Gregory Crouch's Blog, page 25

Photos and stories from the first ascent of Shaken, Not Stirred

Amongst a lot of great climbing in the mid- and late- 1990s, my Enduring Patagonia years, Jim Donini and I made the first ascents of what struck me as three truly world-class alpine climbs: in Patagonia we did The Old Smuggler’s Route on the north face of Aguja Poincenot and A Fine Piece on the west pillar of Cerro Pollone, and on the south face of the Mooses Tooth in Alaska’s Ruth Gorge, we did Shaken, Not Stirred. None was cutting edge in terms of difficulty, but all three were incredibly beautiful, Sophia Loren kind of beautiful.

I’ve always been astonished and grateful that we were able to get onto three such marvelous climbs. Recently, I shared pictures and stories from A Fine Piece. Here, I’m going to post about Shaken, Not Stirred.

First, I need to take issue with the story Jim told Joe Puryear, author of the Supertopo guidebook Alaska Climbing, in which Jim waxes poetic about how he and Jack Tackle had always had their eye on the climb that would become Shaken, Not Stirred but had never gotten around to climbing it. I’ve also heard him talk about how we spotted Shaken, Not Stirred from the summit of Mount Bradley, after we climbed The Bourbon Bottle Route.

Both versions are NOT TRUE.

(I’m reserving the right to slag off Jim here because he’s one of my best friends, definitely the best climbing partner I’ve ever had, and unless your last name is Tackle, Lowe, Bragg, Kennedy, or Engelbach I’m not extending you the same right. Period.)

So here’s the real story — or, at least, here’s my version of it. Without any concrete objectives, Jim and I flew into the Ruth in May of 1997 with Kent McClannan and Jurgen Grunevald. Jim was familiar with the area thanks to the expeditions he’d made into the Ruth with Jack Tackle, he and I had done The Bourbon Bottle Route on the south face of Mount Bradley the year before, and I had photocopies of all the American Alpine Journal entries pertinent to the Ruth Gorge. Our plan was to fly in there and “take a look around,” “see what we could find,” and “hopefully get up something.”

We started scouting possibilities soon after Paul Roderick of Talkeetna Air Taxi slipped under the cloud layer and dropped us on the Ruth. (I loved flying with Paul, a real kindred spirit.) Kent was partnered with Jurgen, and I was with Jim, but it was Kent and I who went together to scope the enormous and imposing south face of Mount Dickey. We saw nothing attractive, but I thought to set up my camera tripod and take a zoom lens shot of the south face of the Mooses Tooth with the the bottom of Dickey’s southeast buttress in the foreground.

One peek through the lens changed everything.

Here’s the picture:

The Ham and Eggs couloir (first ascended in 1975 by Jon Krakauer, Thomas Davies, and Nate Zinsser) was clearly visible running up the sun/shade line left of the Tooth’s main summit, but what really caught my eye was the other couloir, the one just into the shade between the west and middle summits. It doesn’t show up too well in this scan, but through the camera lens I could see what looked to be a thin runnel of ice running up slightly to the right of the prominent snowfield high in the couloir and then merging into it not too far beneath Englishman’s Col — the high col between the Tooth’s west and middle summits.

The runnel looked viable, and it looked good.

It looked really good.

Looking through the lens, collecting my thoughts and trying to keep calm, I also realized that I had a problem: I was with Kent, and I didn’t want him and Jurgen to scoop the line. Both were good climbers, and given any opportunity, they’d nail it. Which wasn’t lost on me. So I kept quiet, albeit quivering with excitement.

There are two things in this world I’m good at keeping quiet over: things I’m told in confidence and new-route possibilities. (Fifteen years later, I’m still sitting on some good ones.)

Having spotted the Shaken, Not Stirred couloir, I’d sooner the Mooses Tooth fall over than have somebody other than me grab its first ascent.

Back to camp, I whispered to Jim about what I’d seen and threatened violence if he let on. He took a “ski around” and got himself a vantage. He liked what he saw and we organized a sortie.

We left the tent about midnight, climbed the icefall where the Root Canal Glacier tumbles into the Ruth Gorge to the base of the south face of the Mooses Tooth, and started up the route about six a.m. It didn’t take us long to realize that we were onto something really special. A pitch or two of hollow, rotten ice gained a straightforward couloir, and we climbed that for a long way, until it pinched down to the beautiful ice runnel I’d seen from the opposite side of the Ruth.

Here’s a good overview of the route that I found on the web. The coming photos will make more sense if you click on it and bounce back. Plus, you’ll see why it’s such a great climb.

And here’s Jim in an easy part of the couloir. I think he’s about to launch up into the narrow ice runnel.

The ice runnel served up the best climbing on the route. Jim got the best of it, and it was fabulous. Below is a shot of Jim copping a rest near the end of a long pitch:

Jim led the bulk of the runnel, which I think went on for four pitches. I got the last one. Here are two pictures of me that Jim took on that pitch (I think):

The couloir walls framed spectacular views into the Ruth Gorge. The picture below is an odd converse of the one I’d taken below Mount Dickey the day before, perhaps showing why the route hadn’t been discovered, since only a small slice of the Alaska Range is visible from inside the couloir’s depths.

As I recall, it wasn’t easy to find anchors in the mostly flawless granite beside the snow and ice, but when I did get a stance, I took this picture of Mount Dickey.

A bit farther up, I led the crux of the route, a short, sharp mixed step that wasn’t very well protected. I took off the pack to do it:

I was pretty psyched to get over that step. Above it, I could see that the route would “go” all the way to Englishmen’s Col, and except for a funky move over a snow mushroom that got us back into the main snowfield, it was mostly cruising — in a truly spectacular alpine setting.

Here’s Jim kicking back in Englishman’s Col while we brewed tea.

Jim taking in the sights:

In the other direction, we had an incredible view across the upper north face of the Mooses Tooth, which was holding the day’s last sunshine.

We climbed up and over the west summit of the Mooses Tooth and spent the rest of the night descending to basecamp. Here’s me just after arriving:

Despite  two nights without sleep, it didn’t take us long to graduate from hot Tang.

The Shaken, Not Stirred couloir is directly over Jim’s head.

I was delighted. I knew we’d scored a really good first ascent, and it became popular in a hurry, especially once Paul Roderick reduced the approach to five minutes by landing people on the Root Canal Glacier directly below the climb. People with good weather could suddenly knock out both Ham & Eggs and Shaken, Not Stirred in a single weekend.

Here’s what Joe Puryear’s guidebook has to say about Shaken, Not Stirred: “This narrow ice ribbon splitting the immense granite walls of the south face of the Mooses Tooth is an alpinist’s dream. Although it doesn’t provide an easy way to the actual summit, the outstanding nature of the climbing makes it exceptional. And with its easy access and short approach, this is about as good as it gets for Alaskan alpine climbing.”

Makes a guy blush.

As further evidence of my version of the route discovery story, I offer up the phone call I made to Jack Tackle as soon as we were back in civilization: “Dude, how’n the fuck did you miss that?”

Jack wasn’t too happy with my gloating, if I remember right, but at least he had the Elevator Shaft and the Cobra Pillar to ease his pain.

I’d been giving Jim a hard time along those lines ever since we were in Englishman’s Col.

If you’ve got Shaken, Not Stirred stories of your own, please post ‘em or link to ‘em below — along with photos.

On a different topic, please take the time check out the three eStories I’ve just published. They’re only available digitally. However, if you’re NOT normally an eReader, you’ll be able to read them on Amazon’s “Kindle Cloud Reader” or the Barnes & Nobles “Nook for Web,” both of which open in your computer browser. (In my opinion, opening them through Safari on an iPad gives a top-shelf reading experience.)

Here they are:

Into Action is a stark military tragedy that hinges on a young soldier’s struggle to remain loyal to his distant girlfriend in a morally trying, sexually charged situation, and it spotlights the complicated emotional choices shouldered by young men at war.

My first piece of fiction, Into Action is a short story that takes place during Operation Just Cause, the 1989 invasion of Panama, during which I was an infantry platoon leader.

Into Action is available at Kobobooks, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble for $1.99.

In 2011, accompanied by National Geographic photographer Stephen Alvarez, I spent a jaw-dropping month climbing the highest mountains in the Islamic Republic of Iran as members of a goodwill exchange between the American Alpine Club and the Alpine Club of Iran, world-class organizations intent on doing something to improve the strained relations between the two peoples. Besides having wild adventures in gorgeous mountains, we built excellent relationships with their Persian hosts, gained a better appreciation of the ancient culture of Iran, and experienced some of the tensions inherent in life in modern Iran, all at a time when the two captured American hikers were still languishing in a Tehran prison.

The Atlantic published a short version in their April, 2012 issue; Rope Diplomacy: On the Steeps in Iran gives you the opportunity to read the full, detailed, and nuanced story accompanied by more than thirty of Stephen’s brilliant photos.

Rope Diplomacy is available at Kobobooks, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble for $2.99

Last but not least is Right Mate, Let’s Get On With It,  an article that explores the outrageous accomplishments and inner workings of one of the most powerful rope teams in mountaineering history – the partnership of Australian Andrew Lindblade and Kiwi Athol Whimp. Together, they climbed some of the most difficult, dangerous, and beautiful mountains in the world — among them Jannu and Thalay Sagar, vertiginous Himalayan summits that make Mount Everest look like a bump.

Tragically, Athol Whimp died in a fall in the mountains of New Zealand in early 2012. Right Mate, Let’s Get On With It was first published in the June, 2004 issue of Climbing (No. 321), and veteran mountaineer and author Gregory Crouch has updated and eReleased the story in Athol’s honor with Andrew Lindblade’s cooperation and nineteen of his best photos.

Right Mate, Let’s Get On With It is available at Kobobooks, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble for $0.99 (There seem to be issues with Right Mate on Nook, although strangely, not on “Nook for Web.” I’m trying to figure that out.)

And so back to Shaken, Not Stirred…

Here are good Shaken, Not Stirred photos from Ouray Ice Climbing.

Here’s the American Alpine Journal mention of the second, third, and fourth ascents of Shaken, Not Stirred in 2000, three years after we’d done the first. Kelly Cordes is a friend of mine. I’d forgotten that he’d done the second ascent. Very cool.

Jim Donini interview

I just discovered this interview with my great climbing partner Jim Donini which was done by Denali Mountaineering in 2000. Lots of fun.

Here’s a link to the audio.

Sam Page review of Enduring Patagonia

Sam Page runs an interesting website called The Mountaineering Review, and he just posted a review of Enduring Patagonia.

I’m happy he enjoyed Enduring Patagonia so much, and that he got a kick out of the ball washing stories — the weirdest job I’ve ever done.

One of the under-appreciated aspects of hardcore alpine climbing is how hard it is to earn the money to take the trips while simultaneously climbing enough to be in shape for the top-end trips.

But for the record, I did wash my clothes on those trips. Well, except for the month spent out on the ice cap. No laundry was done out there.

A Fine Piece — photos from the first ascent

Here are a bunch of images from the first ascent of A Fine Piece on the west pillar of Cerro Pollone that Jim Donini and I made in November, 1999. They just came back from slide scanning yesterday.

Although I didn’t write about this climb in detail in Enduring Patagonia (I think it might have got a paragraph, and maybe just a sentence), I’ve always thought of it as the perfect alpine rock climb — uncomplicated approach (albeit a long one), minimal objective hazard, excellent rock, and a mind-bogglingly spectacular setting. The climb went beautifully. We had stable weather and both of us were at the top of our game. I think it has been repeated a time or two, and although I’ve never heard from anybody who has done it, I’d guess that A Fine Piece will become extremely popular in the long run.

It was a dream come true to make the first ascent of such an incredible climb…

Torrecita Tito Carrasco on the left (we’d made its FA the week before), and the west pillar of Cerro Pollone dominating the center of the picture. Our route of ascent loosely followed the sun/shade divide for about 15 or 16 largely marvelous pitches.

Jim at a belay low on the route. The approach was easy, and not dangerous.

Jim leading low on the route

Getting my share low on the route

The view over the Southern Patagonian Icecap from the bivy we made at the end of pitch 7. (I’d think doing the whole climb in a day would be a better option.)

The same view a few minutes later. (or maybe it was the other way around.)

The climbing the next day was absolutely stunning…. I can’t remember precisely what order all this stuff happened in, but I’ll do my best. The climbing was fantastic, that much I do remember…

Jim got us around that flake…

We each got several pitches of stellar cracks… me above and Jim below

And then two more of me below…

Jim chilling on a ledge a pitch or two below the top of the pillar, when we knew we had it in the bag…

For once, I got the glory pitch… and the first gander at the most spectacular summit view I have ever seen in my life.

Piergorgio in profile, with the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap in the background.

Jim relaxing in our high camp after the climb

Reflections on the climb, one of the best I’ve ever done…

Here’s my recent post of photos of Jim climbing in Patagonia and Alaska from the Enduring Patagonia years. I’d love to get Enduring Patagonia in front of another generation of climbers, and for it to be the book climbers use to crack open our world for  friends and family who might not appreciate and understand the passions that drive us.

I’ve got another run of slides coming from the first ascent of Shaken, Not Stirred that Jim and I did on the south face of the Mooses Tooth — another classic.

[UPDATE!] Just had brought to my attention the recent ascent of A Fine Piece made by brothers Joel and Neil Kauffman. Is theirs the second ascent? Here’s their story, with their own killer photos. Can’t believe how psyched I am to read about their climb and to hear that they’d enjoyed their ride up the route. Well done, boys!

Really neat to see their pictures in some of the same sections as I’ve posted above — like the “getting my share low on the route” pic.

I also can’t believe how much LESS ice there is on the Cerro Pollone ridge than when Jim and I were there — we’d have had to do some hella scary ice traversing to make it to the main summit. That whole thing was festooned with ice from just a few feet from where we were sitting. No way we were getting over there in rock shoes!

Parenting, climbing, and Enduring Patagonia – watching my son read my book

Strange experience last night.

My 12-year old son Ryan and I were reading at the kitchen table last night when he exploded with gales of laughter. Nothing too unusual about that, except for the fact that he’s reading my book, Enduring Patagonia, to fill a requirement for his school reading class, which makes the kids read in a wide variety of genres.

“Dad, would Enduring Patagonia count as an adventure book?” he’d asked.

“I should hope so, Little Friend. Assuming Mrs. Duggan agrees. You’ll have to check with her.”

Mrs. Duggan must have given it the nod, because Ryan plowed though half of EP on Friday night. Very odd feeling for me to be reading next to him while he was flipping the pages of a book that’s a pretty accurate snapshot of my brain in the year before he was born.

He didn’t say much, and he didn’t have many questions, but he must have liked it because he read more than a hundred pages without taking a break, and his momentum carried over into Saturday.

Saturday evening, we were reading at the kitchen table and he burst out with gales of laughter — it was the ball washing episode that was killing him.

Later, he exploded laughing again, and tramped down the hall to quote Donini on baseball and granite tombstones (pp. 127), which was positively surreal.

I called Jim and told him right afterward.

It’ll be fun when Ryan gets to the Supermouse. That’s really going to make him howl.

We were out for dinner last night, and he had his nose stuck in the book right up to the second our pizza arrived.”Dad, this is good. It really makes me want to go climbing.”

Oh shit.

[EDIT: Thoughts I've imported from a post I made in the supertopo threads.]

It’s pretty great to see how much Ryan’s enjoying Enduring Patagonia, but it also raises a pretty serious question about what it means to be a parent, and a climber.

Of course I love climbing, and as an individual, it defines who I am as much or more than anything else, and I’d be delighted to teach Ryan to climb — if it’s something he genuinely wants for himself.

But I don’t think it’s right for me to make him into a climber just because I’m one. The sport is just too damn dangerous, as any deep perusal of the threads on the supertopo.com discussion forums makes obvious.

Ryan on Holdless Horror in Tuolumne Meadows in 2011

We’ve done some gym climbing and have taken a few trips up to Yosemite and Tuolumne, which have been great, and great experiences for Ryan, but I haven’t pushed climbing too hard. We only go when Ryan asks to go, which he hasn’t done very often — just a time or two a year.

If Ryan wants to be a climber, I feel like it should be his decision as much as possible, one that he makes when he’s a little older than he is now, when he’s grown into more of his own person. This is one passion I really don’t feel comfortable pointing him too strongly toward without him wanting it for himself. I have a pretty strong intuition that I shouldn’t force feed it to him, that I shouldn’t make him a climber without it being his decision, his desire.

Of course, when the time comes, if he wants to learn, I’m going to be delighted to teach him. And I’m going to want to do it myself.

I’d also be very interested in hearing from other parents how they’ve dealt with this issue.

To me, it feels like a big one.

[UPDATE #2]

… and then, of course, at a stoplight on the way to a birthday party, he hit the part about the Supermouse… (and I was ready for it.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s some other climbing-related stuff in the recent Enduring Patagonia posts, with lots of photos, including these of Jim Donini, Charlie Fowler, and J. Jay Brooks. And then five pages of Patagonia photos, starting here and moving forward in time. I’ve got a lot more Patagonia and Alaska photos currently getting digitized and I’ll be posting them soon.

Watching my son read my book

Strange experience last night.

My 12-year old son Ryan and I were reading at the kitchen table last night when he exploded with gales of laughter. Nothing too unusual about that, except for the fact that he’s reading my book, Enduring Patagonia, to fill a requirement for his school reading class, which makes them read in a wide variety of genres.

“Dad, would Enduring Patagonia count as an adventure book?” he’d asked.

“I should hope so, Little Friend. Assuming Mrs. Duggan agrees. You’ll have to check with her.”

She must have given her nod, because he plowed though half of it on Friday night. Very odd feeling for me to be reading next to him while he was flipping the pages of a book that’s a pretty accurate snapshot of my brain in the year before he was born.

He didn’t say much, and he didn’t have many questions, but he must have liked it because he read more than a hundred pages without taking a break, and his momentum carried over into Saturday.

Saturday evening, we were reading at the kitchen table and he burst out with gales of laughter — it was the ball washing episode that was killing him.

Later, he exploded laughing again, and tramped down the hall to quote Donini on baseball and granite tombstones (pp. 127), which was positively surreal.

I called Jim and told him right afterward.

It’ll be fun when Ryan gets to the Supermouse. That’s really going to make him howl.

We were out for dinner last night, and he had his nose stuck in the book right up to the second our pizza arrived.”Dad, this is good. It really makes me want to go climbing.”

Oh shit.

[EDIT: Thoughts I've imported from a post I made in the supertopo threads.]

It’s pretty great to see how much Ryan’s enjoying Enduring Patagonia, but it also raises a pretty serious question about what it means to be a parent, and a climber.

Of course I love climbing, and as an individual, it defines who I am as much or more than anything else, and I’d be delighted to teach Ryan to climb — if it’s something he genuinely wants for himself.

But I don’t think it’s right for me to make him into a climber just because I’m one. The sport is just too damn dangerous, as any deep perusal of the threads on the supertopo.com discussion forums makes obvious.

Ryan on Holdless Horror in Tuolumne Meadows in 2011

We’ve done some gym climbing and have taken a few trips up to Yosemite and Tuolumne, which have been great, and great experiences for Ryan, but I haven’t pushed climbing too hard. We only go when Ryan asks to go, which he hasn’t done very often — just a time or two a year.

If Ryan wants to be a climber, I feel like it should be his decision as much as possible, one that he makes when he’s a little older than he is now, when he’s grown into more of his own person. This is one passion I really don’t feel comfortable pointing him too strongly toward without him wanting it for himself. I have a pretty strong intuition that I shouldn’t force feed it to him, that I shouldn’t make him a climber without it being his decision, his desire.

Of course, when the time comes, if he wants to learn, I’m going to be delighted to teach him. And I’m going to want to do it myself.

I’d also be very interested in hearing from other parents how they’ve dealt with this issue.

To me, it feels like a big one.

The DC 2 1/2

The DC 2 1/2… one of the best stories in China’s Wings.

The China National Aviation Corporation’s famous DC-2 1/2

DC-2 Photo Gallery

When I started researching and writing China’s Wings, I expected the world famous DC-3 to be my favorite airplane in the story, and a read a stack of books lauding its excellence. But the deeper I delved into the story, the more I came to appreciate its predecessor, the much less renowned DC-2. For the China National Aviation Corporation, the DC-3 was an evolution — the revolution had come with the DC-2.

And so here’s a gallery of photos honoring the DC-2:

J. Jay Brooks in Patagonia in black & white

These pictures come from the roll of black & white film I took to Patagonia as an experiment when J. Jay Brooks and I tried to climb a route on the west face of Aguja Saint Exupery, an adventure described in Enduring Patagonia’s chapter “Chasing the Wind.” I consider what J. Jay has accomplished in climbing AFTER the terrible, shoulder-crushing accident he survived in Alaska in 1996 to be nothing short of incredible. I think this might have been J. Jay’s first big trip after the accident (with a titanium shoulder), which Pataclimb.com tells me we did in February, 1999. I’ll take Rolo’s word for it. We seem to have been credited with a “new route” for what we did, but truth be told, I’ve never felt like J. Jay and I came anywhere close to completing that climb. We were a hell of a long way from Saint Exupery’s summit when we got rejected, and there was no sensation of having finished anything: the storm was tearing us apart; I was totally focused on not getting blown into the next world.

Here are the 5 shots from that roll that I printed and have since scanned. Patagonia (the clothing company) used two of them in catalogs, along with accompanying field reports, which I always enjoyed writing. And although I doubt my National Geographic photographer buddy Stephen Alvarez would use any of these shots for anything except toilet paper, the last three in the sequence are my personal favorites in my collection. When I bump ‘em up to large, they do a pretty good job of conveying the sensation of storm, at least to me. In my head, there’s immense chaos in those images, and looking back on my time in Patagonia, my overriding sensations are of fear and terrifying, eye-watering beauty, of impending or overwhelming chaos, and of the wonderful, joyful, competent, and confident arrogance of taking decisive action amidst all of it. Back then, I fucking knew what I was doing. I’m not so sure I do any more.

I’m glad I got to climb in Patagonia without weather forecasts, because I think we used to experience chaos unleashed a whole lot more frequently than climbers do today. In that regard, I got in just in the nick of time.

Although, in retrospect, I suppose that trip with J. Jay was pretty photographically successful, considering that I shot this one through the tent flap on the next day’s roll of film, and three Patagonia catalog pictures from two consecutive rolls of film probably isn’t horrible returns. Although all of it was essentially “combat photography.” I couldn’t go out and intentionally take a world-class picture if my life depended on it — unless I were clinging to some wild mountainside in some remote corner of the world. Then I might have a chance.

(Who else remembers fumbling to change the roll of film in an FM-2 at a hanging belay while simultaneously fighting to rig rappels in a screaming Patagonian blizzard? A non-trivial undertaking, I assure you. Watching Thomi Ulrich do it during our winter trip to Patagonia cured me of photography forever. Ironically, that was one of many things that got me to focus exclusively on writing, thereby condemning me to eight years of suffering on the China’s Wings project. Funny how one thing leads to another… )

Charlie Fowler in Patagonia

Last week’s post of photos of Jim Donini in Patagonia and Alaska got me thinking of the other great people with whom I climbed during my Enduring Patagonia years:  Alex Hall, J. Jay Brooks, Stefan Hiermaier, Stefan Siegrist, David Fasel, Thomi Ulrich, Boris Strmsek, Forrest Murphy, Steve Schraeder, Waldo Farias, Andres Zegers, Robyn Bunch, and Charlie Fowler.

Sadly, Charlie Fowler, one of the great modern mountain explorers, isn’t with us any more. In late 2006, along with with Christine Boskoff, he was killed in an avalanche in a Tibetan region of China. We shared an incredible adventure together on Cerro Torre’s Compressor Route, bivied in an ice slot on the summit plateau, and then watched the sun rise from that frozen aerie, but aside from that experience, and the connection we maintained in the years after, Charlie had a colossal impact on my life, because he originally passed me the tidbit of information that started me sniffing after the story that would become China’s Wings, which I wrote about in You’d Better Fall In Love With It, one of my first posts on this website.

In Charlie’s honor, here are some of my best digitized photos of him on Cerro Torre’s Compressor Route, in late January, 1996.