The Southeast Face of Mount Temple

Arthur Gran, Club de Montagne Canadien

John Hudson and I had come to attempt the 4000-foot southeast face of Mount Temple, the tenth highest peak in the range. John, probably one of the most promising young mountaineers in the United States, had his first season in the mountains last year, and it was a great one. He made four major new routes and two first ascents of peaks. Not bad for a sixteen-year-old !

We decided to wait at Moraine Lake for good weather. This year the weather and consequently the snow conditions were worse than at any time since the summer of 1957. Five days later it was still snowing. Astonishingly the morning of the sixth day was perfectly clear. During breakfast the avalanches started on the mountain. Afterwards we walked to a vantage point to study the face and avalanche pattern. By eleven o’clock there was a slide every 15 seconds somewhere on the face, and once three fell at the same time. We were able to work out the least risky route, but even there we should have to climb two avalanche chutes and cross seven others.1 In order to reach the upper snow fields, we should also have to ascend an 800-foot vertical section. If any extensive direct aid was necessary there, we felt the climb would take two days.

Back at camp we started packing the gear: helmet, crampons, ice axe and down jacket for each. We also put in a two-man bivouac sack, cold food for two days, water and two 150-foot lengths of ?-inch rope. The technical gear consisted of 30 rock pitons, 5 ice screws and pitons, 30 carabiners and a pair of kletterschuhe.2

We woke up at two o’clock under a starry sky. At about three, we walked northeast along the trail to directly under the center of the face, where we left the path and ascended steeply to a cirque at the base of the wall. After crossing a recessional moraine, we climbed a large snow and ice cone to enter the main avalanche chute, which was 20 feet wide and 20 feet deep at a break in its wall. We moved up this trough and on the right at the entrance of another gained a rock rib, which we followed for 500 feet to its end. Now beside a short, concave, vertical wall, I spotted a possible route about two-thirds of the way across to the left. We traversed to this route, where I put on the rope and led up the wall, eventually reaching a chimney on the left. By easing past an extremely loose, giant block, I gained the ledges above the wall.

Though we were now at the base of three avalanche chutes, a high rib on the left could be followed in safety for a thousand feet below the vertical rock section. No avalanches had started as yet. It was six o’clock and becoming cloudy, which meant fewer slides but probably bad weather. We climbed the crest of the rib first on rock and then on thinly crusted snow, which often gave way, dropping us in knee-deep; we stayed on the rock whenever possible. When the rib was eventually interrupted by a short, steep wall, we gained a ledge, traversed to the right and moved back up to the top of the wall. Just then the day’s first avalanche rumbled ominously. We followed the rib to another steep wall, which we climbed straight on, before continuing on snow to a crest at the base of a blank vertical face.

We were now 3000 feet above Moraine Lake but still below the most difficult section technically and 2000 feet under the summit. The most feasible line was to traverse 140 feet to the left and climb to a ledge to try the wall above. I traversed the 40° slope and halfway over did some fast cutting across a chute into which snow and rock were occasionally spilling. From the ledge we climbed three rope lengths to a stance at the base of a large unclimbable buttress. As I gained the platform, an avalanche roared by just to the left. It had plunged down the first of four avalanche chutes which cut the vertical cliff. This first channel spiraled around the back of the buttress and as it was the only one which did not appear to be overhanging, I decided to climb it. After a slight descent and traverse to a belay near the entrance of the chute, I moved in, placing a 1½-inch angle piton in the right wall to give me confidence. I felt that if another avalanche came, I could jump completely out of the trough, and the piton would check my fall on the lower snow slope. I cut steps in the blue ice at breakneck speed, and in these and on rocks embedded in the ice I quickly gained 90 feet. My belay stance was left of the chute on an ice crest that ran to the base of a large vertical pillar, which acted as a partition between two chutes. From this precarious perch I belayed John and watched him with admiration climb with extreme precision and speed. He continued along the crest and belayed at the base of the pillar. The trough we had hoped to follow ended in an impossible overhanging ice-covered wall. I entered the chute to the left, but this new one was also

impossible, for the ice formed a roof and the walls were without cracks. The only possibility now was to try the face of the pillar straight on. From our belay stance I climbed straight up the vertical wall to a small ledge, stepped right and entered a shallow, overhanging corner of brittle rock, where the holds kept breaking. I managed to place a piton and moved up on tension. Thanks to a second poor piton, I was able to climb to a ledge on the left and on up a steep corner to a belay stance on the right. At this point I knew the climb was ours. We had found the key to the upper snow fields.

The next pitch spiraled up steep rock to the back of the pillar, which was connected to the face by an ice rib. After following this rib, I cut steps up the ice face and soon we reached the upper snow fields and climbed the 400 feet to the east ridge.

The summit was now in sight above a beautiful, corniced ridge. From here we reached the top at 3:30 p.m. With a view of Hungabee, Lefroy and Victoria we felt well rewarded for the climb. After a much needed meal, threatening weather forced us rapidly down the southwest ridge. About halfway it started to snow to round out a perfect climb.

Summary of Statistics

Area: Canadian Rockies.

Ascent: Mount Temple, 11,636 feet, July 13, 1962—first ascent of southeast face by Arthur Gran and John Hudson.

1. With better snow conditions the avalanche danger might not be as great.

2. The pitons actually needed are as follows: six assorted horizontals, one knife-blade, three

regular angles, one 1-inch angle, one 1½-inch angle, and about two ice screws.