Alpine Climbing

Alpine Climbing is the face of climbing where multiple climbing disciplines intersect: Rock; Ice; Snow; Glacier Travel and sometimes all four at once! Usually practiced in the high mountain areas of the world, a typical alpine climb involves hiking into the snow region; traversing over glaciers (watch out for those crevasses) to the base of a rock wall or ridge; onto the ridge to the summit, climbing rock, ice and occasionally the hanging glacier. Sometimes the route is mainly snow and ice; other times a short walk on snow and the rest is rock. Whatever the combination, its always challenging and fun.

 

Coleman Glacier, 7000 ft, Mt. Baker

Here my climbing party is ascending the Coleman Glacier on Mt. Baker in the Cascade Mtns in Washington State. We're planning to climb up to the rocks bands, stay to the left, but not too far (must avoid the huge crevassed area in the middle), curl around left to under the main face, do an ascending traverse right on the hidden glacier behind the last rock outcropping to intersect with the ridge line and left up the ridge to the summit. While it doesn't look that far (or big), we're at about 7000 ft of elevation and the summit is around 10,800. So we have about 3800 feet of elevation to gain (about 2/3 of a mile). The heavily crevassed area in the middle is an hour's climb away. Notice all three of us are roped together. That's in case someone, usually the heaviest  :) pops through a hidden crevasse.

Mt Baker is an semi-extinct volcano near the Canadian border, part of the volcano grouping on the Pacific Rim of Fire; including Mt. Rainier, Mt Adams and Mt. St Helens. I say semi-extinct, but really it should be dormant as there is still volcanic action in the summit crater, steaming fumaroles, etc. Now I can't personally can't vouch for that fact since I've never made it to the summit. So far my mountaineering buddy Rick Sands and I are 0 for 3 in our attempts on Mt. Baker. My first time up, I was snug in my sleeping bag in my tent. Our camp was high on the glacier, set for a 4am start. About 1am a major storm moved in and huge gusts of wind started battering the tent.. After about 2 hours, the tent had enough and just disintegrated, leaving us high and exposed. We fought our way down and off the glacier and into the woods. And that was that.

On another attempt, Rick's summit bid ended when the case of giardia he contracted on the mountain left him too weak to attempt the summit. This was the beginning of a 3 week climbing trip in the Western US for both of us and for those of you familiar with the side effects of giardia will recognize that the next few weeks together in small tents and rental cars were, shall we say, breathtaking...

Summit Bid 3 got off to a great start. Beautiful weather, excellent conditions, and I was probably in my best shape ever. But inside my left knee was ticking timebomb. High on the mountain, about 5am, after about the 17,000th kick into the ice slope, the little cartilage disks blew apart, halting my upward progress. Luckily I had the presence of mind to "ice the joint" which I did by collapsing onto the glacier So, Mt Baker 3, the Alpine team 0. But as Arnold said "I'll be back!"

(spoiler alert: She wasn't back)

Coleman Glacier, 8500 ft, Mt. Backer

Much Higher up on the Coleman Glacier. A few minutes before, a flock of giant goldfinches descended on us. Quite un-expected at 9000 feet in a vast wasteland of ice. However a closer look at the glacier surface revealed lots of little bugs, flies, butterflies, etc frozen to death on the ice surface. Prevailing winds carry the bugs up from the lowlands to where they're deposited on the surface. So no wonder the goldfinches looked huge, they've been dining on the local equivalent of the Howard Johnson's "All You Can Eat" breakfast buffet.

Crevasse Rescue Practice

Hopefully, when you're ascending into the realm of the mountain gods, you won't do something stupid like fall into an open exposed crevasse. However, not all crevasses cooperate by being visible. You could be hiking up a glacier on nice firm snow thinking about the wonderful freeze dried food you'll have for dinner, when in reality that nice firm snow is really a 1 foot snow bridge over a 100 feet deep ice cavern. Snow is remarkably strong stuff, but you reach a point where it can't support a climber carrying a large pack filled with freeze dried food. (which brings to mind my 3 rules of glacier travel:

1. Always rope up
2. Don't fall in
3. Always put the heaviest climber first (corollary rule: always climb with somebody heavier than you), so if they step on it and don't fall in, it's probably safe

In  case you violate rule 2, it's advisable to know how to get out by yourself, since helicopter rescue is expensive, embarrassing and only really happens in the movies.. 

To practice the rescue techniques, go find a nice big (visible) crevasse, set some anchors and throw yourself over the edge (and hope the anchors hold). Chances are now you are upside down since you're carrying that big pack filled with freeze dried food and it's pulling you down. 1st step is to dump the pack (not literally, since that IS dinner) Grab a sling, clip one end to your harness (kids, this should already been done before you went walking on the glacier) and the other end to the pack. Slip the straps off your shoulders. Wow what a relief! Of course now you're 50 feet down in the largest Kenmore freezer ever built, slowly spinning at the end of  the rope at 10 rpm., listening to the derisive hoots from the other (lighter) members of the party with a 50lb pack dangling below you. But at least you're right side up. Pop out your two Prussik slings (cords wrapped around the climbing rope with a slip/friction knot) that were discretely tucked into your clothing. Struggle to put the bottom part of the sling over one boot and crampon and proceed to the "Texas Two Step" This is where you kick one boot high in the air, take the friction knot attached to the rope for that foot and slide it as high as you can reach. Next stand up on the stirrup in the now higher sling. This removes the weight from the other friction knot whose other end is attached to your waist. Repeat until tired.

In fact this is an exercise that is sure to become popular at the gyms. When at the gym, don't forget the 10 lb boots  and crampons, the several layers of soggy clothing, the sharp pointy objects  (hopefully)  attached to your waist, the 50 lb pack dangling a few feet below you and oh yes for true authenticity, a trickle of ice water down the back of the neck and fogged up sunglasses... 

Once you ascended the rope to the top of the crevasse, you discover an very unpleasant fact: Usually the weight of falling climber (and all that freeze dried food) causes the rope to saw into the lip of the crevasse, burying it several feet deep. Which creates a problem. You can't move the prussik knots up the rope while it is buried into the lip and you can't move the rope out of the slot because your weight is on the rope. Now you become happy that the sharp objects (ice axes) attached to you remained attached to you. Usually you have to ice climb the last few feet to pop over the top. Of course this is also very strenuous. The last time we practiced this, my partner pulled his shoulder trying to come over the top and became stuck, resulting in his rescue from the crevasse rescue practice

* original post 1998