SAMAYA x TOM LIVINGSTONE

 

 

Back in civilization after an expedition to Alaska's Ruth Gorge with Gašper Pintar, Tom Livingstone recounts the opening of a challenging and technical new alpine-style route on the south face of Mount Dickey.

 

"For the first third of the trip, we felt like we were living in a freezer. We cleared the snow from the tents every day while observing and analyzing the sharp, snowy peaks that seemed to drift through the clouds and light.

 

We had scouted out a number of routes and set off on them, including "Blood from the Stone" and a direct start for "Ruth Gorge Grinder" on Mount Dickey. We also tackled the west face of Peak 7400, among others. But once on the route, what we hoped was ice was actually unprotected goblet snow. We tried to force our way through, before turning back because the progress was so difficult, and then went back, harder, to try again.

 

During the second third of our expedition, the sun's rays began to arrive earlier at our base camp. We welcomed this sudden warmth in our two small tents in the middle of kilometers of glacier, thinking "Wow, it's here before 11 a.m.!", while frying everything we could eat in butter.

 

I really enjoyed Gašper's company, his humor and his great motivation. At the bivouac, we shared long conversations, talked and laughed about the world, which made the time pass more quickly.

 

As soon as we arrived, we were drawn to a large corridor at the top of the face, wondering if we could access it via some "crazy slabs". The weather remained capricious, but we were lucky all the same. With a small window of good weather, we were able to open a new route on the south face of Mount Dickey, culminating at 2909 meters. In the end, the opening took us four days.

 

After a day spent fixing the ropes, we set off. A subtle traverse of steep rock took us to the middle of the face, over ice and up to a cave to bivouac in. We then zig-zagged as the snow fell - or rather as it rose in the constant updraft and clouds. Numerous pitches seemed to make us turn back.

 

A bivouac on a snow ridge ended the third day, and Pinti smoked his last cigarettes. In the morning, we traversed a short section of névé overhanging between large spindrifts, those wind-blown drifts of snow. We finally reached the summit and descended in mixed weather, happy and joking immaturely about the Dickeys...

 

In the last week, the weather had warmed up again. We were drawn to other peaks and tried other routes, such as Mount Bradley and Ruth Gorge Grinder, but all were too dangerous for us. The big snow mushrooms and steep unprotected pitches were not pleasant. All in all, we tried out six different routes, always very active and enthusiastic! Hats off to all those who climbed fun routes in the Ruth.

 

Conditions don't seem to have been "good" at all this year, but we're happy to have made the most of it, to have "crossed the crazy slabs" climbing our new route, and to have had a great adventure in Alaska.

 

Gašper said it was the hardest alpine route he'd ever done. It was definitely a difficult combination of several types of climbing, over several days, with many different tests.

 

We called this route 'The Great Wall', firstly because it's a great wall, and secondly because we spent a lot of time wishing we had a proper wall to keep our tents from being buried in the snow."