In the beginning of May 2010, Chris Clark and I flew into the Waddington Range with the goal of skiing off the summit of the area's second highest peak, Mount Tiedemann, and down its North Face into the Radiant Cirque. This would be the third time I'd gone after some sort of objective in this Cirque, which I consider to be one of the scarier mountain environments I've been in - a lot of exposure to a lot of hazards a lot of the time...
Round 1 had taken place back in the fall of 2008 when Michael Down and I completed a new route on Sera V's northern side, but failed to summit the mountain itself (report here).
Round 2 never received a write-up. Michael Down and I had gone back in the summer of 2009 and attempted a new route on Asperity's north side, but were shut down and spent the majority of our time in our moderately exposed tent waiting anxiously for Mike King to take a breather from fighting forest fires so he could fly in to pick us up. A mentally tough couple days (no actual close calls but still scary!).
This trip, round 3, would be my first time ever in the Waddington range with skis so I really had no clue what to expect. I'd been below Tiedemann's north face on two trips previous and knew the line would go in the right conditions, but to start I needed three things: a plan of attack, a weather window, and a solid partner.
The plan for acquiring a plan of attack was fairly simple - ask Michael Down a gazillion questions until it all became clear. Michael had been part of the first team to ascend the face, back in '82, and so was a terrifically invaluable source of information (as he is with most things relating to the Waddington range). After this interrogation and bugging John Scurlock (site here) to send me some photos, I felt I had three good options for how to go about approaching and skiing the face.
A solid parter - I felt really fortunate to know a bunch of people who more than qualified as this, and in the end Chris Clark stepped up and made the commitment to come along. Chris's calmness and wisdom, brought on by years of gettin'er done in the mountains all over the world, proved to be the most important contributor to our eventual success.
Weather/conditions - well these could have been much better and they could have been much worse. I started to have my doubts a couple weeks before our proposed fly-in date when Craig McGee, perhaps the most accomplished Wad Range ski mountaineer around, sent out a report following his April trip to the area and called conditions "the most difficult he'd experienced in his 20 years of guiding in the range". Temperatures had been cold and a lot of faces were blue and debatably not skiable. I corresponded with Craig (whom I've never actually met) in several e-mails which was ultimately encouraging as he continually reminded me that "you never know until you go"...
Still, flying into the Waddington range isn't cheap and it was tough for Chris and I to commit to taking that plunge, but a high-pressure ridge appeared to be setting-up and we managed to convince ourselves that we'd be able to find something skiable if we went, or at the very least summit something or other.
We were delayed in Tatla Lake for a night, waiting as the clouds dropped the last of their snows on that tiny little town. The next day began foggily so we killed time playing basketball with Les, our pilot, until it looked clear enough down the valley to give it a go. Mike King's ranch/heli base on Bluff Lake is a little piece of heaven on earth and as the sun started poking through the fog it was easy to start second guessing our decision to leave this comfort and safety only to be dropped somewhere far less hospitable. But so it goes...
Suby's first trip to Mike King's Ranch.
Bluff Lake and White Saddle Mountain.
The flight-in was pretty spectacular with perfect visibility and almost no wind at all - a rarity for the area which allowed us to really examine and photograph our potential escape options from higher on the mountain, as a backup for poor weather. Les was then able to put us down on a bench on the Chaos Glacier, which had been our preferred drop-point from the start. So far so good.
Tiedemann's North Face - As seen on the flight in.
Skis/skins on and roped for glacier travel, we toured up to the face leads to the Tiedemann/Damocles col, our first objective and planned camp site. With the exception of the altitude and a moderately stupid episode involving a bergschrund, everything was going pretty smoothly. Soon, however, the snow gave out - skis off, crampons on - and we were on HARD ice for the rest of the way to the col.
When you've been ski-touring all winter, it's so easy to forget just how time consuming basic travel in a technical alpine environment can be. This was a pretty harsh reminder - running belay on pretty simple ground, but with the size/weight of our packs, the altitude and hard ice, progress was really slow. We crested the col just before sunset, eventually found a spot to dig in a tent platform and setup camp.
Camp
Considering it was the second week of May, temperatures were pretty cold, dropping past -20C at night. As a result we were moving a little slow in the morning, and so decided to wander up Tiedemann's ridge without skis to see if we could get out onto the face and asses conditions. This ascent was mostly straight forward, with a small mixed step just above camp followed by a ridge walk on hard snow. Once high enough, we took turns belaying each other out onto the face to take a look. Considering how much blue-ice we were seeing around us, it's fair to say we were both essentially doing our due diligence, but deep down felt the line wouldn't go and we'd be skunked. Getting out onto the face changed this a little - there was definitely a lot of exposed ice around, but there also appeared to be a ribbon of skiable snow that ran the length of the face on lookers right. There was some serious role-over though, and it was hard to tell how deep the snow actually was. We'd already crossed some ground where hard ice was covered by a couple cm's of light snow; definitely not something you could get a ski to grip on.
Mount Combatant with the upper Chaos glacier below.
We returned to camp, having gathered about as much information as we could, brewed up and tried to relax....
Julian trying to relax.
Chris actually relaxing.
Morning broke much like the day before: cold and clear, though this time there was a dense blanket of clouds below us over the Scimitar, Chaos and Radiant glaciers. Drink, eat, pack and we started back up Tiedemann's ridge, this time with skis.
Chris on water detail
Looking into the Radiant Cirque, with Sera's 5, 4 and 3 visible.
On our way back up the ridge.
Standing atop Mt Tiedemann was the oddest summiting I'd ever experienced. Though it's the second tallest peak in the range, our style hadn't been pure as our heli drop on the Chaos glacier had greatly facilitated our approach by avoiding some hazards and the sheer vertical faced when ascending from the valley bottom. We'd been aware of this all along though, and weren't too concerned since our objective was to ski Tiedemann's north face and not simply summit the mountain. Still, this attitude led to an emotionally bizarre summit experience since we still hadn't even started skiing and "success" remained relatively far away.
Yay summit...
We didn't talk much up there, both retreating into our own little worlds as we prepared to descend. We knew from the ascent that the portion of ridge we'd have to ski to get into the face would be pretty intense. Glare-like snow and huge exposure. I had noted that for the first few turns a fall to the right would be unavoidably fatal, while a fall to the left would allow for about three metres of self-arrest room before it too would spell the end. But at the same time, I knew it could be skied relatively safely. So much of skiing is about trusting our body and our instincts, and believing that our auto-pilot has your back. Just before dropping in, Chris delivered this simple but very relevant piece of advice: "OK, so no over-the-handlebars, butt-checks only". Sometimes it's most important to be reminded of the things we already know well.
Dropping!
As expected, the ridge was pretty gnarly and survival skiing was the name of the game. Soon Chris was venturing out onto the face proper. Snow looked good, but with every turn there was a fear that we'd hit a sheet of ice under a bit of fresh and go for a long ride. We leap-frogged, slowly gaining more confidence in the conditions. It wasn't until the last "pitch" when Chris announced "this is fun!" that I realised it really was, and started to enjoy turns on the last, slightly lower angled section (45 degrees?) of the face.
In the thick of it.
Ski tracks shots are always essential.
This is fun? Oh yeah - this IS fun! Lower on the face.
Then there was the bergschrund. I hadn't really anticipated much trouble here and even as we arrived above it I was all for the "send it!" approach. Fortunately Chris, in his wisdom, didn't feel the same so I setup a belay for him to inspect the drop from closer-up. Turned out we were looking at a drop in the 40 to 60 foot range... Ooops! We tried to dig deep to find some ice for a rappel anchor, but of course now that we needed ice there was none to be found anywhere. We had no snow pickets and felt the snow was too unconsolidated at this spot to build a natural snow anchor. Eventually Chris, while on belay, managed to find a way below a serac, traversing to easier ground and a spot where the bergschrund was only a couple feet tall. We unroped and pointed it off the face trying to get to our prospective safe spot as quickly as possible. I was now back in the upper Radiant cirque proper for the third time - wooo hooo!
Deaking the 'schrund.
The cirque felt no less dangerous than it ever had in the past. Huge teetering seracs high above us everywhere had me feeling like the whole place could destruct at any moment. Somehow, Chris seemed to be enjoying his visit to the upper Radiant and was later surprised when I announced that I might be done with that particular area for good!
Chris happy to be in the Radiant Cirque; Julian looking forward to getting out.
Part of Tiedemann's north face (foreshortened view).
Getting out of there. We'd scoped our exist from our camp the day before. A couple zig-zags with skis and skins on would lead to another bergshrund and then a steep, funnel-like couloir that topped out right next to our tent. Fairly straight forward with a bit of thrashing through loose-ish snow at the steepest section (65-70 degrees?) and by mid/late afternoon we were back in camp, feeling REALLY good!
The way back to camp.
Home stretch
We weren't moving too quickly the next morning, but the plan was to break camp and begin our exit which would take us over Mnt Combatant to a long ski run down to the Scimitar Glacier. Combatant's north face looked steep and icy, and the prospect of climbing this with 70 lbs packs (once skis were attached), 4 ice screws and only one technical ice-tool each was a little daunting. More importantly, having succeeded on our main objective, our motivation was waning and it was pretty easy to make the decision to radio Les and ask for a pickup where he'd dropped us off.
With camp broken and bags packed, we briefly entertained the idea of skiing down to the Chaos glacier, thinking we could simply edge across the hard ice towards softer snow. I put my skis on and with Chris's belay started out. I only made it about two metres before I realised there was NO WAY this ice could be skied. Gingerly, I made my way back to Chris so we could come up with another plan. In the end, we had to simul-downclimb most of the face before putting on our skis for a couple gentle turns at the bottom.
A short lived experiment. It looked skiable, but way too icy.
Nice turns once we could finally ski.
One hour later Les was cruising up in the heli and soon we were flying back towards Bluff Lake.
Les zeroing-in
All told, this was an amazing trip. We lucked-out with weather and conditions still allowed us to eek out our descent. I know we both learned a ton too - on the drive back to Vancouver we compiled a multi-page list of all we would have done differently, or would do differently next time. Live and learn right? Personally, I'm just very grateful Chris was able to help make this happen and for the support we both received from a whole bunch of people. Thanks!
The Line
All photos are credited to Chris Clark.
