Chris Wright starts the first pitch of the final day on Terror, he and Scott Adamsons 67 hour epic 1st ascent on the Mooses Tooth in Alaska. Photo by Scott Adamson. 2nd photo: Chris Wright at the amazing Dr. Seuss Bivy on Terror. Photos by Scott Adamson Six pitches and about 14 hours later, we reached the snow shoulder in the dark, with a biting wind and a serious fatigue leaving us both feeling completely shattered. All of the corners pitches were difficult, sustained, and generally poorly protected, with each pitch somewhere in the M6-7, WI5-6 range, with the occasional A1-A2 section. At one point I placed a nut, pulled over a bulge onto a delaminated sheet of vertical ice, and found nothing but wishes and tied off stubby screws for about 40 or 50 feet to the belay. I know Scott had similar moments, drytooling on tiny edges, milking incipient cracks, tiny ice patches, and barely manageable gear. By the time we climbed another pitch of snow to the top of the shoulder, we were both as strung out as either of us can remember. Luckily we were able to find a good anchor and excavate a small ledge, which allowed us to set up the tent and crawl inside to hide from the wind. This snow shoulder was the same one used by Jim Bridwell and Mugs Stump for a bivouac during their 1981 ascent of Dance of the Woo-Li Masters, the first ascent of the face. A second very long day of difficult mixed climbing brought Adamson and Wright to a wild bivouac on top of the headwall, where they finally bedded down at 2 a.m.. the second post-midnight bivy in a row. Next day they continued up easier ground to the summit plateau, and then a very Alaskan traverse on the corniced summit ridge took them to the top at 3 p.m. Wright believes this was the only one of the three new routes on the Mooses Tooth that week that continued to the true summit of the peak. The two then descended by NWS, taking advantage of the rap anchors that Adamson and Tapley had left just days before. By 10:30 p.m. they were back at base camp, for a total round-trip of around 67 hours. The new route was called Terror (1,500m, VI WI6 M7 R/X A2). Dates of ascents: April 2013 Sources: Scott Adamson, Chris Wright, American Alpine Journal, Alpinist, Dougald MacDonald Climbing Magazine
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 14:20:32 +0000
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