Never claim a first ascent in North America because Becky probably did it first…
– anonymous
There was a period in lower mainland mountaineering history during the 1970’s when what were in vogue were first winter ascents. All of the major peaks and routes had been climbed in summer, as had most of the lesser known ones. For years mountaineers had contented themselves with putting up new routes or making their way up trade routes under the splitter bluebird skies of summer. Well… if you know anything about B.C. mountain weather, you know that last statement is a patent lie, as even in the summer months the weather can be anything but bluebird. But the point is this… that winter does add a very challenging extra dimension to the whole climbing enterprise. For many years the fantastic winter season was mostly overlooked by the climbing masses, and for probably very sensible reasons. But, over time attitudes change, gear improves, and since meaningful summer first ascents of peaks were becoming scarcer and scarcer climbers slowly turned to a ‘new’ game…. that being the one of the first winter ascent.
For an ascent to be a ‘winter ascent’ it must take place… well…in…winter. Maybe. As with most stuff as soon as someone starts to define something, someone else will claim contrary, and then the parties must somehow duke it out and agree upon a commonly accepted definition, which seldom if ever happens. Winter ascents are of course no different. And definitions will vary, depending upon to whom you are speaking to, and even geographically. Two interesting viewpoints follow….
Nepal
In Nepal the official winter season runs from December 1 to February 15, dates that contrast significantly with the accepted Northern Hemisphere calendar winter that spans from December 21 to March 20. Most climbers, and particularly those in the vanguard of serious Himalayan winter mountaineering, disagree with Nepal’s rules. Prior to 2004, all winter ascents of 8,000m peaks had been done after December 21.
Scotland
Winter Climbing in Scotland traditionally takes place when the hills and watercourses are under snow and/or frozen conditions. The ‘season’ can extend from October to April (and sometimes beyond on the higher cliffs). However, there is no set date limit, but rather the definition of a winter ascent concerns the conditions encountered on the cliff during climbing. What constitutes a winter ascent is an ethical question.
As it happens, the story that follows took place not only in calendar winter, but also in winter conditions, making this truly a winter ascent no matter how you slice it. Some of the trademarks one can look forward to on a winter climb in the coast range are: extended ski or snowshoe approaches, unstable weather, cold, ice covered rock, severe avalanche hazard, and of course short daylight hours. This climb had all of that.
Doug, Ross, and I headed up to the Sphinx hut at the eastern end of Garibaldi Lake on March 11 1978. It took us about seven hours struggling under heavy packs to get to the hut. This included a five kilometre crossing of the frozen Garibaldi Lake. Winter is one of the best times to get into this area because of how easy it is to cross the lake. A trade off though is that you usually can’t drive to the trail head in winter. All in, this entire trip was over thirty kilometres return on foot. We were intent on spending several days of climbing peaks in the region. One climb that we really wanted to do was Castle Towers Mountain, which is one of the tallest and more remote peaks in the area, and also one that isn’t just a walk-up especially in winter. I recall the day of our ascent as starting out with reasonably good conditions. We made decent time up the Sphinx glacier and soon we were passing beneath Phyllis’s Engine, an intriguing set of granite towers lower down on the divide. Eventually however the terrain steepened considerably, and the weather also took a turn. It was somewhere around here that Ross had decided to call it a day, and hunkered down to await our return. From this point on it was snowing heavily and near whiteout conditions were upon us.
We thrashed up a steep gully that was running with spindrift. The top of the gully ended at a vertical rock headwall that was covered with verglass and rime ice. This effectively barred our upward progress. Having limited choices we then traversed out onto the northwest face’s sixty degree snow and continued up for a short section. Every so often a small break would occur in the swirling clouds affording us a brief glimpse of sun shining onto the glacier 300 far metres below our feet. The last few metres were close to being dead vertical and had a small cornice that we had to chop through.
The summit was totally socked in but every so often the clouds parted enough to confirm that we were indeed on the true summit. This was six hours after leaving the hut. Upon a quick assessment we came to the following shared realization: Just how were we going to get down? There was no way we felt that we could down climb what we had just ascended. The snow on top was also so soft and unconsolidated that we couldn’t even cut a bollard to rap from. So eventually we traversed the summit back to the west side and were able to gingerly down climb a fair bit to a point where we could see the top of the ascent gully. There was a one by one metre patch of level snow about four metres below; right where we had exited onto the top of the north face. It took us some working up the nerve but we… jumped… kids, do not try this at home. Now we had to down-climb the steep gully in the gathering shadows. Eventually the steepness eased and we were back at the base of the gully, and reunited with Ross. It was now just a long slog back to the Sphinx hut, where we crawled into our down cocoons and brewed up some hot drink.
We had a great climb, called it a day, and really thought no more about it at the time. It was just one more summit on the tick list. It wasn’t until many, many years later that I was leafing through a newly published guidebook to the area, that something caught my eye. A first winter ascent of Castle Towers was listed. That’s pretty cool I thought, thinking back to when we did our winter ascent of it. I wondered when those bad-ass guys did that. Must have been years ago, when I was but a lad. I almost fell out of my mountaineer’s armchair when I read the date… 1979; a year after our climb!
One thing for certain; is that we did a winter ascent of Castle Towers and that we did it a year before those guys did. Was it the first winter ascent? Or did some other guys bag it years before us and never recorded it, just like we didn’t? I don’t really know. All I do know is that I shared another good day in the mountains with some equally good men.