The Best 5.4 on the Planet! Almost
Monday, July 18
We woke early Monday morning, hoping we'd be able to bag
our first Bugaboo climb, The West Ridge of Pigeon Spire (5.4).
Things
were certainly looking promising! As we cooked and ate our breakfast, Snowpatch and Bugaboo Spires bathed in an orange, early morning glow.
It came as almost a shock to wake up to such good looking weather after hearing
so many
foreboding stories about how miserable Bugaboo weather can be. While the forecast we'd read in the hut the day before certainly called
for nice weather, I'd also read that forecast usually isn't worth the paper it's
written on. Apparently the Bugaboos are just unpredictable and create
their own weather. Imagine that! Welcome to the Mountains!
Once breakfast was finished we packed up our climbing gear and headed down to
the outhouse to take care of business before
heading out for the day. Definitely one of the nicest outhouse views we've
seen!
The route to Pigeon Spire is pretty
straight
forward but involves a considerable amount of glacier and snow travel. A
short jaunt across the Crescent Glacier leads to a snow-climb up to the
Bugaboo-Snowpatch Col, and then one slowly ascends the Vowell Glacier all the
way to the base of Pigeon Spire's West Ridge.
While we'd been on snow
before (but not for a while), the
whole
"glacier thing" was new to us. The idea that the snow can open up and
swallow you whole is certainly a bit disconcerting. Luckily it appeared
that they'd had a bit more snow than normal in the Bugs this year (or at least
it hadn't melted out as much as normal). This meant that most of the
crevasses should still covered by nice thick snow bridges which you could simply
walk across.
We
stopped at the edge of the last moraine to put on our harnesses and rope up
before venturing on to the Crescent Glacier. While we hadn't been exactly
lazy getting up and out of camp, there were already teams of three and four
climbing up to the Col ahead of us. We hoped they'd at least leave us a
nice set of steps kicked into the snow and save us a little effort!
The
Crescent Glacier was so snow covered that it didn't even seem like we were on a
true glacier. We just pointed our boots towards the Col and started
hiking. No zigzagging, or
crevasse
jumping required! Slowly the angle increased and soon our pace slowed as
we deliberately kicked our feet into the snow and planted our axes for security.
It was here we found out just how deceiving the heights and distances can be in
the Bugaboos. The Col we
were climbing to is quite visible from camp, and while it had certainly looked
steep, it didn't look all that big. Once we got on the thing it just
seemed to go on and on! Eventually we passed the bergschrund that was just
starting to open up. Above this the snow got even steeper
and
the obvious line of ascent followed a diagonal which put us directly above the
bergschrund for the rest of the climb. This certainly raised the stakes!
Fortunately the snow was a good consistency and gave us nice deep secure
footsteps to climb in.
Our effort paid off and one hour after roping up we made it to the Col. I checked my altimeter and was amazed to see that we had ascended nearly one thousand feet! I never would have guessed it was that tall while sitting in camp. This Col is a sort of crossroads in the Bugaboos. A left turn takes you to the west face of Snowpatch spire. A right turn and you're heading up the Kain Route on Bugaboo Spire. Our sights were set straight ahead, though, up the Vowell Glacier to the saddle between Pigeon Spire and Howser Towers.
Since Pigeon and the Howsers are
hidden behind
Snowpatch from camp, this was our first view of the two. Unfortunately a
rogue cloud had shrouded the Howser Towers, but we still
weren't
disappointed with the view. What a sight! Pigeon Spire is so
beautiful to see in person! We couldn't wait to get over there and start
climbing on it. This was also our first chance to inspect the Vowell
Glacier on which we would have to travel for almost a mile in order to reach the
West Ridge. While it was certainly obvious that this was a glacier (lots
of crevasses visible along the edges), we were pleased to see a solid expanse of
snow leading all the way to Pigeon Spire.
The
trek across the Vowell Glacier went without incident. It starts out as an
easy stroll and then slowly climbs upward. Once again the actual amount of
vertical gain
was
deceiving. By the time we would reach the base of Pigeon Spire, we would
gain another 700-800 feet! The views along the way were outstanding!
Snowpatch and Bugaboo continually change shapes as you see them from different
perspectives.
We did notice a few cracks in the snow along our route on the Vowell. While we didn't think these posed any real hazard, we pretended that they did and practiced working as team to minimize our fall potential by keeping the rope perpendicular to the cracks.
We
noticed the team of four that had been climbing up to the col earlier was also
headed towards Pigeon Spire ahead of us. We weren't too surprised that
we'd have company--it is, after all, supposed to be the best 5.4 on the Planet.
As we got closer to the spire, we noticed that the clouds
had
been thickening. Interestingly, they seemed to be concentrated around
Pigeon Spire and the Howser Towers. When we turned around and looked in
other directions there was plenty of sunshine mixed with a few puffy clouds.
Thinking it would just blow over, we continued upward, very near the base of the
route.
We
reached the base of the West Ridge to find that the four climbers we'd been
following were the same four guys we had met in the parking lot and who we had
also ended up camping next to. They were just finishing up the transition
from glacier to rock and quickly scrambled up the beginning of the route before
roping up for belayed climbing. While short sleeves had kept us
comfortable on the approach, the notch at the base of the route had a cold wind
blowing through it. We quickly unpacked and put on our extra layers--every
last one of them. We ate and drank some, and got ready to start climbing
behind the Seattleites.
And we waited. And waited. And waited.
In the mean time, the clouds had thickened even more, obscuring most of
Pigeon
Spire and occasionally the upper half of Bugaboo Spire in the distance.
The wind picked up and we watched the clouds blow swiftly by the ridgeline above
us while we got colder and colder. We couldn't figure out what was taking
so long with the party above us. The leader had headed up the first pitch
and it seemed like the second had started to ascend as well, but then they
stalled out. It sounded like they were trying to yell something down to us
but the wind made it hard to understand anything. Finally we figured out
that they were coming down. It turns out that it was just too damn cold
and windy up on the ridge. The guy who had been leading and was up in the
elements the longest looked purple when he came down. They were glad to
find a little bit of shelter below the notch and get out of the wind.
Much
discussion ensued, wondering whether the weather was going to shape up or not.
In the meantime, since we'd been seeing so much of them around, we got
introduced. Seth, Sandy, Steve and Doug were these four guys we'd kept
bumping into. Finally it was decided that the weather was not going to get
much better and they got roped up again to head back down the glacier. We
got a good laugh out of Doug trying to divide the rope into proper lengths for
glacier travel. I think maybe his brain was frozen--he botched it pretty
bad.
Once they were on their way, Angela and I had room to repack all
our stuff and follow suit. The weather had not
improved one bit in the three hours we'd spent sitting at the base of the route.
While we'd climbed into the clouds before, the novelty wore off long ago, so we
too headed back down the glacier after not climbing the best 5.4 on the planet.
Of
course, as we headed back towards camp, the weather seemed to be improving.
Blue skies broke out around Bugaboo and Snowpatch, but every time we turned
around and looked at Pigeon it was still shrouded in quickly moving, cold, damp
clouds. We definitely made the right decision in turning back empty
handed.
We got back to camp a couple hours later, tired and exhausted despite not even getting to climb anything. Our new understanding of the size of things around here left us feeling daunted. We both felt a little out of our league. Many questions entered our minds. Had we bitten of more than we could chew? Would we ever make it to the top of any of these spires? And most importantly, would we every feel justified popping the cork on the mini-champagne our friend Rita had sent along with us?
Both the Seattle guys and ourselves took a lot of guff about bailing from other climbers around camp. Apparently it had been a beautiful day closer to camp. They just didn't understand--it was damn cold and miserable over at Pigeon Spire! One Canadian guy tried to convince us that the weather had been "BC nice!" While we hoped he was pulling our leg, we silently feared what "BC Awful" might be like. One more thing to be afraid of!
Late that afternoon, tragedy struck when a climber fell on a route in the Crescent Towers. As soon as it became clear at camp what had happened, a rescue party was quickly in route to the scene. Another group headed down to the Hut in order to contact the outside world, and the rest of us stayed at camp, relaying messages between the Hut and the rescue party and hoping for the best. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done. It appeared that the climber had died quickly after a rappel anchor had failed.
Throughout this entire situation, we were all very impressed with CMH and their generosity towards the climbing community. Within forty minutes of initiating the rescue, one of their helicopters was on the scene with some of their guides. They proceeded to not only help with the rescue and recovery but also took grief stricken friends down to their lodge and put them up for the night. This was a very nice gesture indeed.
That evening, a somber mood fell over camp. Not that any of us were going to quickly forget what had happened, helicopters continued returning to the scene throughout the evening reminding us of the awful events that had transpired. As everyone reconvened back at camp we tried to piece together what had happened and talked about whether we could have done anything differently. Eventually we found out the climber's name, Dave Ireland. He was an active member of the Chicago Mountaineering Club and had joined nine other club members in the Bugaboos to climb. It turned out that Angela had met Dave that morning while waiting at the outhouse. She had found out he was from Chicago, and they both laughed about how hard it is to train for such big mountains while living somewhere so flat.
Unlike most other evenings in climbers' camps, no one was discussing tomorrow's objectives at all. We were too drained physically and emotionally to look past the present. We just wanted to sleep. Tomorrow would arrive soon enough and hopefully take care of itself...
