Blackfriar, Ironman East Peak and the Stickle, Adamant Group, Selkirks. In August Peter Cole and I were flown by helicopter to the Silvertip Glacier below Mount Blackfriar. We spent two weeks in the Adamant group, moving camp from the Silvertip to the Adamant Glacier below the Gothic group and visiting the Austerity Glacier below the Adamant group. We managed to climb Blackfriar, the east peak of Ironman and the Stickle. The latter two routes were new ones. My favorite one was what we climbed on Ironman. It ascends a steep northwest granite buttress that rises off the Austerity Glacier for some 1500 feet. We made a variant on the only line up the buttress; this involved three pitches of 5.10 crack climbing up a single, fingertip-wide crack in the middle of a blank section of the wall. The rest of the route was very sustained. The Stickle looks like a miniature Dru. The climb begins off the Adamant Glacier, ascends 700 feet of 50° ice, crosses a huge bergschrund and climbs the vertical 1000- foot-high southwest face. It includes two overhanging aid pitches up a headwall near the summit. There were also several 5.9 roofs.

Gustavo Brillembourg