 |
IX |
I had set my alarm for three in the morning every day on the ice cap, prepared to climb. Most days, the alarm proved comically optimistic given the heavy precipitation that would blow throughout the night, but on Wednesday we woke to a clear sky, its colors warming from the blinking summer night. Grabbing our pre-packed bags, we zipped up to the bergschrund, swapping skis for climbing boots, and continued up a steep snow slope to a ridge, roughly following a melted boot track we left on a scouting mission a couple days before.
The snow curved in a grand parabola, pointing upwards past blocks of unconsolidated granite diorite patched with snow and towards a menacing gendarme that marked the start of the summit ridge. Our route. Leading this section rarely felt secure. Protection was minimal, the snow steep. I was thankful to have two ice tools, which allowed me to move between wet rock and shallow snow relatively comfortably. After a handful of pitches, we arrived below the gendarme. I chose to climb below it, hoping the ridge would be dry enough to allow passage on its north side, an incorrect assumption. It was on this mini-reconnaissance, however, that I would peek over the Thumb's plumb, massive, unclimbed northwest face for the first time, a singular moment of the trip. The joy of the exposure was soon muffled by the meter of snow pasted mercilessly to the north side of the gendarme. Down I went, and found a quite fun variation that would take me to the uphill side of the gendarme. I later learned this variation was pioneered by the gatekeeper of the Stikine, Dieter Klose and the late Mike Bearzi.