Grenelle-Spearman Traverse. Greg Collum and I helicoptered to the Plummer Hut near Mount Waddington on the last day of a record-breaking heat wave in the Coast Mountains. All too soon we were trapped in the hut, reading novels and drinking tea. Sharing the hut with us was Peter Croft who had just traversed the entire chain of peaks from Waddington to the Tellot Glacier with Don Serl and Greg Foweraker. The three of us began scheming and soon we were committed to traversing the chain of peaks leading to Waddington on the other side of the Tiedemann Glacier. We began with Grenelle Peak, reaching the summit by a new route on the northwest spur. We spent our first night near Grenelle. The next day, in high winds and clouds, we worked our way over numerous bumps and points to Mount Munday. The weather cleared for a glorious evening ascent of Munday’s main summit. The night was bitterly cold at 11,000 feet on the summit plateau. Day three we descended Munday’s west ridge and worked our way to a shelf below the southern facade of the Arabesque Towers. Peter quickly made the first ascent of the highest tower while Greg and I worried about the prospects of the ridge that lay ahead. The east ridge of Spearman Peak was unclimbed and looked like a nasty affair. We began working on it early on our fourth day, with Peter leading across the shattered rock at the speed of light. Several steep towers, a short rappel, and a spot of 5.8 led to Spearman’s summit. After a gripping down-climb on front-points, we reached Spearman Col on Waddington. At this point we elected to descend rather than climb Waddington as our food and energy reserves were depleted.

Daniel Cauthorn