7. Hard Work

Toes are numb.

Nope, feet are numb.

Nope, lower legs are numb.

Matt and I stumbled onto the south shore of the Djangart River, breathing sighs of relief after an early morning crossing. Even at its lowest, the thigh deep river put up a fight as we struggled across. As we put our pants, socks, and boots back on, I was at least thankful that the acute pain had taken away the nauseous feeling in my stomach to which I’d awoken an hour earlier. The night before, we walked down the Djangart Valley staying on the north side of the river, knowing we’d have to cross early the next morning. Unfortunately, I woke up dry heaving, a slightly more severe consequence than the usual diarrhea. In the alpine, that’s just something you have to push through if you want to climb.

After making it a short distance up the trail, Matt could tell I wasn’t feeling it. He stopped and waited on a large rock, but I told him to continue so I could relieve my troubled digestive system – I’ll spare any more details than that, we aren’t in basecamp anymore.

We knew the approach would be long, but I don’t think either of us quite expected the challenge we got. We’d only taken 48 hours of rest after our last climb. Perhaps it was the boredom of camp or maybe our ambition getting the better of us, but we (well, mostly me) moved pretty slowly. The terrain didn’t make it any easier. After the early morning ice bath, we were hampered by knee-high thorn bushes. At first we tried to weave our way through, but eventually just dealt with getting stuck by the thorns. We inefficiently meandered up the slopes on the west side of the glacial outflow, eventually gaining the moraine. We stayed high, choosing to deal with loose blocks and rockslides rather than navigate the ice cliffs below. Progress was painstakingly slow.

The ugliness of the N2 glacier.

By lunch we were running parallel to the smooth, dry glacier and decided to drop down. Looking ahead, we could see a large serac barrier cascading down the slope. Our objective, Pt 5080, sat on the west side of the glacier, but there was to be no easy approach. We traversed the glacier, making our way to the east side where a less broken section allowed access to the upper glacier. As storms rolled through, we had to stop twice to take refuge under large boulders that sat like giant mushrooms with icy pedestals (the rocks shade the ice, so the ice around them melts at a faster rate). By late afternoon, we had come to the point where the glacier turned from dry to wet. We’d been jumping exposed crevasses as we progressed up the lower glacier, but now we were facing the added threat of crevasses hidden by snow bridges.

We roped up and Matt led the way, once again frustrated by knee to thigh deep postholes. Matt prodded his way along, inspecting for crevasses. We had crossed at least a dozen snowbridges when suddenly my feet were dangling in space. Luckily, the extra surface area of my arms and pack stopped me before I could even yell “crevasse!” I yelled anyway and Matt stood alert while I used my axe to extricate myself. Phew.

Postholing our way up the crevassed ridden N2 glacier.

It was getting late but we were still progressing, albeit slowly. Our objective gradually came into view, but with darkness closing in and each laborious step sapping our energy, we set course for a somewhat protected alcove on the west side of the glacier. Night set in as I dug a platform for the tent while Matt sacrificed his dry clothes to get water from a trickle that was cascading off a nearby cliff. After cooking up a pot of ramen, it was 10:00 p.m. Settling into the warmth of our sleeping bags as the wind howled, we left our plan as ‘to be determined.’ After the 13.5 hour approach, it was too late for an alpine start. We decided we’d get some sleep and re-evaluate in the morning, potentially resting for the day.

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. as snow fell on our tent. Typical -- back to sleep. I woke up at 10:00 a.m. to the heat of brilliant sunshine.

“Should we go for it?”
“It’s a late start, but there’s no such thing as a good weather window around here.”
“Let’s do it.”

It took us some time to pack our things and get some food, so we set off around 11:00. It took at least another hour of plodding up the glacier to reach the base of the route. The east face of Pt 5080 is divided by a series of couloirs. We’d picked 5080 after seeing photos of the couloirs taken by Vadim Kodysh, leader of the 2008 Russian expedition that had trekked over a nearby pass. With the two couloirs on the right at most risk of being obliterated by falling seracs, we chose the left-most couloir. The steepest of the three, it would also provide a nice challenge.

Matt started up and we were moving efficiently under clear skies (a nice change from the last climb). Reaching the top of the couloir, the ice steepened to a vertical cascade. With only seven screws, we had to break the steep section into two shorter pitches. I’m all for running it out, but not on marginal quality vertical ice. Letting out an exclamatory yell after cresting the crux waterfall, I cruised up gentle terrain to finish out the rope length, threw in some rock gear, and belayed Matt up. Matt then took over as we simulclimbed up moderate terrain. Now late afternoon, a biting wind slowly built and chilled us with its icy wrath.

The crux of the route. Photo taken on rappel.

As the rope stopped moving, I grew increasingly impatient in the cold wind. Matt was around a corner, out of eyesight or earshot. Too cold to keep standing, I decided to keep moving, and eventually got to where Matt and I could communicate. He threw in a belay anchor and brought me up. The snow was chest deep on a 50-degree slope. Progress was near impossible. Frustrated, Matt allowed me to give it a go. After an intense 20-minute effort, I looked back and saw that I had made it about 10 meters. Ugh, I needed a new tactic. Trying everything, I ended up using my ice tools to create fist cracks in the top layer of snow. It wasn’t consolidated enough to take full body weight, but I found that if I jammed both my mittens into the man-made cracks, pulled up and distributed my weight over the length of my shins, I could just manage enough leverage to progress. I went on like this for a good 30-40 meters before the snow began to harden and I could move in a more traditional manner. Who knew a 50-degree snow slope could be so challenging?

We continued up, swapping leads as the angle steepened slightly. The wind built in a deafening crescendo, slamming our exposed faces with spindrift. Talking required shouting. Even donning our warm belay jackets, each belay was a test of will. Darkness fell and the wind only strengthened as we neared the summit. Matt led a pitch up to a rock band, which as best we could tell marked the summit. To get to the true summit would require traversing around the band and facing the full force of the wind. We looked at each other, hands and toes numb, and both knew it was time to descend. Standing on the true summit didn’t mean anything to us; the route was complete.

We used up all of our pickets making the first five rappels. From there, we used V-threads to anchor the 8-10 remaining rappels. It was tedious work. Thankfully, the wind abated as we made our way into the shelter of the couloir. The morning hours wore on; 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 a.m. We double-checked each knot, knowing mistakes are all too often made on the descent. All we had to do was look the other person in the eyes to see the fatigue festering in our empty bodies.

We stumbled into camp at 6:45 a.m., battered and worn out. It was light, but it would be another hour before the sun reached our camp to reheat our frozen limbs. We boiled water, eager to drink after carrying only a liter each, all of which we drank during the 20-hour ordeal. Replenished, we sunk into our sleeping bags and rested for two hours until the heat of the sun was too unbearable.

We slowly loaded up our bags and set off at 1:00 p.m., postholing our way back across the upper glacier. Reversing the treacherous approach took seven hours, even though we took a somewhat improved route to avoid some of the crevasses. Neither of us had a name for the route or the mountain, but we didn’t care. We got our second taste of success and it hadn’t lost any of its luster. Since then, the route has been dubbed Will Your Anchor Hold?, TD-, 700 m. We propose Peak Sutherland for the mountain, in honor of Matt’s recently departed Great Uncle. Will Your Anchor Hold is the name of his book.

Peak Sutherland (5080) -- "Will Your Anchor Hold?"

By the late evening, the swift-flowing Djangart River was too dangerous to cross. Not interested in pitching our wet tent, we put our sleeping pads in the grass, cooked some food, and went to bed. Sleep wouldn’t come easy though. When we had reached the Djangart we’d managed to hear over a crackling radio that Dan would be getting evacuated. We didn’t get too many details, so we were left to ponder what could have gone wrong.
Mike