alaska 2016 part 2- moose’s tooth, west ridge

Before proceeding it’s probably best to catch up with Part 1  if you haven’t already read it.

Back at camp we sat and stared up at the Moose’s Tooth while the sun dried our boot liners.Visualization is important for the mind, but maybe I spent too much time staring. I became quite nervous, more than seemed appropriate for this route.

The green line is the classic West Ridge climb and our line of ascent. The red line is our proposed route of descent with the dotted section requiring several rappels.

Part of the anxiety I had was coming from a dark feeling of doom I had even before our trip began. The overwhelming sense was that if I went to Alaska I wouldn’t be returning. It sounds silly now, but it felt real. I’ve experienced that feeling just once before an expedition to Norway. I almost bailed on that trip because the dread was so intense. Feelings and intuition are very important to listen to, but just like thoughts they aren’t the sum of the being, just part of the equation. Often they don’t add up. I gave extra care to being “safe” and survived that trip to Norway and figured I’d just do the same now on this journey to Alaska. Maybe I’m getting too old for this game of “go scare yourself on the mountain”.

We turned our attention to dinner, gear and preparing for the next day. A pair of climbers plodded through our camp.  They had attempted the West Ridge that very day and we were excited to hear what they had found. Their report was that the face was 60-65 degrees and they had turned around because of knee deep snow. We were glad to hear of soft conditions. We knew their internal inclinometers must be broken because there’s no way the slopes above were 65 degrees, but it must feel really steep.

Game day was sky blue and warm. Our window for safe skiing was well defined. We knew that around noon the snow would start to receive the warm rays of the sun for the first time since the application of new snow. That would incite wet avalanches similar to the ones that had been entertaining us all over the valley the day before. So we downed a quick bowl of hot oats and headed out of camp around 7 a.m.

Denali is the high peak to the left wearing the wispy cloud toupee.

The glacial masses and crevasses were crossed without incident. All the sharp edged tools for ascent were on board and with the aid of ski crampons and skins we climbed the steep entry slope.

Things mellowed out and gaining the huge broad ridge was straightforward. No matter what mental games I played though, I had a hard time righting my nerves. I can’t recall being this frightened on a line that I wasn’t even on yet. We caught our first up-close glimpse of the steep upper section of the face and that didn’t help! It actually did look like it could be 60 degrees in places!

Although steep skiing appears to be done on mountains covered in snow, it’s not—it’s mostly accomplished in the head. I got ahold of the thoughts and made a bargain with them. I told them that I understood their fears and concerns and they were perfectly valid. But, I made the promise that we wouldn’t proceed any farther than we felt comfortable. In trade, I needed my mind to chill the fuck out and keep proceeding until we actually got into a precarious situation. This worked and my mind acquiesced.

“What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti

It felt good to strap sharp metal to all appendages and stab into the steep terrain. The traverse onto the upper face was fun. Though it was exposed we didn’t find any need to place protection, but it was clear that many previous parties had done so. Pussies.

This rusty relic became a cool souvenir after it easily pried free from the rocks along the traverse.

We had a lot of pitons and nuts with us for the potential rappel, but we wouldn’t need these items higher on the mountain so we dug some snow pits and cached skins and any unnecessary gear.

As we pulled onto the face we found perfect snow. Yes! Perfect snow! All hesitation and fear faded away. It’s crazy how the very same mountain can be silly fun, or scary as hell all depending on the present metamorphic state of the snow crystals. This was going to be to silly fun and we knew it!

Ben doesn’t like to share the trail breaking duties. He took the lead while I took photos and video.

Crevasses and cornices are the most dangerous parts of skiing in the Central Alaska Range. We took care to stay on the climbers right side of the ridge hoping to avoid the big pop and drop.

The main obstacle was a small cornice that Ben had to give the chop.

The snow became firm up high where we skirted lower onto the face to avoid cornices and some rocky sections. Looking back down, we noticed that the group of four French skiers had joined us on the Tooth and were just now making their way across the traverse. Ha! We couldn’t believe it. We were glad we had opted for the early start.

Ben looks back with a nervous smile after remotely triggering a cornice the size of…well…an Alaskan cornice. It disintegrated and sheered down several thousand feet of the east face. Luckily Ben didn’t go with it.

The west summit awaits several feet beyond.

This would turn out to be our ONLY day of clear weather during our two weeks. We picked a great place to experience it with all of the Ruth Gorge, Huntington and Denali in full view.

Time for selfies, but not yet celebration.

Our hope of dropping the direct route was highly dependent on timing. We transitioned quickly and skied back down skirting the ridge in the same manner we had climbed it. The skiing was superb, huge exposure and a steep pitch with great snow, the stuff you dream of!

I think the added tension and fear I experienced on the ascent made the final release and descent that much more pleasurable. Incredible fore-play and sublime climax.

The turns were effortless and the only sketchy spot was airing off the small cornice near where Ben had hacked a passageway. We briefly said hello to the Euros as we skied by. They were very appreciative for the boot pack and excited to hear the line was skiable from the summit.

Photos and words don’t do this justice. I wish you could have been there. I wish I could be back there.

We slid off the ridge and into the main chute. The snow had a slight temperature crust on top, but nothing that impeded our turns.

I can still feel the easy weightlessness that only come by throwing yourself into the air on slopes at or above 50 degrees.

It was around 12:30 p.m. when we reached the traverse and our gear cache. Decision time. Our desire was to continue down the fall-line and make the required rappels leading us right back to camp. However, we were a bit behind schedule and we guessed the slopes had another 2-3 hours before they would peel off and avalanche right down our rappel route. We felt like that was enough time, but rappelling always takes a bit longer than one hopes. Getting stuck there being pounded by mushalanches didn’t sound like a good idea. We had already experienced that together a few weeks ago in the Tetons. The window was just too small for us to safely slip through, so we opted to retrace the climbing route on skis instead.

We side-stepped the traverse with skis on, except for 20-30 feet where we had to boot up through some rocks.

We enjoyed a snack and watched the Euro’s descend.

Ben heads off for 3,000 feet of continuous and glorious glacial skiing.

Back in camp safe and sound. No more wondering what it was like up there. Now we knew.

We celebrated with some pizza bagels.

Ben approved!

The French team came by on their way back to their camp and we chatted for a bit about the line and drank some whiskey. The mountains were getting roasted by the sun and temps were really warm. Three hours after our descent the Moose’s Tooth started releasing wet avalanches right down the line we would have rappelled. It’s most likely that we would have been well out of there by the time shit hit the fan, but we were happy with the decision we’d made. There weren’t many other lines that interested us in this area and if we left now we’d still have time for Mount Foraker. We called Talkeetna Air Taxi and arranged for a pick the next morning.

I guess elation and relief and gratitude were the overriding emotions. We’d dared to dream, committed to seeing it though, got lucky with conditions and proceeded with caution to successfully ski a probable first descent off one of the most iconic peaks in Alaska. And that was just in our first few days. Confidence and hopes were high! We were fired up that we still had a great chance to ski Foraker.

The next morning we broke camp and followed the glacial flow down valley to the designated air strip. Part 3 coming soon.

I don’t do many sponsor plugs, but the truth is these trips can’t happen for me without their support. Huge thanks to Eddie Bauer and Jaybird for the major funding of the fun on this trip. With great contributions from long time partners Scarpa and Julbo as well.

Update- August 19th

It was just brought to my attention that the Moose’s Tooth was first descended by Brian Bailey and a band of snowboarders in the 90’s. Crazy fucking snowboarders!