This story is about another climb in the fabulous winter ascent genre. It all happened some thirty three years ago and writing down this this one really stretched my memory to the breaking point; so much so that I had to enlist the aid of one of my two partners on the climb to fill in many of the details. Even so…it’s still a bit fuzzy. Thanks Ross old buddy.
We got a crack o’ ten start on February the seventh, 1981. We left the truck on foot and made our way up the largely overgrown Skwellipil Creek Road. This snowy road ended in a large area of logging slash which we had to struggle through before we could enter the forest. The early going was pretty rough due to the thick bush we encountered. Eventually this thinned out a bit and we followed a creek up through some very picturesque bluffs. There would probably be some fine cragging to be had on these bluffs if they were much closer to a real road, and if someone did some extensive gardening. Finally after an exhaustive day we found a bivi site (or rather, it found us) at around 1645 hours. It was only about half an hour before sunset at this time of year.
92g08
None of the terrain in this area is very high, but that doesn’t stop it from being rugged. Our bivi site was at about 1,300 metres, and the summit we were going for was around 1,950 metres. So we only had about 650 metres of elevation gain facing us in the morning.
We were up at 0645 and were out of camp by 0730 which corresponded very nicely with sunrise. It really was turning out to be a bluebird day. The skies were sunny and it was surprisingly warm for February. We made our way up the snow slopes that lie to the east of Mt. Bardean and then across the southern slopes that led us to the Col between Bardean and Ratney. At the base of the face proper we had to negotiate a tricky moat then up a reasonably steep ice gully that split the face. I placed two screws in the gully. It seemed very ‘Scottish’ in nature, and suited my climbing skills at the time very nicely. Once we exited the gully we were faced with cramponing up steep crusty snow and through several minor rock bands to the summit. Even though it was warm the snow was hard and provided excellent front pointing.
Mt Ratney
Near the summit
We made the summit by 1300 hours but unfortunately and as per usual we couldn’t linger long. The wintry views were magnificent in all directions, but especially stunning were those in the direction of Mt. Robie Reid, and Judge Howay. We stayed no more than ten minutes. We had to be careful on the initial part of the descent and belayed on several of the steeper sections, but once through that and past the ‘schrund, we flew down and were back at the bivi by 1530.
Robie Reid and Judge Howay
This was Sunday afternoon and we all had work or school on Monday. It took about thirty minutes to hastily de-camp and then we had to pick our way down through the bluffs and by the time we finally reached the valley bottom it was pure dark o’clock. We navigated through the forest by headlamp with the most troublesome portion being through the slash at the end of the road. This was a real son of a bitch and it took us some time to find the actual road itself. We were not done yet however and still were far from home. We had to slog down the road to the truck which we eventually reached by 2100 hours; just totally knackered.
It was 0130 Monday morning by the time we got to Ross’s place. Tisha dropped me off about forty five minutes later at my digs, and she had further still to go to get to her house.
Mt. Ratney was first ascended in 1950 by the prolific team of Rode and Dudra. We believe however this to have been the first recorded winter ascent of the peak. So, again thanks to Ross for dredging up the majority of the details of this trip, all I added was some colour commentary. And Tisha… if you are out there… anywhere….please get in touch.
photos courtesy of Ross L