Two Hobbits from the Moon

Greenland, South Greenland, Cape Farewell Region
Author: David Kaszlikowski. Climb Year: 2009. Publication Year: 2014.

In 2007, operating mostly alone and moving around in kayaks, Eliza Kubarska and I climbed a new route, Golden Lunacy, on Maujit Qaqarsuassiaq (AAJ 2008). In July 2009 we returned with a film crew to record documentary footage. During that time we climbed three pitches at the foot of a peak named Marlulissat, above Appillattoq village. On August 5 and 6, after the film crew had departed, we completed this climb.

The first 250–300m follows slabs and dihedrals on solid rock. We made a bivouac several pitches above the huge terrace crossing the face and watched rain clouds gather on the horizon. With no bivouac sacks or bolt kit, and with friction slabs above, our best option early next morning was to finish the route as fast as possible. We traversed left through a very loose system of rock columns, and topped out at 4 p.m. Much to our surprise, on the descent we met many enthusiastic villagers bearing gifts and greetings. They said we were the first to climb this wall. We named the climb Two Hobbits from the Moon (23 pitches, UIAA VII+, two bolts on the initial section).

After a prolonged period of bad weather, we set out on August 17 for an unclimbed summit south of Maujit Qaqarsuassiaq. Our objective, the seaward face, is only accessible by boat. We asked an Inuit friend to drop us and come back in three days. Scrambling through "vertical blueberries,” with several roped rock pitches along the way, led for 700m to a large ledge and bivouac under a huge boulder. Next morning we awoke surrounded by clouds, and we were forced to wait before we could see a way up the final 380m wall. Leaving our bivouac equipment, we began climbing toward huge chimneys. Some were over three meters wide, forcing us to climb the side walls. Others were full of large, loose chockstones. Around 200m below the top it began to rain, but we summited at 9 p.m., after climbing 10 pitches that day.

We left a small cairn and began rappelling through the night, placing two bolts for anchors. The Inuit told us the mountain was unnamed, so we decided to call it Forgotten Peak, which translates as Qaqaq Eqqamanngilara. The Polish Route has nearly 1,200m of climbing, with difficulties of VII+ R.

After a controversy in Poland provoked by a book covering our climbs, the Polish Mountaineering Association (PMA) organized an expedition in 2012 to re-climb Golden Lunacy and Two Hobbits from the Moon. After repeating these routes (AAJ 2013), the PMA report stated that Golden Lunacy was "seriously overgraded" and Two Hobbits was a "nice route on good rock, though again with several overgraded pitches." [The original ascents of Two Hobbits and the Polish Route were not reported in the AAJ, hence the details here.] I accepted this at first, but eventually was able to see their topos. They climbed our crux pitch on Golden Lunacy (VIII+/7a+, with one rest point, as we reported; downgraded to VII+/6c), but it is also clear they didn't climb many of our pitches; in some cases they were as much as 40m from our line. The grade of Golden Lunacy is VIII- (top pitch of our line), or VII+ by the 2012 variants. They also did not follow the exact line of Two Hobbits, especially in the upper section, and "downgraded" sections of virgin rock. In our opinion the verification process was biased.

David Kaszlikowski, Poland



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