Patagonia 2010 Part Two!

Hayden and I adopted the tactic of 'if the weather looks marginal, we take our gear for a hike up the glacier'. That is to say: if it cleared, we wanted to be poised to strike at the base of the route. So we packed our gear and hiked in to high camp, prepared to auger in until we got up something. Our first goal was going to be Exocet on Cerro Standhart.

Our alarm went off at 2:00 AM, Hayden's 19th birthday! We blasted some Notorious BIG and pounded coffee to get psyched up. No one mentioned the fact that it was raining and the winds were nuking, we were going hiking...

Hayden hiking below the east face of Cerro Torre. Most of the trail breaking was knee-deep wallowing.

We were laughing at ourselves pretty hard the whole day, conditions were terrible. Still, we pushed on in the high winds and sideways rain.

Hayden and I at the 'schrund. We're bailing...

Descending back to camp in the Valley...

Thoroughly defeated, we crawled back into our tent to wait out the rest of the weather. Our most recent forecast indicated that tomorrow was supposed to be poor, but there was potential for a two day stretch of no precip and low wind the day after. We wanted to go as big as possible during this window, so we decided to try the biggest route we thought was possible in current conditions - the Supercanaleta (WI4 5.10/M5 1600m) on Cerro Fitz Roy. The mountain was covered in crazy rime ice, with the top resembling the summit mushroom of Cerro Torre more than the usual rocky top of Fitz. It would be tools and crampons the whole way, exactly the type of route we were looking for in these cold conditions.

We rested and packed our bags the following day. Two ropes, 3 screws, a single set of gear, stove, and my proto two-man bivy sack. At around 6:00pm we started hiking up the Torre Glacier to the base of the snow leading up and over Sitting Man Ridge. We found great snow conditions which made this usually poor approach to the north aspect of Fitz Roy seem like a good choice. We descended the couloir on the other side of the ridge to the base of the route as it was getting dark. Hayden and I crawled into the two-man 'love sack' and brewed and rested until our 3:00am alarm.

The Supercanaleta on Fitz Roy!

Hayden near the start of the 1000m couloir, lots of calf burning to go.

The route starts with 1000m of ice up to AI3. We soloed together in the dark, our little worlds illuminated by the bubble of light from our headlamps. Surely this would be scarier in daylight, with thousands of feet of exposure beneath your legs.

We reached the top of the couloir and the start of the 22 pitches of mixed rock climbing just after daylight came upon us. The first pitch was one of the hardest of the day. Unconsolidated snow clogged the corner, making for hairy stemming in frontpoints, thin sticks in the icy crack, and good tool hooks on the righthand wall. I threw a couple gloved handjams in the crack above, plugged in a high cam, and dry tooled out right to a thin vertical ice smear which led to the top of the pitch. Hayden followed and ran the rope up to the base of the next pitch, a short vertical waterfall leading to a couple rope lengths of easy ice and thin goulottes (narrow ice runnels splitting rock). As I swung into the start of the pitch, I got really excited. We were sending Fitz Roy! I passed the next belay, yelled at Hayden to take me off, and went hypoxic swinging and kicking up the moderate ground as fast as I possibly could. The rope came tight on Hayden and I screamed down to him to start climbing. We simuled for a couple rope lengths and I stopped to belay on the righthand wall.

The start of the waterfall pitch.

From here, the route heads up and right linking amazing ice runnels and goulottes - perfect granite mixed climbing. Hayden took over the lead, and together we simulclimbed several pitches to the ridge. I dug my frontpoints in carefully and torqued my crampons into the cracks hard, making sure I was solid following behind Hayden without a belay.

Hayden linking amazing ice runnels.

Thumbs up on the ridge. Note amount of rime ice...

On the ridgeline proper we stopped simuling. The rock was heavily coated in rime ice, sometimes several feet thick. The climbing was still of very high quality, the rime making things just interesting enough without things ever getting too desperate. We did make some blunders though, the rime totally obscuring the easiest line in a few places, forcing Hayden up a particularly heinous pitch, which I followed free at around M7/8.

Rime, rime everywhere!

Really good granite mixed. Dreamboat.

Hayden loving it…

A tight fit.

This is where things started to fall apart. Lost in the rime, I tried to do battle with a particularly gnarly mushroom of overhanging snow on the ridgetop. With no way to get through and no options presenting themselves to us, we reversed the pitch, searching desperately for the line amongst the rime ice. My camera ran out of batteries… We spent about 6 hours climbing up and down, left and right, trying every conceivable variation to no avail. With no food or water left (we left our Jetboil stove at the base of the route), we had no choice but to bail, mere pitches from the end of the technical climbing and the summit of Cerro Fitz Roy!

Rappelling the route through the night was one of the more unpleasant things I have ever done, taking about 12 hours to reach our bivy at the base of the route. We brewed up and napped for a couple hours at the base, then shouldered our packs and hiked back around Sitting Man Ridge to our camp in the Torre Valley. We were completely choked. I honestly felt wronged by the mountain… Never before had such a cruiser mission turned into a total shut-down! Hayden and I vowed never to climb the stupid Supercanaleta ever again!

Back in town, Hayden was busy selling all his gear, he was due to fly back home to Colorado in a couple days. I was looking forward to wrapping up a couple undone bouldering projects and generally having a leisurely last week or so in town, maybe even fly up to Bariloche to hang out with some Argentine friends for a few days.

As luck would have it, the weather was about to get good, again...

Click here to go to Part Three

Patagonia 2010 Part One!

Finally back in Canadar after nearly two months in Argentine Patagonia. Below is some thoughts on the amazing trip...

I left Vancouver in early January to alpine climb in Argentine Patagonia. I had already put time into this range, establishing one new route and two first free ascents during the 2008 season with Will Stanhope. This year I was hoping to build on that success and establish another long rock freeclimb. I brought along the two best team mates I could think of for the job - the talented Americans Jon Gleason and Matt Segal. I was confident, given a decent weather window, we could achieve our goal. As it would turn out, the only thing one can be confident in is the amazing bouldering to be had just above town.

Matt and Jon.  We voted ourselves 'best sunglasses' out of any team in the range...

We had spent a month in town, occasionally hiking to high camp when I was idealistic enough to think we might get a few hours of good weather in. Every attempt would end in snow. It sure did seem to be snowing a lot up there. Several of our friends, all seasoned vets of the range, hadn’t left town all trip. The Huberbuam came and left.

Great bouldering weather in town but nuking in the mountains...

 Crossing the Rio Fitz Roy enroute to the Torre Valley.  Foolish attempt #1...

 Gleason approaching our first of many fun 'snow camping trips'.

 Summertime in Patagonia.  We should'a brought skis to shred the gnar out on the icecap.

 I got lots of good hiking shots that first month, usually hiking away from the mountains...

 Another attempt/snow camping mission.

At least we had the bouldering. We started checking the meteogram forecast for town, trying to predict the good bouldering windows of crisp temps and slight cloud cover. At night we’d thrash ourselves on ‘Coach’ Josh Wharton’s ridiculous power problems on the little plywood wall in the rec centre.  I was approximately twice as strong as I needed to be to climb any of my dream routes in the range.

The Gato Negro V9/10 - one of the better problems in Chalten and world class anywhere!

 The sport climbing near town is also quite fun.  Here is SLC crusher Ben Ditto on an 8a+.

With so much snowfall, the mountains turned into giant popsicles.

Time was running out for Matt. He had to leave early. We still hadn't managed to climb anything in the mountains. Finally, the meteogram weather forecast looked promising for most of one day, so we hiked in again to have a go at the smallest, easiest summit in the range, the De La S spire.

The standard route from the Torre Valley starts with a stiff 2000' approach to a low-angle snow/neve couloir. From there a couple easy mixed pitches leads to 4-8 pitches of easy rock ridge. Easy, right?  Conditions turned out to be a bit more mixed than anticipated, so for speed, I led the entire route. Matty and Gleason were glad to have a Canadian along for the frosty bits. We topped out to strong wind gusts and incoming weather over the mountains and wasted no time in rapping and reversing the route.

The S was a good reminder that nothing in this range comes easy. Matt left, our cumbre on De La S wetting his appetite for more alpine hits in the future. I decided I no longer wanted to try out of condition rock routes. Instead, I wanted to focus on some of the amazing ice and mixed lines that were back in condition. Jon wasn't interested, so we amicably parted ways. Too bad, as Jon is a top notch dude, and I wanted nothing more than to go 'ballistic' with him in the mountains...

What to climb now? My original objectives would be out of condition for the rest of the season. How could I make the most of my remaining time? Over muchos grande Quilmes cervezas I drunkenly declared I would lead every pitch of the classic ice route Exocet on Cerro Standhart with anyone who was willing to jumar behind me. 'Uh huh', everyone rolled their eyes at my youthful bravado. The only one to take my bait was Hayden Kennedy, the 18-year-old son of American alpine climbing legend Michael Kennedy.

Hayden and I were psyched, and the weather was looking like it was getting good...

Click here to go to Part Two

Sometimes you need to forget...

Alpine climbing is a stressful game. Generally, you are uncomfortable and scared. I spend most of my time absolutely hating it. It has its obvious rewards and some truly special moments, but most of the time I just end up asking myself why? I guess it's a blessing and a curse then that I am so drawn to it.

I cope. I diversify my life, meaning when I am not alpine climbing, I am really not alpine climbing. It's good to focus on other things to to shorten the amount of time it takes to remember how tired/scared/uncomfortable you were the last time you went to the mountains.

One such passion of mine is dance music. Making, playing, and dancing to music is one of the furthest things from climbing that I can think of. I generally don't pigeonhole myself and classify what dance music I like into a certain genre. I like to hop between genres and just play anything that makes you move.

I was really happy and excited today because I am leaving for Argentine Patagonia on Friday. So happy and excited that I felt like having a dance party by myself in my room. I started playing music with Ableton Live on my computer and on impulse pressed record, then mastered what I had recorded a little. The resulting 20 minute mix is super cheesy but pretty fun, with new and old favs. Bmore, Carioca Funk, and everything from Annie to the Bloodhound Gang.  Listen here:

If you want to download it, click here

The Final Countdown

It's only ten days until I depart for Argentina. I love the pre-trip process of planning, packing, ordering gear, everything. Vancouver has to be one of the best cities in the world to be based in for expedition climbing, it really has it all. These past few weeks of city life have been about training, preparing, family, seeing old friends and making new ones.

I was poking through photos and video from the '08 trip to the range with Will Stanhope. Wow, fun times. The experiences we shared mark some of the most intense times of my life. Here is a couple candid shots of Willy in the thick of it all:

Patagonia Nightmares from Jason Kruk on Vimeo.

My partners this year, Matt and Jon, have never met each other. Both are bad to the bone - I am sure they will get along famously. Matt is a professional climber, 5.14 trad monkey, and strong little mofo. Jon is a Patagonia veteran, former Yosar dude, and a MOG (Man-of-Girth).

Segal's $400 haircut in the Utah desert

Gleason saving lives in Yosemite

This is the playoffs

Thanks

After Yosemite, I drove straight to Boulder, Colorado, to meet up with Matt Segal. I was excited to be in town the week of the Adventure Film Festival, an amazing celebration of mountain culture with many good friends. This was an especially important year - we all miss Micah, Jonny and Wade and I was honoured to be able to celebrate their lives with family and friends and the Colorado climbing community.

After the festival, Matt and I drove out to Indian Creek for some splitter training. I was excited to be on a stress-free rock climbing trip, something I haven't done in a few years. Over the weekend, half of Boulder seemed to come and join us for a truly special Thanksgiving dinner in the desert. The Turkey tasted even better than at home (sorry Mom) and everyone contributed their favourite side dish. There was so much food you could only sample one bite of everything before your plate was overflowing! The following day Phyllis and Jon Copp Sr. literally drove for hours around the desert trying to find us on their way back home to southern California. We convinced them to spend the night out in the desert with us. Jon brought out Jonny's guitar and played around the campfire. Renan was ever present with his camera and took about 3000 photos, editing them into a beautiful video on his drive home. Jon Copp's rendition of Take Me Home, Country Road provides the soundtrack:

Indian Creek t-day from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

Back in Boulder I got the news: Will Stanhope bailed on our expedition to Patagonia that was coming up in a month. At first I was quite bummed as Willy is definitely my best partner and we seem to be able to pull off amazing stuff together. But I immediately asked Matt Segal if he wanted to go. After 5 minutes of phone calls to the North Face, Matty was in one hundred percent. Then I managed to convince Big Jon Gleason to be a third. I am really happy now with the team we have lined up for our objective.

Segal toasting the booking of our plane tickets with a bottle of Basil Hayden's Bourbon.

I forgot to mention how much fun it was to shoot guns in the Utah desert with Pete and Jose... I'm a nice Canadian boy so had never done this before...

It was so, so hard to leave Boulder, and when I finally did I accidentally ran out of gas somewhere in Wyoming. That was a cold, cold walk...

It's good to be home in Vancouver. I was really excited to get ice climbing and skiing upon my return, but conditions were perfect for rock climbing and little else. Conditions were so good I even went up to the roof pitch on Freeway to check out a hard project with local badass Jer Smith. That was a bit optimistic as although it was clear, winds were gale force and tried their very best to blow us off the mountain while chilling us to the bone. Needless to say we didn't send, and I had nightmares of Patagonia for days after.

December bouldering at it's finest! Magic!

Coastal ice was slowing creeping in so on thursday I got out with long time Canadian ice climber and sender of Everest, Michael Down to see what we could climb. We stopped at Carl's Berg on the Duffy. It looked climbable, but certainly not in its classic WI5 shape. I was keen to try though, and found lots of steep and technical aerated ice with little pro for the bulk of the pitch... It was a good first pitch of the season for me... sort of...

Full value on Carl's Berg

The Most Fun

Will Stanhope and I made a one-mission hit to Yosemite Valley at the end of October. Upon arrival in the Valley we immediately packed our haul bags and jugged and hauled to Heart Ledge. Our plan was to set off the next day and intercept our bags after climbing the Freeblast and continue on the 42-pitch Golden Gate route (A. Huber, VI 5.13-).

I was climbing this route totally off the couch, having done zero real climbing since my trip to the Bugaboos in August. Most of my summer was spentwalking around the Canadian Rockies training for my alpine exam - not conducive to hard rock climbing. In the months of September and October I worked exactly 40 out of 43 days with many 12+ hour days. In the week prior to the trip I got two days of training in at a climbing gym in North Van. Otherwise my life consisted of rigging rock and roll shows, slaving on film sets, or doing safety for the vertical dance troupe Aeriosa.

Hot day time temps meant redpointing in the sun was out of the question... at least for us... Early pre-dawn mornings were standard for trying the hardest pitches, while most of the day was spent hiding from the sun under the portaledge or climbing and hauling the easier pitches. I was really, really happy with our effort. Will managed to send every pitch and I failed only on the final 5.13 - the A5 Traverse - on our 7th day and exactly 6 falls off the very last move! Heartbreaker!

This route is totally amazing and without question one of the most fun experiences of my life! Now I am fit from crushing my body for 7 days on a bigwall and ready to learn how to climb hard again this fall/winter!

Willy on his first try on the henious 5.12+ down climb pitch. I figured out some trick beta, and about 60 tries later the lanky kid managed to send the scrunched crux.

This is why El Cap freeclimbing is the coolest thing ever!

Willy on the 5.13- 'Move Pitch' at sunset.

Kinda worked! Joes O's on the portaledge. Day 4.

Worked again. Willy demonstrating how NOT to clip in on the Tower to the People.

Tonight!

Willy and I just rolled in hot to Terrebone, Oregon, after training hard in Kelowna, BC. Ktown's Beyond the Crux climbing gym is without question, Canada's premier bouldering and training facility. Will and I went there for some final tune-ups before a mission to Yosemite. We trained under the strict tutelage of Mike Shannon, owner of BtC.


Tonight we are giving a slideshow at the new climbing gym just south of here in Bend, anyone who can make the trek over should help us out with the keg...

A different kind of success in the 'pine

I just returned from 10 days of time in the alpine... more accurately, exam time in the alpine. The ACMG assistant alpine exam was held in the Rockies and Rogers Pass this year at the end of August. Luckily, I was grouped for the duration with two strong candidates: Josh Briggs of Canmore, and Jeff Bellis of Revelstoke. In addition to being good guides, these two happen to be world-class shit talkers, which helped to keep the mood light during the stress of the exam process.

Day one saw me lead the relatively complex descent off Unnamed Peak in the Lake Louise group. This was without question my hardest lead of the exam, and is known to have been the cause of failure for a few brother candidates in years past. The glacier was in lean, late August conditions and involved lots of lowers down the ice, chossy short-roping, and a couple of rappels. It was good to get this over with, as the rest of the exam was cake in comparison!

The last two days were so enjoyable they were almost sweet bonus exam days. We moved camp from the southern Rockies to Rogers Pass - home to fantastic quartzite ridge climbs. After dealing with the 'sub-deal' rock quality of the limestone, it was a real pleasure to haul-ass up a couple thousand feet of quartzite buckets and splitter cracks.

Sketchy log-crossing on the way to the Neil Colgan hut via the Perren Route

Josh in the hot seat on Mt. Little

Crosby in action during a crevass rescue scenario

Step cutting evaluation below the hut

Jeff on a mock rescue pulling me out of a slot

Topping out the ice face approach to the west ridge of Mt. Fay

Seracs on the Chouinard Route on the north face of Fay

Examiner Rich Marshall looking down on us candidates...

Jeff sending the crux pitch of the Gmoser Route on Mt. Louis

Briggs on the Perren headwall on Mt. Louis

Jeff gives Marc a hip belay while descending the awesome northwest ridge of Sir Donald in Rogers Pass

Here's a short video of a couple fun moments on Mt. Fay and Louis:

ACMG Alpine Guide Exam '09 from Jason Kruk on Vimeo.

Bugaboo Free Mission

I just returned from a very successful trip into the Bugaboo mountains with Matt Segal and Will Stanhope. New free ascents were the objective - a tricky conditions-dependant business that can all come apart with the absence of a single key foothold or wet splitter crack. Luckily, things came together and we added two significant all-free routes to the range.

We began the trip based out of the Eastcreek Basin on the west side of the range, camped below an inspiring 'rocketship of granite' the Minaret. The hallmarks of this area are the imposing west faces of the South, Central, and North Howser Towers. The South is home to the ultra-classic Beckey-Chouinard, a 20-something-pitch 5.10-. The North Howser plum is the great All Along the Watchtower, a 900 meter all-free 5.12- first freed by Topher Donahue. The west aspect of the Central Howser wasn't climbed until 1999 and has only two routes up it, both multi-day aid-job affairs. The features on the route Chocolate Fudge Brownie looked the most promising for a free passage as we squinted through binoculars, and we would succeed in freeing the line via a 3-pitch variation at V 5.12+.

The North Vancouver/ Miami variation to Chocolate Fudge Brownie

I recently dropped my camera off Mt. Fay in the Canadian Rockies, meaning I had an excuse to get a new Canon G10. I used the shots and video footage from it to edit my very first movie. Check it out:

Central Howser Tower Freeclimbing from Jason Kruk on Vimeo.

After the Howser mission, we popped back over the col to Applebee camp for the remainder of the trip. Will, Hazel, Matt and I decided to try the still un-free Sendero Norte on the east face of Snowpatch Spire. Dry conditions worked in our favor and Will managed to pull through the tips finger crack crux at 5.12+.

Does this look like alpine climbing? No helmet or shirt on the crux pitch of Sendero Norte (V 5.12+)