and led past him, pelting him with ice from above for a while, and finally climbing up and right to snow covered ice, using running belays. My lead stretched to 150m by the time I got to a rest on the side of the slope, and the majority of the route stretched below me.
A final steep snow slope slog led us to the summit ridge, from which we got our first views of the expansive, flat summit plateau, and the true summit of Andromeda. Gene and I pondered the weather, and came to the quick conclusion to do this route a la Twight, without tagging the summit. We would claim the route, but leave the summit to the mountain Gods.
We headed down the Southern side of the mountain, intending to decend the Athabaska Glacier and the SnoCoach Road. The initial section of the glacier was heavily crevassed and covered by soft unconsolidated snow, and Gene, in the lead, fell in repeatedly. It was only through his considerable skill that we decended the upper glacier without serious incident, but it certainly put us on edge. We knew the other party had tried to decend via AA col - we were on our own out here. The bus-sized crevasses certainly put us both on edge, "feel free to get right into self-arrest postition when you see me go in like that", Gene said once. His words from the first day were certainly playing on my mind.
We eventually made it down to the ablation zone of the glacier, and hiked out the SnoCoach road to the car. Watching the tourists arrive and depart, in intervals of about 15 minutes on these huge glacier buses, certainly lent a surreal air to the climb we had just completed. When we finally reached the car it was 4:30, exactly 12 hours from when we had started on the approach. On the way out, we saw the other two, high up on the mountain at the AA col, still hours out. They would eventually get back 4 hours later, after decending what many people have termed a hell of a sandbag of a descent.