the time by spending countless hours listening to music, drinking bourbon, and watching movies on the iPad. So much for roughing it! The next weather window only offered us 48 hours to summit and get down before gale force winds would blow through the range and send the already frigid temps into the deadly range. We knew a fast ascent was essential. On the morning of May 13 the skies dawned clear and calm. We left camp by 6 am moving fluidly across the glacier, up the entrance couloir, and arriving at the base of the Spiral
45 minutes faster than on our first attempt. Many parties bivy here, but since it was only 10am we opted to continue and try and make the Nose bivy 1,500 feet above. I re-lead the “Spiral” crux and handed the lead over to Chris, bringing us to the first aid portion of the route a beautiful vertical C1 crack. Having decided to bring only a single set of cams, a limited selection of pins, and a single set of nuts, I was forced to embark on steep, run out free climbing at the top of the pitch which added to the adventure of the route. Following this pitch was another 1,000 feet of fun, moderate mixed and snow climbing. Twelve hours after leaving base camp, we arrived, exhausted, at the infamous Nose bivy, only to realize we had another two hours of ice chopping in order to pitch our tent. In the end, only 80-percent of our tent ended up on solid ground and we collapsed exhausted inside and began brewing up warm drinks before a restless night spooning, trying to keep feeling in our toes. Morning lit another blissful day and I started up the beautiful over-hanging C2 crack of the Nose. Chris jugged quickly and upon him reaching the belay we knew we had finished all the “technical difficulties” Now we kept our fingers crossed for safe snow slopes above. The top of the Nose has become known as the finish to The Harvard Route as many parties head down from there. We decided to continue to the summit. Above us laid several pitches of steep, unconsolidated snow and we were soon faced with the decision of continuing up un-protectable, and avalanche prone 50-degree sugar snow slopes, un-roped, or reverse one pitch and be able to safely rappel the entire route. After several minutes of deliberation and testing the slopes beyond our final belay, we both agreed that our mental and physical exhaustion, although not debilitating then, was not something to be pushed, particularly when we would be forced to down-climb these same slopes several hours later on our descent. The descent was uneventful, which was lucky considering we had nearly 18 full-length rappels. The luxuries of base camp couldn’t have felt better after our cold, cramped night at the Nose bivy. We feasted on sausages, mashed potatoes, and Nutella, falling fast asleep until the expected winds arrived. Around 3am Chris and I bolted awake as a thunderous slap smashed into our tent. This was the first of many gusts that night and, come morning, when we finally got out of the tent, we saw a plume of snow more than a half-mile long blowing off the summit ridge of Huntington! We both cracked a sly smile knowing we had made the right decision to leave when we did. Another beautiful flight through the Alaska Range [This page] Kevin leads the “Spiral” in deteriorating conditions. Chris Hamilton CCAJ
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