Mt. Combatant, Perseverance, New Route. On the evening of July 29, White Saddle Air chop- pered Alan Kearney and I to a precarious little spot in the icefall of the upper Tiedemann Glacier directly below the immense east face of Waddington. This approach allayed our concerns of serious problems in the icefall and gave us excellent access to Combatant. The ample snow coverage gave us non-trivial access to the base. After a very rough scope of the route, we carried loads on July 30, but were unable to actually get on the route due to weather. The next morning we left early and climbed. Going with just one pack between the two of us and the second jugging, we were able to climb the route in four days and rappel the route back to base camp in one day. Our route was 17 pitches long to the huge terrace that splits Combatant at mid-height on the southwest side, where we joined the previously climbed Kshatrya (5.8, 12 pitches) to the summit. The route climbs the last major unclimbed buttress on Combatant, the one left of Child, Collum, and Mascioli’s 1994 route Belligerence. The weather was intermittent for the first two days, but we were blessed with beautiful weather for the remainder, thus the name for our route: Perseverance (VI 5.10c A2+).

Brendan Cusick