‘Oh, hi Simon.’ It was Paul Schweizer on the phone. ‘We have more problems I’m afraid,’ he continued in his slow, deliberate San Diegan drawl.
After our success on Mount Alverstone in 2005 Paul and I had kept in touch irregularly, hoping to do another trip together. We thought we had an objective. For the whole of the Alverstone climb we had looked across at Mount Hubbard and the compelling line of its West Ridge had lodged in our minds. Now, after four years crowded with commitments, we had at last found time for a return visit to the mountains of the Alaska-Yukon border.
My own involvement with the project to this stage had amounted to applying for a Mount Everest Foundation grant and booking flights to Whitehorse. Paul had focused on researching the route and already there had been a setback. The West Ridge of Hubbard had already been climbed — by a Harvard University group in the 1970s. However, following further research and a tip-off by the Wrangell activist Jack Tackle, Paul had quickly come up with a stunning alternative.
Good Neighbor Peak is the southernmost summit of Mount Vancouver, another of the peaks we had surveyed from Alverstone, and if anything the line of its huge South West Ridge looked even better than that on Hubbard. Amazingly it had not been climbed or attempted before, or so we thought. With an objective finalised, Paul had turned to in-country logistics. We expected few problems: we would simply follow the same routine as on our first visit.
‘Andy can’t fly us in,’ Paul said, sounding irritated.
‘You what?’ I was stunned.
‘Neither can anyone else from the Canadian side of the border. We’ll have to fly in from Alaska.’
Paul detailed the game of logistical chess in which he had become embroiled. Since our previous visit some misinformed bureaucrats had decided to clamp down on bush pilots over-flying the Alaska-Yukon border. The United States had made the first move, introducing regulations out of their paranoid sense of security, and the Canadians had simply reciprocated. To climb our route we needed to be dropped off by ski-plane in a glacier basin to the south of the peak, therefore nominally in Alaska. We assumed this would be no problem as Andy had dropped us on the Alaskan side of the border before. Now it was impossible. The nearest place we could fly in from within Alaska was Yakutat. However, we could not change our international flights to Whitehorse without prohibitive cost, nor could we access Yakutat overland from Canada as there are no roads into the place. Our only option was to cross the land border from Whitehorse in the Yukon to Skagway on the Alaskan coast, cross a fjord and fly in from a town called Haines. The cost of the extra ground transport and the lengthy (very expensive) flight from Haines hurt. We had become unwitting victims of the US ‘War on Terror’.
‘Simon. Wake up. We’ve got to go,’ Paul was shaking me. ‘We need to go and catch the flight to Whitehorse.’
‘Alright,’ I replied grumpily, trying to re-adjust to the surroundings. We were in a restaurant-cum-bar in Vancouver airport, and had been for most of the day.
‘They were going to ask you to leave,’ Paul said smiling. ‘Said you were drunk.’
‘Hardly,’ I replied, though we had downed a few beers. ‘It’s the middle of the night for us.’
‘Yes, I told them you were tired. It seemed to do the trick.’
By the time we arrived at Whitehorse it was the middle of the Yukon night and I felt like we had been travelling for days. Paul had booked a taxi in advance. It was a good call as there was none waiting speculatively to meet the flight. The driver was the same man who had ferried us around on our first trip. He dropped us at a guesthouse in town and arranged to pick us up to do the shopping the following morning.
In a frantic day we amassed food and supplies, packed and spoke to the driver in Skagway who would come to collect us. Driver Dave arrived the next morning, a huge man, with a larger-than-life character and a vehicle to match. We carried our now considerable pile of food and gear from the veranda of the guest-house and stowed it in Dave’s wagon. Even then there was room for plenty more. Despite all my visits to US, the size of vehicle that most Americans drive still had the power to shock me.
The Yukon has a total population of 35,000, of whom 26,000 live in Whitehorse, its capital. It follows that the rest of this vast territory is largely empty. The road to Skagway was no exception. We passed a few native American settlements and road ends that led to others, but mostly it was just trees, snow and frozen lakes. This was big, raw country and I gazed out of the bus window mesmerised, trying to let Driver Dave’s running commentary drift over my consciousness. Mid-way through the journey we began to gain height. After completing our exit from Canada at a border post we headed up into the mountains. At the high point of the road was a simple wooden sign that said ‘Welcome to Alaska’.
We dropped down more steeply on the seaward side of the pass, did the formalities at the US border post, then wound our way down into Skagway — a pretty little town at the head of the Taiya Inlet. Paul had arranged for a pilot to fly us into the mountains from Haines and Dave kindly called Paul Swanstrom on his mobile.
‘He’s coming to get you guys.’
‘Good service,’ chuckled Paul.
This was a bonus, as we had reckoned on taking a ferry on to Haines. Dave drove us to the terminal buildings of the small airport and after only a few minutes’ wait a light aircraft appeared coming up the fjord. The red Bush Hawk over-flew the airstrip, did a tight turn further inland and landed neatly on the runway. After taxiing to the apron where we were waiting, Swanstrom killed the engine, climbed out of the cockpit and strolled over to meet us.
‘Looks like you guys got lucky,’ he said shaking my hand. ‘The forecast is good for the next few days.’
‘Will we fly into the mountains today?’
‘Tomorrow looks better, but we can have a look at the latest satellite pictures back in Haines.’
We transferred everything into the plane, said goodbye to Dave and were soon flying down the Taiya Inlet a few hundred metres above the water, chatting to pilot Paul through the headphones. As we flew over Haines, he turned to approach the airstrip, tucked away in a river valley outside the town. Another tighter turn and we landed gently and stopped outside a smart new hangar. Paul went inside and shortly afterwards the main door opened to reveal a workshop along one side and two aircraft to the rear. Then he started a small machine that looked like a lawnmower and towed his plane inside. This was obviously a highly organised, cash-rich operation.
‘You can leave your stuff there,’ Paul said, pointing to the side of the hangar. The place was so immaculate that I was conscious of our pile of gear making it look messy. It was time for another mammoth packing session.
Later, as Paul drove us into town, he told us how he became a pilot. For many years he had worked as a rafting guide, then one day while struggling to drag a raft across a series of gravel beds he decided he’d had enough. Guiding had brought him into contact with bush pilots who flew people in and out of the more remote rafting locations; that was the way for him. Now in spring Paul flies skiers and climbers into the mountains; his busiest time, though, is summer when cruise liners call into Skagway during voyages up and down the Alaskan coast and he takes passengers on scenic flights. Judging by his set-up it is a profitable business.
In his downtown office Paul checked the weather and confirmed we would fly the following day. We paid for our flights and then went to find somewhere to spend the night. It was not a long search, the tourist season had not yet begun and only the Seward Hostel was open.
In the afternoon we wandered around Haines, weak spring sunshine lending warmth to the town’s picturesque setting between a harbour of fishing boats and enclosing mountains. Later we ate the finest wild salmon steaks before hitting the Fogcutter Bar — a no nonsense establishment we took to immediately. Numerous TV screens showed baseball and American football for the early part of the evening before switching to programmes that featured men in camouflage jackets shooting various large Alaskan mammals. While I hardly warmed to the content of these shows, I did admire the fact that they could be shown in a public bar without causing offence. Over the course of several visits I have come to the conclusion that Alaska is the freest place in the developed world. It still feels like a frontier, where an ‘each to their own, anything goes’ mentality prevails.
Paul picked us up from the hostel at 10am and drove us to the airstrip. The hazy high cloud of the previous day had cleared. It was such a radiant sunny day it seemed strange to be changing into fleece and Gore-Tex. We showed Paul our map and the spot where we hoped to be dropped off.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said cautiously.
The plane loaded, our final act of preparation was to put on mountain boots and gaiters. Then we buckled ourselves into our seats and sat back to enjoy the ride. As Paul fired up the engine I felt the accumulated tension of days of travel, shopping and logistical headaches begin to ease. We had done all we could and were almost there. Now it was Paul’s turn.
We traced a river valley inland northwards, gradually gaining height over a wilderness of forest and lakes. Soon the horizon filled with the ice sheets that drain from the Wrangell-St Elias ranges, then the mountains themselves began to appear. The first big peak was the inappropriately named Mount Fairweather, standing proud to the west: it reputedly has more snowfall than any other mountain in the world. Next the Hubbard, Kennedy and Alverstone group appeared to the east. The Bush Hawk ate up the distance, giving little indication of the scale of mountainous land below or the physical effort I knew would be involved travelling overland. Mount Vancouver and its summits came surprisingly quickly, leaving me excitedly pointing at the basin where we wanted to land.
‘Looks okay,’ Paul said. ‘Let’s give it a try.’
I sat silently, not wanting to break Paul’s concentration as he completed the final manoeuvres. There was a small thud followed by the sound of the skis on snow, then Paul revved the engine to taxi into the back of the cirque where he spun the plane around and brought it to a stop. We stepped outside. There was complete silence and for a moment I stood stunned, amazed that a machine could bring you to such a place. It was probably the first time that anyone had landed here. It was warm in the sunshine, the snow was reasonably firm and the base of our route on Good Neighbor was just a few hundred metres away. I could hardly believe our luck.
We unloaded the plane casually and decided on a camp further out into the glacier, safely away from any avalanche that might fall from the mountain’s enormous South Face.
‘I want the gear here for the pick-up,’ Paul said, pointing to where the plane was standing. We nodded our agreement. Then we stood and chatted for a while until Paul decided it was time to go. He shook hands and wished us luck. The noise of the engine restarting was deafening, then the plane accelerated down the glacier, took off after just a few hundred metres, and was gone.
The minute we had erected the tents, the journey caught up with us. We both felt drained. The travel and time difference from home could no longer be ignored.
‘I’ve got to crash,’ Paul said.
‘Yeah, We can sort this lot out tomorrow.’
We left the gear and food lying in the snow. Inside the tent I shed a few clothes and slid into my sleeping bag. Within minutes I was asleep.
The next day proved frantic. The sun continued to shine, adding urgency to our actions. Good weather here is too rare to squander. We examined the South West Ridge through my binoculars and were pleased with what we saw. There would be snow, ice and mixed climbing, and the overall angle was not too bad. At about three-quarters height up the ridge a steep tower was obviously going to provide a decisive stretch of climbing. Our biggest concern, however, was the strangely beautiful headwall of rime and flutings right at the top. We would be in a committing position by that point and it would have been reassuring to see a line through. No such luck; the headwall was impossible to fathom from such a distance.
We agreed on a minimal rack of climbing gear and a week’s food and gas.
‘What about the phone?’ I asked.
‘Dunno. Do you want it?’
‘Not really. The weight is not insignificant, but it’s more of a commitment thing.’
I had given the business of the phone some thought and knew that I needed to focus completely on what we were doing. The ridge was a large and serious undertaking. Talking to the children from precarious bivouacs each night would distract from that.
‘We’ll leave it here then.’
Finally we packed. After dinner I made a satellite phone call home.
‘The route should take four or five days,’ I told Jane.
‘Will you take the phone with you?’
‘No.’ Jane did not ask for any explanation. ‘I’ll speak to you as soon as we get down.’
The 4am alarm signalled the start of our climb. We had a quick breakfast and trudged silently across the glacier into the back of the cirque, where a broad couloir led up to the ridge proper. After only 30 minutes’ walking we reached the bergschrund. The snow wall above the fracture line overhung. We quickly roped up and I made an acrobatic pull-up to clear the lip. Paul followed and we dispensed with the rope to climb solo simultaneously. The previous day we had watched sporadic rockfall raking the couloir and knew that the next few hundred metres would be a race against the sun and stones. We climbed as fast as our lungs and legs would allow. Paul pulled ahead approaching the narrowest section, while high above I could see the sun’s rays already hitting the ridge. Inevitably the warmth would release rocks from the ice. I had just cleared the constriction when a familiar clattering sounded and a salvo of stones buried themselves harmlessly in the snow slope above. Paul was now moving rightwards in the widening upper slopes of the couloir. I followed him with some urgency as more debris rained down until we reached a point safe from bombardment. Then the sun penetrated the couloir, softening the snow underfoot and drawing precious water from our skin. The day became hot, and as the angle eased towards the ridge we struggled in deepening snow.
It was a relief to finally reach the col, take a rest and marvel at the panorama that had opened out westward over the Seward Glacier flanked by Mount Saint Elias and Mount Logan. From this angle our ridgeline looked even more compelling.
We had plenty of time to consider the way ahead as we slogged slowly up the initial undulating section of snowy ridge. It was the last obvious place for a tent platform, but it was only 1pm; we would have to take our chances further up. I halted at a small buttress and waited for Paul. We roped up and he led off, following surprisingly exposed mixed ground on the western side of the crest. Pitch followed pitch in swift succession. As the day wore on the heat and dehydration began to tell. Our pace slowed and we began to cast around for a place to pitch the tent. Nothing was evident and we rejoined the ridge. The temperature began to drop; soon it would become seriously cold, adding urgency to our search.
‘I might be able to do something here,’ I called down to Paul as I reached a notch of shattered rock. I moved some blocks around trying to shape a platform; it was only going to provide sitting room at the most. ‘I’ll have to try a bit higher,’ I yelled, barely able to hide my frustration.
Above the rock I followed the ridge crest on steep snow. Then, nearly out of rope, a small shoulder appeared.
‘This will do,’ I shouted triumphantly, before anchoring myself and bringing up Paul. We hastily hacked out the first of what would be a succession of precarious tent platforms, into the knife-edge snow ridge.
We were soon established in the tent and sat contentedly with the stove purring. The sun dropped beyond the Seward Glacier in a myriad of red, orange and yellow hues, meanwhile the glacier and mounts Logan and St Elias turned shades of icy blue, The enormity of the landscape and the fact that not a single person lived here was mind-boggling. With the sun gone the cold started to bite.
Morning brought another fine day. The sun hit the ridge early and tracked us as we made a rising traverse on the western side of the crest to outflank a steep rock buttress. The climbing was not difficult but the hard ice made for slow going. Each ice-axe had to be carefully placed, sometimes taking several blows, before the steps up and across could be made. The angle required continual front-pointing on crampons, making our calves burn. We were moving smoothly, but not gaining height at the speed of the first day.
Whenever Paul led there was time for me to view the terrain. This was important: I wanted to build a three-dimensional mental picture of the ridge and this side of the mountain, both to figure out the route ahead and, just as vitally, to know potential lines of retreat. I found my gaze continually drawn to the flutings at the top of the ridge. They were simultaneously alluringly beautiful and a nagging concern.
At times I heard strange sounds moving around me and was amazed to see flocks of small birds flying above us, twittering their way northwards.
In a repeat of the previous day we rejoined the ridge in the late afternoon and found a sensational campsite just before a stretch of ominous looking cornices.
‘This is going to take longer than we thought,’ Paul said once we were comfortable inside the tent.
‘You’re not wrong.’
I was uneasily aware of how far the flutings still were above us. We had been hoping for a repeat of the Alverstone climb where we blasted 2000m of climbing in just two days. Here, the complexity of climbing on a ridge, plus the height gain and distance involved, meant Good Neighbor was going to be an altogether more ambitious undertaking. It was sobering to think that after two very long and demanding days we were probably not even halfway up.
Paul led off in the morning. It was a scary pitch and I was happy to be following. Parts were right on the ridge crest with huge drops on either side. I tried to push the exposure from my mind by concentrating intensely on each step. When I reached Paul he was sat in a hollow, legs astride the ridge.
‘It’s an Alaskan belay,’ he said.
In fact it was no belay at all, since no anchor was available. Paul was watching me closely; should I fall, he intended to roll off his perch down the opposite side of the ridge. Even in theory it’s an unsettling plan and I was relieved we did not have to put it to the test. We continued up relatively easy-angled slopes to below an imposing rock tower that we already had marked down as one of the keys to the climb. It was obviously going to be difficult and time-consuming, and with nowhere to bivvy it would not be wise to start on it late in the day. We set about chopping a platform in the last good spot below the tower. It had been our easiest day so far. Unfortunately, there was nothing easy about digging a notch sufficient for the tent. The task took most of the remaining afternoon, though we were able to get the stove running and re-hydrate as we dug.
A small cap of cloud — sometimes a precursor to bad weather — had formed over Mount Logan during the day. Though it dissipated during the evening, it had set me thinking. Having already done a long traversing section on the ridge, a retreat was looking tricky. The steep east side of the ridge — the most direct way to reach our base camp by abseil — was a no-go zone, threatened with icefall from a band of séracs high on the South Face. The western aspect offered little more comfort: its relatively gentle slopes dropped into an incredibly chaotic glacier and a huge hike around a group of lesser peaks would then be required to reach our base.
The night passed cold and crystal clear and dawn brought another perfect day. The weather seemed to be holding, but we were both tense: there was no obvious way of overcoming the tower above. The prow directly above the ridge where we were camped was not an option. A blind looking couloir to our left appeared to offer the only feasible way through.
Paul soon completed the first pitch. Then I traversed over steep, hard, black ice into the base of the runnel. It looked no better from this closer vantage point. You get a feeling for places like this over time. I was sure it was going to blank out, forcing us into some very steep and possibly difficult aid climbing that would be tricky with our minimal rack of gear.
Paul arrived and viewed the terrain above. He did not look optimistic.
‘If we’d brought the satellite phone with us,’ he said with a smile, ‘we would have been able to call for help in an emergency.’
‘Well, we wanted the commitment.’
Paul’s casual mention of the phone reflected a shared understanding. We had reached a point where the only practical way off the mountain lay up and over the top.
Paul slowly and deliberately took the climbing gear from me and clipped the pieces to his harness. Then he began to climb. A short section of steep ice led to a narrow rock band that guarded the entrance to the couloir above. Paul spent some time clearing cracks of ice before placing a nut into one. He clipped the rope into it and looked down at me.
‘Watch me here.’
I nervously fed the rope out as Paul hooked his axes on the shattered rock and made a series of bold, strenuous moves until he was able to get better purchase in the ice above. He rested, breathing deeply, then continued up into the ice chute and out of sight. The rope inched up slowly and I felt a sickening tension building inside. At last, with the rope nearly out, an unmistakable yelp of joy boomed down from above. It could only mean one thing — there was a clear way ahead.
I eagerly followed, after the difficult moves the ice chute led into a widening basin that curled round to the left. It was enclosed by rock walls streaked by ribbons of ice that petered out into steep cracks. Paul was standing on a small platform chopped into the back left corner of the basin; a sliver of ice ran off up a corner behind him.
‘Our asses are saved,’ he said, only half jokingly. The ice ran continuously up to broader slopes.
I grabbed the gear from Paul. The moves were thin at first and I had to be careful not to cleave the ice from the rock. Soon, however, the ice was accepting first-time placements for my axes and I relished being able to move quickly over what was the best ice we had encountered so far. It did not last long. Out on the open slopes and into the sun, the ice became harder again, decent axe placements required several blows and occasionally a crampon would slip before biting.
The weather was holding, but only just; large lenticular cloud caps had formed over both Mount Saint Elias and Logan and the air was hazier than on previous days. Now the rime headwall hung above, tantalisingly close, yet menacing. Tension welled within me once again.
The hard ice eventually ran into snow that increased in depth the higher we climbed. By late afternoon we had slogged our way up to a shoulder where the angle lessened and we dug out what we hoped would be our last tent platform on the climb. At least at this height it was cooler and we were not suffering from the daytime overheating of lower down. It was not so steep either and for the first time at a camp we were able to untie. Such freedom of movement was a relief and made getting organised for the night much easier.
Next morning we quickly broke camp and regained the ridge crest, moving with real urgency, still not knowing how difficult the final headwall would prove to be. The approach along the ridge took longer than expected. Once again the sheer scale of what we were doing was deceiving us. Far below, a thin layer of cloud had drifted across the glaciers and the peaks now hovered above it. The weather was changing.
Paul led the final pitch of the ridge and was sat astride a cornice fracture line when I reached him. Continuing up the slope I could see a massive wave of snow and ice had peeled off and wedged above a gully. Only two small points of contact seemed to be holding it all up. Paul looked tiny and vulnerable on his airy stance.
I belayed below a couloir of hard blue ice and as Paul started to climb I studied the headwall now just above me. It was a bizarre and frightening feature: a mass of strange feathery wind-blown formations, some improbably overhung. Luckily there were lines of weaknesses, although it was impossible to see if any led cleanly to the top. The line directly above us looked the most promising.
Paul tackled the thin couloir. As the angle steepened he began to labour. Each axe placement was taking several blows and there was no rest for his legs; he was continually on his front-points and breathing very heavily.
‘Why don’t you take a belay?’ I called up. ‘It might be better to lead this without a sack.’
‘Yeah, good plan.’
It took some time for Paul to place two ice screws, but it was reassuring to know that the belay was sound. I joined him directly beneath a wave-like formation spilling off the left wall of the gully. It was an intimidating spot. I removed my rucksack, clipped it into one of the anchors, grabbed some gear and set off. The ice was steep at first but with no weight on my back I was able to climb it quite fluidly. Soon I entered an almost enclosed tube of ice and rime. At its narrowest point I was actually able to rest with my back on one wall and my feet on the other. It felt more like caving than mountaineering. The tube opened out into a small basin below two steep, narrow, parallel runnels. I placed an ice-screw. The left-hand runnel appeared to offer the best route to the top but was overhung at its base, so I started up the other. The climbing was wonderful, perfect ice taking first-time axe placements until I reached a point where I could make a pull into the other runnel. I planted an axe and swung across into an overhanging groove. With a few frantic moves I cleared the overhang and established myself in a broader gully topped by a small wall. I placed another screw then wobbled my way up the wall of rather hollow-sounding rime ice and made a final pull on to the summit plateau. The central and north summits of Mount Vancouver lay directly in front of me. I let out a scream. Five long, arduous days of climbing had led to this point and somehow our route had saved the best until last. The rime headwall was quite literally the icing on the cake.
It was a sublime moment and I basked in it; alone on top of this huge peak, surrounded by pure mountainous beauty. There was cloud below, thicker than earlier and a cause of concern, but for now it could wait.
Eventually, I set up a belay, pulled up the slack rope and shouted down for Paul to start climbing. I got no reply and for a while I could not figure out which rope he was climbing on, or which had the rucksack attached to be hauled up. Then the sack got caught in the overhanging groove and I had to wait until Paul could free it from below. However, the miscommunication hardly mattered; Paul’s face was filled with joy as he came into view in the top gully.
‘I’ll never do anything better,’ he declared, pulling over the top to join me. I had been having the same thought. It was 4pm. We shook hands and wandered around on the plateau for a few minutes savouring our achievement and the astonishing views. A total silence complemented the immense feeling of space and freedom. Content, we made our way to the actual summit of Good Neighbor Peak, a knoll of rime just above our finishing point, and took photographs.
‘Right, let’s get the hell out of here.’
My pragmatism had returned. We set off down gently angled slopes and found the East Ridge. A col on the ridge a few hundred metres lower looked an obvious place to head for. Initially we followed slopes on the northern aspect, until forced on to an exposed section of the ridge itself. Lower down we had to negotiate a chaotic icefall before arriving at the col and calling it a day.
It felt good to be able to put up the tent without time-consuming excavations and just collapse inside. Through the evening the wind got up, buffeting the tent with increasingly savage gusts. It made cooking on the hanging stove a prolonged affair; each blast shook water from the pan and extinguished the flame. We took it in turns to hold the stove steady, which helped, but spillages still occurred and sometimes it was very difficult to re-light the stove. The bitter cold forced us to wear down jackets inside our sleeping-bags. Despite being utterly beat, I found it difficult to sleep. A storm was coming in.