Howser Spire, West Face, Bugaboos. Ever since Yvon Chouinard and I made the circuit of the Howser Spires two years ago, the one climb in the Bugaboos that haunted me was the great western wall of its highest summit, Howser Spire. Estimates of its height had run from 3000 to 5000 feet, but actually it is probably a bit under the former. Yet, it is the highest precipice in the range and until Brian Greenwood and I climbed it on August 5, perhaps its outstanding unclimbed challenge. Study of photographs and the 1961 circuit had given me a fairly exact route plan to follow. From a camp at timberline near Juniper Lake, northwest of Howser, in perfect weather on the morning of August 4, we began a series of traverses, ascents and descents of cliffs and canyons around to the true west face, where the residue from two large hanging glaciers collects at the base of huge smooth cliffs. From here, the west face is really a buttress which rises to a pair of great points or steps. High on the left (north), lies a steep glacier pocket with waterfalls to the residue below; on the right is a badly slabbed face that connects the buttress with the hanging glacier between Howser and the South Tower. A narrow snow couloir provided access through the lower slabs of the buttress. By noon we had climbed this and much rock to the top of the first point. Most of the afternoon we concerned ourselves with the second step, a mixture of badly frozen fresh snow, ice and steep rock. The hardest section was a slabby inside-corner, much of it direct aid on wet rock. A short scramble upwards and an awkward rappel down a slanting snow and ice corner took us to the base of the great final wall. We vetoed a potential route out on the southern exposure because of the uncertainty of adequate cracks and took what appeared the best of three crack systems on its northern corner. After two leads of exposed ice climbing, we gained the crack. I had just led 100 feet of direct aid when it became obvious that we would have to bivouac on a tiny ledge below, between the ice and a rock headwall. In the morning, which dawned clear, we prusiked to the high point; in another long, difficult direct-aid pitch I reached the first ledge in the crack system. The next two leads were mostly free climbing, but verglas and snow in the cracks made them tedious and slow. We now knew that most of the technical difficulties were behind us. It was mostly a matter of time, hope that the weather would hold, and worry about the sections with ice and fresh snow. Yet, a final 100-foot pitch, around the corner to the south, provided one of the hardest, but still most enjoyable parts of the ascent. Above that, four leads among giant blocks, half frozen together with ice, kept our pace slow. Then, when we thought we were within moments of the summit, several hundred feet — it seemed yards — of a badly pinnacled knife-edge separated us from the top. We had to complete a long ice traverse with dangerously loose snow atop to reach the easy summit rocks. Looking back down, it seemed like a version of the Eigerwand, with all the ice and loose snow plastered on the route. We climbed to the summit in the moonlight, and then built a bivouac platform of loose rocks to spend a second night out. In the morning we happily descended the north ridge to the Warren Glacier.

Fred Beckey