Mount Waddington, South Face, Third Ascent. In August 5 Jack Tackle and I completed the third ascent of the south face of Mount Waddington by a 1200-foot variation of the original route. First climbed in 1936 by Fritz Wiessner and William House, the face had seen many attempts but no complete ascents since the second ascent by Fred and Helmut Beckey in 1942. After an airdrop on the Dais Glacier, in three days we approached Base Camp at 6800 feet on the Dais Glacier by way of the Franklin River and Glacier. On the fifth day Tackle, Jeff Jones in support and I had placed a high camp at 9975 feet at the foot of the 3300-foot granite face. On July 27, with beautiful weather, Tackle and I left the tents at 12:30 A.M. Jack took a 35-foot fall when the unstable snow on the bergschrund wall collapsed. We made good time in the couloir for the first 1500 feet. Except for a short vertical section, we climbed unbelayed up the 60° ice and onto a ramp system for 2000 feet to the base of the prominent tower on the face. After traversing the triangular snow patch for four pitches, we left the original route and began our variation to the summit, a steep, ice-filled chimney system which leads directly to the amphitheater below the summit. After two difficult pitches, avalanches forced us to find cover under an overhang for seven hours, but by dusk I had led an F9 pitch up difficult rock and Jack continued up a vertical ice runnel. Again rotten, hollow ice gave way and Jack fell 35 feet, losing a crampon. We bivouacked on a platform chopped out of the ice and rappelled down in storm in the morning. After several days of bad weather, we again climbed the couloir without belays, this time on excellent ice and traversed to the start of our variation. We continued up, climbing the crux rock pitches for four rope-lengths to the ice of the amphitheater below the summit rock, where we bivouacked. We ascended the left chimney system for three pitches directly to the summit ridge. A traverse of 1½ pitches put us on the summit snow cone at two P.M., nearly 38 hours after our start. Eight rappels and a traverse brought us to the base of the tower and our second bivouac. Eleven rappels took us down the couloir. On August 1 we climbed the 1100-foot north face of Mount Jester by a direct route to the summit. On August 10, we ascended a 2000-foot ice route up the prominent, left-leaning, corniced couloir on the northwest face of Mount Sockeye and on the 12th the 2300-foot west face and summit couloir of Mount Agur to the southernmost summit and thence over the other summits. All three were new routes.

Kenneth Currens