Peak 10,142 - West Face
"Mt. Mildred" was the prize mountain of the area. Our first reconnisance missions focused on it, and we soon had picked out the West Face as the most probable and safe line of ascent. We figured that we would have to descend the route, so our initial plan included camping high on the route, after summitting to let the day pass and the snow to re-firm up for our descent. However, we later decided that an unknown descent down the south ridge would be better than carrying all that extra weight up the climb.
Mt. Mildred from the North at sunset. Our route followed near the right
skyline.
The ski to the base of the route involved a lot of nasty sidehilling on skiis, and Marcus's ans I's Randonee bindings didn't cooperate all that much. But the 1.5 miles over usually went pretty fast with the aid of some usuall-out-of-control simu-skiing.
Our route followed this glacier, starting on the right, and traversing
the face leftwards to the summit above.
Once we were at the base, it was cold, and somewhat dark. The crust had frozen this time (as it had not on a previous attempt), and we were soon climbing the low angled ice (30-40 degree) at the base of the route. We climbed with running belays on ice screws for five pitches of ice, which then transferred to snow for a couple more pitches.
Starting up the face.
The sunrise was turning out to be amazing! Wisps of cloud and percipitation combined with the rays of the rising sun to provide us with a feeling of fear and awe.
A breath-taking sunrise on a bare ice section.
Phil takes over the lead.
Phil took over the lead about 1,000 feet up the route. We had been making excellent time, twice as fast as we'd expected, getting to this point in just over an hour. The route continued to present steep climbing on both ice and snow, but so far we'd had no trouble with soft crevasse bridges.
Up, up, up....
Nearing the high shoulder with the false summit in the upper left.
Marcus climbing snow.
Getting higher...
Eventually we made it to the shoulder that was obvious where the face met the South ridge. There was a huge crevasse here, and the wide bridge (20-30 feet) sagged a good 5-7 feet below the regular slope level. Luckily, it was my turn to lead! I grabbed the pickets and began to end-run the crevasse. When the bridge narrowed to about 5 feet, I crossed over and onto a steep slope leading to the false summit.
Phil at the shoulder, next to the schrund.
Looks like Dave gets to lead the group over the big ass 'schrund.
The group nears the top of the false summit.
Marcus belaying on the fale summit. Mt. St. Elias in the backround.
As luck would have it, I ran out of pickets at the top of the false summit. I could see the real thing in the near distance, but alas I had to hand over the lead to Phil. His payback for this was to be the first to walk across the looks-like-crevasse-field windblown snow below the summit. This particular snow had the tendancy to suddenly crack apart and send you plunging into sugar snow. This feels remarkable like punching through a snowbridge, and must have been a lot of fun figuring that out in the front of the line. :)
The summit ridge.
Soon we were crossing the last crevasse, and walking up the sunny summit ridge to the very corniced summit.
Marcus and Greg on the summit.
Dave after an awesome ascent. Photo: Greg Mueller
Marcus announced that he would like to call the mountain "Mt. Mildred", after his late grandmother. (Later we found that our pilot had made the first ascent of the peak, so we just use that name colloquially) The ascent had been awesome. Technical climbing as hard as anything on Liberty Ridge, though shorter, and scenery to surpass any previous climb of ours. In short, we were ecstatic.
The beginings of the unknown descent down the cliffy south ridge.
The descent took us down and around many steep slopes. Most slopes were very steep, being 50+ degrees for at least a ropelength or two. Racing the warming effects of the sun, we curved around a cliff, and downclimbed a bunch of nasty talus before getting to the final slope leading down to the big flat expanse below. Safety! Well, almost. We had to face-in downclimb 50 degree frozen snow for 4 ropelengths, but an hour later we were down and walking the mile back to our cached skiis.
Sacked out back in camp. Who's going to pick up all this stuff?? Photo:
Phil Fortier
Sacked out in mid-day heat, Greg got the idea of making a "Tang screwdriver" with the fire-water. "Two six packs, all in this here nalgene," he exclaimed. Phil, Marcus and I all had our fill, and then left it to Greg to finish the other half of the somewhat vile liquid.