North America, Canada, Interior Ranges, Adamant Mountain, North Ridge, Selkirks

Publication Year: 1971.

Adamant Mountain, North Ridge, Selkirks. From the Granite glacier the north ridge of Adamant appeared to be one of the most appealing climbs in the Adamant range, and as far as we could tell, it remained unclimbed. On August 27 Gary Colliver, Bob Cuthbert, Gray Thompson and I crossed the schrund at the foot of the ridge, and after one pitch discovered a rusty soft iron piton left on a ledge. While seconding the following pitch, I pulled a large part of the mountain down, which rolled over my hand as it went. From then on I was reduced to seconding on the harder pitches, where Gary did a very competent job. We came across other relics, including a bolt, up to where the lower rock buttress eased into an ice slope. The route continued on the ice until a gangway and two pitches in a crack system took us to a notch below the last part of the rock ridge. From here our route joined the original one on this side, as easy ground led to the summit, which was reached at five P.M. We descended down the route until we reached the top of the initial buttress, then rappelled to the west and onto the glacier, where we arrived after dark. By headlamps and good luck we worked our way through a very broken section of the glacier and eventually back onto the moraine. Having slipped and stumbled once too often Gray and I bivouacked somewhere in the boulders, while the others groped their way back to the Fairy Meadow Hut, arriving at two A.M. We later found out that George Bell and David Michael had climbed the lower buttress in 1963, but had lacked the time to complete the route. NCCS IV, F7.

Christopher a.G. Jones