Glacier Bay National Park, Day 9
3,000ft above the glacier floor and a 6 hour hike form base camp. Ryland and I are tucked under a rock cliff, dug into the snow and hidden from a cold north wind that rages an arms reach away. 200 ft to our east is the starting point to the “Wall of Walls,” quite possibly the most amazing face I have ever considered riding.
If you told me 5 days ago I would be in this position I would have thought you were crazy. In my head I figured the “Wall of Walls” would have taken weeks not days to unlock but the weather gods have blessed us with 5 straight days of sun and we have been able to climb the terrain progression ladder faster then I thought. The price has been 14 hour day after 14 hour day and both my mind and our bodies are running on reserve.
Six hours ago it was looking like this was a dream that would not make it to reality. Our original plan to get over the bergschrund failed, as did the second, and our third and final option looked hopeless until I found a snowbridge that could support our weight over the dark cracks below. Once on the face my brain and body took over and before long we were 2,000 ft off the deck, the sun was long gone and we were hanging onto twilight trying to top out before total darkness. Our homes were on our backs, the ocean was not far below, huge peaks dotted the horizon and we had know idea where we would sleep or if we could make it up the last steep pitch of the climb.
Looking back the last two seasons I now realize how much I have learned. Without the endless days of splitboarding in my home range, the Sierra, and without last season’s AK trip or the rope work in Chamonix and the bergschrund lessons of Antarctica, I would not be here. I am big mountain riding on a level I never imagined. My whole body is aching, my boots are frozen, my feet or soaked and I could not be happier.
The Wall of Walls. “Can we climb it? What is the safest way….?” Free Jones Snowboard hat for the first right answer.
The boot pack.
The top
The Bivy.
The reward.
What a treat. Time to relax on a sunny day and dry our boots, have a huge breakfast that was brought to us by TB and take a nap. We had five hours to kill before we needed to start hiking to our evening lines and we we were to far to go back to camp.
Wow. Amazing photos, as always. Hard to imagine a man on a snowboard on a face like this.
I believe, that the safest way to climb such one is to be in the shadow zone as much as possible. There is a huge shadow on the right part of “The reward” photo. Left edge of it seems climbable, though requiring lots of work
Can’t wait for “Deeper”. BTW, will it be available in HD ob Blue-Rays or what?
Comment by Diamond May 12, 2010 @ 11:35 am
So envious! Sitting in my cubicle getting stoked on this blog, wishing I was out in the white stuff with my splitty. Great TR. I want a Jones Snowboards hat so… I think the safest way up that wall of white is to go up the right flank and traverse left. That is the best I can do without creating an image. Great mission, sick blog.
Matt
Comment by Matt Hubeck May 12, 2010 @ 11:44 am
For the free hat… did you climb up the big, but tight coulair to lookers left of the peak on lookers right?
Comment by Chris Carr May 12, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
Wow, that climb has a lot of exposure and demands your attention for sure. Safest route seems to be far lookers right in the image to obtain the ridge. Take the ridge to the presumed summit and downclimb to the top of the face. Would love to see a Topo of the face to get a better perspective of vert and steepness.
Comment by dop May 12, 2010 @ 12:19 pm
Man, that looks really tricky to navigate! That’s really impressive. Even when you think there’s a good route, it looks like it sits below a face that’s getting hit with the sun all day. So yeah, if I were to pick a route, it would be something that’s shady most the day, with minimal exposure above it (if that’s even possible). It would also ideally be on a ridge.
If you look at the peak on lookers right, there’s a ridge and a chute below it to the left (skier’s right of the peak). I’m saying you climbed up that ridge, just on the shady side. Maybe you hiked up the chute, but that seems counter-intuitive to what i’m used to. I feel like staying on the ridge would protect you from the exposure above you on the peak, as opposed to if you were in the chute.
Either way, you sent the thing, and that’s awesome. I’ve been seriously considering purchasing a Solution this year. A few weeks ago attempted to snowboard the dead dog couloir here in CO, and the approach on snowhoes drained ALL my energy: traversing on 1-2 feet of fresh. My skiing/skinning friends still had plenty of energy, and I had to post up a bivy under a cliff (alot like yours, but with a space blanket cover) below and wait 4 hours for them to ski it, coming down screaming about face shots and blah-blah-blah. I need a change. A Solution
Comment by Casey LeFever May 12, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
my guess would be the ridges in the middle of the photo, which kind of makes sense with the camera angle too, but apparently requires traversing the peak.
I can’t really tell how steep the large ridge looker’s left of the extremely dark couloir is, but either that one or the next big one (that looks very mellow) would make a sensible option, if the bergschrund and/or the approach is feasible (can’t see the base). Leaning towards the former.
Comment by nothingmuch May 12, 2010 @ 1:29 pm
Yes you boys can climb it and it appears that you did. Looking at the face, The huge ridge in the middle could be good if the snow pack is stable which it sounds like it was. yeah the big ridge in the middle. Looking at the last pic i would head up the right side of the ridge.
Comment by Frank In Juneau May 12, 2010 @ 1:34 pm
I agree with Casey, the ridge right above your knee in the last pic, not in the chute though as youd be exposed to whatever comes off that face above. The ridge in the middle looks gentle in spots, but getting to it looks pretty problematic?
Comment by Forrest Thorniley May 12, 2010 @ 5:57 pm
Yes you did climb it. There is no safe way when your talking about mountains of this size. Not enough experience or research can prepare you for the unknown. You fellas will have a lot of knowledge to share with the avy awareness community.
Dude, please hit me up for your next project. I rock JHMR or Teton pass everyday (even today) but i wanna get deeper. Find me at the kids ranch or i’ll find you in the tram line and stalk you! HAHA!
Dave
Comment by JHSNOWFREAK May 13, 2010 @ 8:03 am
SICK JEREMY!
Comment by Neil Provo May 13, 2010 @ 5:56 pm
Jeremy, as the skill of your crew elevates beyond snowboarding and into alpinism I grow more and more interested with your exploits. I have a feeling Deeper II will be filmed as much in the Himalaya as in Alaska.
To answer your questions from the post, yes you can climb it. And, although it’s a pretty loaded question, the safest way to the top would be to start the climb pre-dawn to minimize avalanche activity and stay in the shaded are to climber’s left shaded area of “The Reward” photo. The ridge/fin feature that extends to the lowest elevation in that area seems to mitigate cornice and slab potential the most.
Comment by samh May 14, 2010 @ 9:04 am
Who won the hat?
Comment by Matt May 14, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
Jeremy, huge respect, that face is unreal, I love the idea of evening hikes and snow hole bivys, serious alpinism man. Can’t wait to see the descent, plenty of ’shrundage should you get off your line. You’re really committed to pushing the sport, thanks for this amazing blog, and what you’re doing for snowboarding (POW, JONES BOARDS, this blog! Basically delivering major stoke of freeride snowboard exploration).
Now about your question, tons of clues in the post. I’m going to say that you actually climbed the fluted face, I know you enjoy climbing spines. I think the key that many missed was your timing and the aspect of the face. Given that twilight in the those mountains is sometime around 10pm you must have started in the early evening, 4-ish. Now why would that be safe? Well if your face is east-ish facing (which I believe it is), then the sun hit it in the morning but vacated in the afternoon and is now cooling and firming, primed for a vertical assault. Stability sounded decent and you knew those fatty spines looked like a clean route until a few hundred shy of the summit. This last stretch would be a challenge, but at twilight would likely have shaped up well enough. You built a quick snowbivy and woke to the sunrise kissing your sick line, you had the luxury of forgoing an alpine start, got to relax and go through your line over and over, then had a cliff bar, some water and waited only long enough for the cameras to start rolling, ripped down in typical Jeremy Jones spine line destruction. All before I had morning coffee in Vancouver.
P.s – plenty of DEEPER places in the Coast Mountains and icefields of B.C! aka not Whistler/Squampton/Pemby. Though I hear you were snooping around Tantalus, I really got to get out to Jim Haberl hut. Give me a holler and I’ll point you to some things worth a look. Ever considered a spring camp in the Mt. Waddington zone?
Comment by Jamesy May 15, 2010 @ 1:24 pm
Oh also, I’m sure that face was nice and steep which is why that north gully with all the exposure may not have been too nice, potential for icy runnels and an exposed transition onto the face itself. This is a good example of importance of timing and aspect in the big mountains.
Comment by Jamesy May 15, 2010 @ 1:27 pm
I am pretty sure the winner is Chris Carr. We climbed the dark coulior on the right side of the reward photo. Chris I will email you to get your address…..you get one of 10 Jones hats.
All options were thought of and every ones points were thought of. We opted for the Coulior because it surprisingly had very little hang fire. Cornices were our main concern and the cornice on the top of the chute was not overhanging and not getting any sun. The spines of the peak (right side of the chute) flushed into the chute but they were not active do to the cold temps even when the sun was on them in the morning.
Hiking the spines was our original thought but they were deep and exposed. That is not to say that they were not the safest line though. We were just worried about not being able to top out if the face got to steep.
Timing of day was critical. We pushed our start back as late as possible but still with enough time to see. We attempted this face three more times later in the trip. By this time the face was getting quite a bit more sun and the temps were rising so we opted for 2:30 AM starts. Even with all of this time looking at the face we were turned back two of the three times we attempted it. THe first time was do to wind. It came up in the midddle of the night and moved just enough snow to cause consstant sluffing of the chute. (A good example of the Wind Red Flag.) The second was because of weather.
Thanks for the feedback!
Let me know if you have anymore questions.
Jeremy
Comment by Jeremy Jones May 15, 2010 @ 4:17 pm
YES! I am stoked on the hat Jeremy!
I just emailed you my mailing address! Thanks so much for all you do to create awareness!
Keep charging!
Chris
Comment by Chris Carr May 19, 2010 @ 12:57 pm