Fairweather's South-Southwest Ridge

Steven Gaskill, Colorado Mountain Club

STARTING on June 28 Keith Echelmeyer, Steve Ruhl, Mike Ruckhaus, Mike Berman, Darrell Brown, Chip Mehring and I were flown from Juneau to Cape Fairweather. The next few days saw us begin a discouraging reconnaissance to find a route from the beach onto the Fairweather Glacier. Three days of devil’s club, alders, mosquitoes and rain finally yielded a route. The approach up the glacier, 15 miles by eagle and a million or so by foot, took another five days. Base Camp was established at 4700 feet on a small rock outcrop directly above the upper icefall on the south side of the glacier across from Mount Fairweather.

Brief reconnaissance by three of us on the unclimbed south-southwest ridge and by the other four on the south ridge, the first-ascent route, was thwarted by storm. On July 14 Echelmeyer, Ruhl and I reached the cache by eight A.M. and with heavier loads continued up the south-southwest ridge, having already come up the initial snow slopes and scrambled up a loose section of ridge 1800 feet from our Base Camp. The ridge, now a broad snowfield, quickly steepened as we picked our way through a series of ice steps and crossed several gaping crevasses on shaky bridges. The ridge then turned toward the north, becoming a razor-back of mixed rotten rock and loose corn snow. By two o’clock we had reached the first real high point of the ridge at 8500 feet: the same level as the clouds. The next eight hours were spent in the rain and fog as the ridge dropped several hundred feet and seesawed for the next mile. This entire section was quite difficult.

The next morning about ten A.M. the clouds lifted a bit and we could see the next 1000 feet of our route. More mixed rock and snow eventually led to a thin, steep, knife-edged snow ridge. After lunch on the last rock outcrop, we postholed our way up to harder snow, eventually reaching the first ice slopes at 10,000 feet. We pitched another late camp, this time under an ice cliff to protect us from possible avalanches. The third day took us over a straightforward route as we proceeded up the now broad ice slopes, past a steep nose to the West Saddle at 13,000 feet, where we established Camp III.

On July 17 we were off at eight. Though the wind was blowing hard, the weather was fairly good with a cloud cap over the peak and a few scattered clouds below. The snow on the lower part was deep, loose and tiring, but the last 1000 feet to the top were generally ice covered by knobby hoar frost.

On July 18 Ruckhaus, Berman, Brown and Mehring started up the south ridge. Their first day took them past the icefall, across a steep, soft snowfield and up an extremely steep snow couloir to their cache. They ascended another snowfield and couloir and had several hundred feet of rock scrambling to gain the ridge proper. They ascended the long, occasionally broken and steep snow and ice ramp which led to their only high camp at 9800 feet.

After a day of fog and light snow, on July 20 they set off just after midnight and moved up the ice slopes with an occasional belay. At 13,800 feet they had a chance to survey the top portion of their route. What had appeared to be a small bump on the ridge from down below turned out to be the most difficult portion of the climb. The ridge proper was extremely steep green ice. They had to skirt the ridge on the east side, which still involved several leads of 70° ice.

On July 22 I soloed the northwest ridge of “Sabine,” the 10,400-foot peak six miles due south of Fairweather. (It had been climbed by Walter Romanes and Fips Broda by its north ridge in 1958. The western summit had been reached by Japanese in 1969. See A.A.J., 1959, pages 297-8, and 1970, pages 115-6.—Editor.) From Base Camp I easily climbed to the ridge and followed good snow, though steep at times, up the first 2800 feet to an altitude of 7500 feet. Here I came to the first crevassed section. Rocks on the right and an end-run around crevasses on the left took me up this part to 8000 feet, where the ridge leveled for a long section of rolling knife-edge with occasional wide areas. Near the end of this I was directly under the summit icecap: a section of steep snow and ice crossed by intermittent ice cliffs. I followed the steepening knife-edge for 200 feet onto the face proper. Two hundred more feet of easy front-pointing brought me under the first ice cliff, which had a break to the left: a steep gully. Just as I started up the gully, a section of the ice cliff broke loose, setting off an impressive avalanche down the north face. My tracks of the previous ten minutes had been entirely wiped out! The ice of the gully steepened to where I was in danger of falling. I belayed myself for the next 250 feet with an ice screw and two snow flukes until the angle lessened. I traversed left to the only break in the cornice. Twenty feet of very steep snow, overhanging the 3000-foot north face, led to easy slopes. A quick walk led to the summit bathed in the afternoon sun. In the softer snow during the descent I dropped through a hole into a crevasse. Luckily it was very shallow and I was able to walk along the bottom for 50 yards and climbed out of a low spot where the crevasse had opened. I returned to Base Camp with the last rays of the sun.

(Editor’s Note: There have been five different routes done on the south side of Fairweather. From west to east these are the southwest ridge, 1973; south-southwest ridge, 1975; south ridge, 1931 and 1975; eastern south ridge, 1958 (The Canadians started up the first-ascent ridge but traversed east at 7000 feet to the ridge descended by Wickwire’s party in 1973.); ascent over Mount Quincy Adams, 1973.)

Summary of Statistics.

Area: Fairweather Range, Southeastern Alaska.

Ascents: Mount Fairweather, 15,320 feet, first ascent of the South- Southwestern Ridge, July 17, 1975 (Echelmeyer, Gaskill, Ruhl); ascent via South Ridge, July 20, 1975 (Berman, Brown, Mehring, Ruckhaus).

P 10,400 (“Mount Sabine”), second ascent via new route, the Northwest Ridge, July 22, 1975 (Gaskill, solo).

Personnel: Michael Berman, Darrell Brown, Keith Echelmeyer, Steven Gaskill, Chip Mehring, Steven Ruhl, Michael Ruckhaus.