THE COLORADO COLLEGE ALPINE JOURNAL 2007 Cover—Rappelling River Tower Joe Forrester This Page: Happy Dome Renan Ozturk Senior Editors: Michael Wejchert, Joe Forrester Guest Editors: Brian Sohn, Chris Barlow Finance:Kylie Manson Thanks To: Debby Fowler, Steve Crosby, Dan Crossey, the Climber’s Association of Colorado College, and the Contribu- tors. Generously Supported by Colorado College’s Life of the Mind Grant and the Ritt Kellogg Foundation 2 Madaleine Sorkin on Half Dome Mikey Schaeffer CONTENTS Letter from the Editors— 4 Climbs : North America— 5-31 Asia— 31-34 Africa— 35-36 Europe—36-37 Community Happenings— 37 Endnotes— 38 3 Letter from the Editors As Mike and I slowly soloed our way up the North face of Robson the stress was thick. Two thousand feet of 70 degree snice separated us from the glacier below, there were huge cornices looming above us, and a lightning storm was approaching from the northwest. All that could be heard in the dark was the crunch of the crampons on the ice and deep breathing. Occasionally I would look down and see Mike’s headlamp, face deep in concentra- tion. Eventually we reached the middle rock band 500 feet below the double corniced ridgeline; we needed to confer- ence. Mike and I discussed our situation and decided that the safest plan was to down-solo the face. The ridge was not frozen and the storm was much closer. Many hours later after the sun had risen, we reached our high camp below the north face. Down- soloing the face under the cornices had been mentally ex- hausting. We packed up our tent, and started descending the upper glacier. Now, downclimbing, I had ruptured the sack of fluid under my knee cap. And as dawn crept up Mike had to trade his glasses for regular sunglasses; the lame would be leading the blind through the crevasse field. We had decided to descend the lower glacier because the Michael Wejchert below the North Face Joe Forrester 2,500 ft. of 5.6 loose shale didn’t seem to be very safe to rappel and we had done enough downclimbing. Unfortunately, the lower glacier dropped us out on the wrong side of Berg Lake, so we were forced to do a 3 km lake traverse. Wading across the lake was painful, but, arriving at our packs after 37 hours of climbing and retreating was great. We collapsed for the night with a snickers bar apiece. The next morning we hiked out the twenty-seven kilometers to our car. Our boots were soaked, my knee was messed up, and we didn’t have any food. As the delirium set in, I had some thoughts. How many times have I been walking off from incredible mountains exhausted, with friends from Colo- rado College? Some of my most treasured memories involve that last five miles to the car with the sun setting, or the snow falling, knowing that my partner and I had given everything we had on a mountain wall. Each of us are inevitably caught up in our own thoughts, but we share something absolutely price- less, and bonds develop that last for years. As I look back on the friendships I have created through climbing at Colorado College, and the ones that continue to develop, I can say that I am truly lucky to be brought together with so many people with climbing as the unifying theme. I hope as you read through the trip reports and stories, you find yourself reminiscing about your own adventures, and stay excited to have many more. Be Safe and Happy Climbing, Joe Forrester 4 Joel Irby getting ready to get a little dicey on The Castle, South Platte Joe Forrester Climbs 2007 5 Ballad of a Dead Soldier Renan Ozturk North America: United States Alaska The Stump Man aka The Brown Finger, IV 5.11 1,500’ Stump Jumper, IV 5.11a The Stump, The Wisdom Tooth, Ruth Glacier Ballad of a Dead Soldier V 5.10+ The Beholder V 5.12 (5.10x) The Eye Tooth, Ruth Glacier The Great Transformation V 5.12b/c Lower Incisor, Ruth Glacier Renan Ozturk (’02) and Cedar Wright Renan Ozturk and I landed on the Alaska Range's Ruth Glacier on June 14 in a dream state. The weather was perfect, and we skied our sleds to the "Spider Camp," so named for the unusual spi- ders that moved into our tent as soon as we arrived. This great camp was about a five-minute ski from the beautiful, 1,500-foot Stump, a subpeak of The Wisdom Tooth. The next day we were attempting a new route on The Stump that Renan had been stormed off the year before; it lies to the right of Chris McNamara and Joe Puryear's Goldfinger (IV 5.11a, 12 pitches, 1,800', McNamara-Puryear, 2004). We 6 each got a couple of wet, vegetated, danger- ously run-out dihedral-stem-sketching pitches. The big surprise was that most of the route was spectacular with smooth but feath- ered, weather-polished edges and footholds and a plethora of thin-cam placements. Fifteen hundred feet later we topped out on a beautiful new free line, which shared the last pitch of Goldfinger. We called the route The Stump Man (aka The Brown Finger, IV 5.11, 1,500'), a slight jab at my good friend Chris' Goldfinger route, but also a nod to the reality of muddy fingercracks. We descended Chris' route back to our skis and boots. The weather just wouldn't get bad, so one rest day later, we were back on the Stump to tackle the next di- hedral system left of The Brown Finger. The line we took avoided the dihedral for the most part, as we found the better rock, and the path of least resistance, weaved up world-class rock on either side. We explored both faces of the dihedral and then ventured onto the arête to- ward the top. This is probably the best route on the Stump, with an impossible-looking, runout 5.10a pitch through a steep but featured golden face with luscious flakes near the top. Stump Jumper (IV 5.11a) features four classic and unique 5.11a pitches and much bullet 5.10. It still wouldn't storm, and now The Stump was pretty played out. The El Cap-size Eye Tooth loomed above our camp, letting us know of her presence by dropping the occa- sional avalanche down one of her huge gullies. Just to the right of the biggest avalanche gully lies Dream in the Spirit of Mugs (V 5.10, 2,800', Bonapace-Haas-Orgler, 1994), a world- class, 3,000-foot alpine rock climb, that, 1,500 feet up, breaks right on easier ground, avoiding a more direct line up a 1,500-foot golden head- wall pillar with numerous finger-sized splitters streaking up its face. The Stump –Renan Ozturk After simul-climbing the route to Pitch 13, where the Dream breaks right, we continued directly up for eight long pitches, encountering world-class stemming and fingercrack climbing. We were amazed to find that the direct line went at 5.10+, as it looked like 5.13 from below! Renan, who has done Dream in The Spirit of Mugs, recom- mends our line, which we called Ballad of a Dead Soldier (V 5.10+), as a much more direct and enjoy- able finish. This is also a much better rappel route, though it's still a flake- and block-ridden pucker-fest in spots (pray when you pull). "It's pretty amazing we haven't core shot a rope," I said to Renan as I rapped off the last pitch. By the time we pulled the ropes they were both miraculously chopped. As we skied the hour and a half back to base camp, it was snowing and the next three days were spent in the tent in a state of delirium. And then... the sun peaked through the clouds and the rain stopped. We wandered toward Denali to the next formation north of the Root Canal, where we found one of the best routes I have ever done in my life on the Lower Incisor. I had the pleasure of leading the first two pitches, which both clock in at 5.12. The first pitch entails a classic 5.12 crimper traverse from 7 The Beholder—Renan Ozturk 8 one crack to the next, and the second is an out-of-this-world, 170-foot finger crack, that I barely on-sighted and estimate to be 5.12b or c. Strangely enough my winter in Indian Creek came into play as the perfect train- ing. We called the pitch the "Indian Creek Trainer," due to its sustained, splitter na- ture, and called the route The Great Trans- formation (V 512b/c) in honor of a compara- tive literature book I read while on the gla- cier. The weather miraculously contin- ued to hold through our rest day, and even though I was gobied and sore from my all- out effort on the crux pitch of the Great Transformation, I knew we had to go for the objective that had brought us onto the Gla- cier in the first place: the unclimbed central pillar of The Eye Tooth (ca. 9,000'). The year before Renan had made it up the first third of the route, before blowing two ten- dons on the powerful last pitch of his recon. The central pillar is unique in that to each side lay ferocious, rock-spitting avalanche gullies.