A Dream Lived: Arrigetch Peaks, Brooks Range, Alaska! Part 1

PrezwoodzPrezwoodz Registered Users Posts: 1,147 Major grins
edited August 16, 2009 in Journeys
Around 4 years ago John Borland and I decided to go on a big climb into the northern
areas of Alaska above the Arctic Circle. We decided on a beautiful spire called Shot Tower as
our main objective. This tower included 16 pitches of climbing with one of those pitches being
A2. A2 means that it is ascended by aid climbing, that is using gear entirely to ascend that
portion. We began the first stage and started to learn how to aid climb. As most people know
things don't always go as planned and we ended up being quoted $2000 each for our trip.
"$2000?!" we said, "thats more then a trip to Thailand!". The next thing we knew we were off to
Thailand and thus began 4 years of traveling and utter nomadism. Still throughout those years
something was missing, something had yet to be accomplished and that was the tower jutting
mightily from the earth, hundreds of miles from civilization.
It is July 2009 and I am perusing Alaska Mountain Forum (http://www.alaskamountainforum.com) and stumbled across a post asking
for partners into the Arrigetch Valley. Their goal; Shot Tower. I feel a light tingle float up
my spine as again the possibilities radiate through me. I quickly shot the idea down. Money,
Planning, time, I just don't have any of those available; but still I reply. Soon I am sending
emails back and forth with Marten Ksok and he tells me that the plane ride will cost $650. That
once again sends me spiraling through the opportunity and I agree to join. With just a few days
of gathered planning we are all sitting in a car still chatting with the basic questions as we
get to know each other. Brian Friedrichs, Rob L., Marten Ksok, and I drive to Fairbanks and enter the equivalent of crawling into a fireplace. Choking down the air makes me feel like a smoker, and headaches are passed all around. Meeting up with Mike he led us through the backwoods to a Yurt where we spent our first night of the trip.
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Awaking to more smoke from the fires burning all over the interior we continued our drive onto Coldfoot, another 7 hours or so along the famous Haul Road of Alaska. After taking a painless class in Backcountry Orientation and a rather painful class in Arctic Art at the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center we hit up what would be our last real civilized meal for several weeks an $18.95 buffet that I have yet to regret.
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That night we stayed at a campsite outside of Coldfoot for the first night in a tent, looking at the tent I would be living in with Brian gave me the feeling that we would be quite cozy by the end of this trip. Our two sleeping pads cuddled each other effectively and got to know one another. The first night we woke to a frost, apparently it was going to be colder then we had realized!
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We headed back to the Visitor Center, as much for the bathrooms as to get information for access and decided we would try to get access to South Arrigetch Creek from Takahula Lake. At the airport we weighed all our gear, and ourselves, and groaned about pretty much anything that was going to add an ounce. Soon our packs were down to a healthy 70+ pounds. Only Marten managed to get his down below 70 lbs. and that was before adding a gallon of fuel. I put mine on the scale it seemed to yell the weight into my eardrums, 81 lbs. Ouch. After some tweaking I got it down to 74 lbs. And was probably much to proud of myself. I personally weighed 240 pounds. We put all our money together in cash with the exception of Marten, allowing us to ask the question “If the check doesn't clear do we get picked up?” oddly there are smiles and laughs, but no answer.
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Coyote Air was our travel of choice, most people seem to fly through Bettles to access the Arrigetch but Coldfoot was our choice because it can be accessed by road, thus bringing down the costs of travel. Dirk was a great pilot telling us stories of his first climb, which happened to be on Mt. Hunter and with Alex Lowe and Conrad Anker, and lots of other interesting facts. He spotted at gravel bar on the Alatna River that he said would be good for a landing and skimmed the water surface as he came down gently on an uneven rocky surface. I hope that sounded like I was calm, in reality I probably ground a few teeth down to nubs.
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Standing on the bank of the Alatna River in the Brooks Range with several people I had only just me in the last month I waved goodbye to Dirk.
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Steven King probably would have called us a Ka-tet, 4 people bound to a single purpose and it was our goal to achieve that tower. It also happens that the only book I brought along was the Wizard and Glass by Stephen King.
We threw on our packs and headed off into unbroken trail up the creek which leads to the valley. A mist was followed by a light drizzle which didn't matter to much because we had only made it a few miles before our feet were wet.
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At times we would be walking the creek bed, happy that the going was so easy and only feeling the pain of our packs. Then we would soon be brought back to the reality of the situation by a bushwhack over alders and through trees which would last hours. The breaks were numerous and each time we would learn we had only gone a few miles, usually less. Every few seconds one, or all, of us would yell “Hey Bear”, “Yo Bear”, “How you doing bear?”, or some sort of combination. Whenever Marten would yell “Oh Hey Bear” it sounded to me as though he was actually talking to one and I would gaze around nervously expecting a reply “Hows it going? Which one of your is the heaviest? Its getting late and I'd like to stock up.”
Our first campsite was at the pass one would use to get into the other creek, if someone was so inclined to do so. We could smell sulfur nearby and knew about a hot springs in the vicinity although we had also heard not to get our hopes up. After a good meal Marten headed off to find the spring while the rest of us collapsed into a deep stupor. The spring, Marten would later tell us, was like holding down the button on a water fountain and was either too hot or too cold.
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The next morning it continued to drizzle, thanks to our already wet shoes it didn't seem to bad. We also all knew that it would be only 4 miles to the upper campsite. That was only half of the distance we had covered the day before and that was something to celebrate about. We left camp in good spirits, which were soon shattered in sounds of alders as they splintered under our feet. The immediate mile took 3 hours. Some of the walking your feet never touched the ground they simply limped along amongst the alders which decided to grow horizontally instead of vertically. I would duck my head and just dive in, sometimes they caught the pack tipping my already teetering body in all directions. Then we finally emerged onto the other side of the stream to a much easier hike of boulders under tundra. The next few miles went at about a mile per hour but felt like we were sprinting after the previous epic.
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The campsite was a beautiful knoll of soft grass with the occasional boulder that was hard to find until you were laying on it. Rob found a friend in his piece of granite and named him Gary, one could often hear them cuddling in the night with Rob doing most the talking. We setup the site which would be our home for the next few weeks and rolled into our sleeping bags.
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The next morning the weather was decent but the smoke obscured most of our views. Sometimes we would get a glimpse on the shadow of Wichman at the head of the valley, others it was merely a blank spot in our vision.
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We took this day as a sort of rest before doing Shot Tower. It was my goal not to move any muscles and just let them recover a bit before going into the big climb. Within a few hours however I was following Marten up the valley that would be our approach. We did a two hour hike to get a good view of the approach and stared at the massive hunk of rock we had all come to climb. We stumbled our way back down the talus which was mostly large loose boulders over small loose blocks. After a good dinner we sorted gear and decided on teams of Rob and I and Brian and Marten for the climb. We would leave first at 4am with Brian and Marten following next at 5am giving us some time to get a few pitches before they got behind us.
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My little alarm clock beeped away at 4am, I awoke and grabbed it in my hand hitting snooze quickly and with the effectiveness of a professional. Soon I was falling back into a deep serenity of quiet and darkness. Before the impact however I opened my eyes, it was my job to get Rob up and if we were going to do this climb then it wasn't going to not happen because of me. I rasped on Robs tent and we made our way to the cooking area. A nice stream bed that ran only when the water was high and was itself only a few seconds walk from the main stream. Breakfast was made and enjoyed before we left at 4:30am to begin. The smoke had not left the valley and the hike up was a long trudge through boulders and gigantic loose blocks. As they rolled they seemed to spew obscenities for being moved on such short notice. It appeared they were angry whenever they came rolling onto a foot or attempted to take a finger. After a few hours we were at the base of the climb, with that behind us we once again became excited about what appeared before us.
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We racked up and headed into the climb and were barely a few pitches up before Brian and Marten were racking their own gear below the climb, we were the slower hikers. The first few pitches of climbing were easy and of average quality. Every now and then we would pull out the sheet of paper which described, loosely, the pitches ahead and wonder at what the description really meant. What does “slow” really mean as the entire description for a route?
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After a few hours and a good clump of pitches we were past a traverse of the mushroom. The mushroom is a large overhanging block that is normally done by skipping it entirely.
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After a few excellent pitches of climbing we finally came to the crux of the route. A 60ft overhanging thin crack that is done by aid climbing. Rob took this moment to lay his head down, Marten mentioned that he hoped rob didn't sleepwalk. About one foot from his head is a 1000ft drop.
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After some discussion I started the first portion of the route and got half way up before I came down and switched off with Brian. It was nice to break this pitch up into two and not half to lead the entire portion. During the climb my hand and arm began to cramp up which led me to think I hadn't had enough water for the day, this was surprising because I had probably drank 2 liters of water since beginning the climb and that really didn't seem so long ago. Brian had never aid climbed before and after showing him how to use the etriers and easy daisy he jump right into his first aiding experience. After a while he was very quiet and seemed to be moving along well so I asked an arbitrary question “How's it going up there?” and retrieved a rather quick reply of “I'm about to F#&^ing S**@ myself.” This garnered some good laughter from those of us on the ground and Brian continued his quiet exaction of the route at hand.
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Soon he had finished and we were all above the headwall with Rob and I heading toward the summit with just a few pitches of climbing left. Rob was the first to the summit and I followed shortly thereafter. The views, although smoky, were incredible. The smoke gave it an otherworldly view and the peaks unfolded around us. Brian took a summit video and the sound of camera shutters were very evident.
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Shortly thereafter were headed back down. Marten looked at his watch and we were all surprised to hear that it was 9:30pm. We had been on the wall now for 17 hours with no rest.
Some of the rappels were nice and quick, we backed almost every one of them up with new webbing we had brought for the occasion. At one of the rappels, back to the mushroom, it was just a large stone. To sling the block I moved it out of its current resting place, wrapped a sling around it and put it back in. The block itself couldn't have weighed more then 60 lbs, had it given away the fall would have been around 1300 ft and rather unpleasant. The night wore on and at times patience wore on with it. At one spot we were all crammed into a small corner with ropes piled out our feet. Normally a spacious place for two this hole became a pile of people and gear in a matter of minutes. Grumpy voices followed quickly and slightly anxious movements before finally we were off and continuing down the face. I decided to backup a hex placement with cord while Rob watched me anxiously, finally asking “Are you going to pull the rope?!” Questions here on the face had a funny way of sounding like instant requests at this time of night. Still we continued down, there were a few moments when the dark seemed almost that, dark. I had left my headlamp at the base of the climb, a reoccurring theme for me, and used Robs to finish up the last few pitches to the ground. By the time we reached the base of the climb it was beginning to get light once again and a look at the clock alerted us to the the time. 4:00am.
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So far it had been a 24 hour climb with no rest and we still had the hike back down to go. This was a slow laborious process where every now and then you would see someone fall down and wait to see if they were going to get back up. If they didn't you assumed they were just resting anyway, maybe they'll be at the tent later. After a few hours at the base of the last steep field of seemingly never ending rock Marten sat waiting for everyone, as we came upon him he said rather non nonchalantly “I fell asleep and just woke up.”
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The last person arrived at camp at 7:30am. 27 hours after we had started the morning before. Brian and I talked about making something to eat before sleeping, I got as far as the creek and made some water then remember opening my eyes in the tent thinking “Well this is an odd place to have something to eat”, then I was off to sleep again.
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