[MCR] Rockies, attempt on The Undertow

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

My buddy, Jonny Blitz, and I made an attempt on The Undertow on  
Tangle Ridge, May 4-6. Having packed for a different objective, we  
hustled to repack when we saw the weather forecast step down on  
Wednesday morning. Got our bivy permit from Grant at the Icefields  
Centre, which is fully up and running, and walked away from the truck  
at noon. Everything went well until the top of Shades Of Beauty,  
which is in fine shape (we walked around the first 2 pitches and  
climbed the last). From the top of Shades things got more challenging  
-read post holing and wallowing and trying to read by Braille the  
faint track of the seekers-who-went-before, seekers who turned around  
after several hundred meters and I wished that they hadn't. We turned  
the rockband overhead via scrambling up a break/avalanche path. The  
path had sloughed/slid in the past and offered firm footing so we  
kicked steps up it to tree line and then turned left to the route and  
the trail-breaking really got sick. It was like going ski touring  
without skis (if I was to go back I would take skis). Three hours of  
hard to-the-crotch work got us to the flats and forest below the  
climb (the flats were the worst). We would have turned back had the  
climb not looked so good. We saw no avalanches on Wednesday.

5 am we set out and the snow was carrying no better. We were reduced  
to the level of dumb beasts crawling for 30 meter stretches on hands  
and knees. Thankfully the slopes below the climb carried properly  
with boot top steps once we got off of the accursed 'flats'. Took us  
3 hours to get to the ice.

The climb is hard and complicated with superstructures of blobs and  
curtains that sit over matrixes of icicles none of them very large.  
There are no big blue pillars, it climbs well with good picks but is  
a challenge to protect. 4 of our anchors involved pitons and nuts (we  
took a small selection and no cams). 12 hours of engagement saw us  
2/3rds of the way up the route at the bottom of a grade 6 or 6+  
pitch. We bailed back to the tent (got back to it at 10 pm).

The route is seeing a couple hours of sun in the morning. Wet stains  
formed on its edges by 4 pm on Thursday and small chunks of ice began  
falling, some small snow features fell from the wall. A point 5  
surface slough had ran over our approach tracks in the afternoon.

Neither of the mixed lines are there this year.

Friday we were walking by 8am and back to the truck at 11:30 am. Our  
track carried well on the way out. A half dozen surface sloughs had  
run on Thursday, one a size 2 that ran close to Beauty Creek.

Happy trails,

Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com

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Stanley Falls Senior on Wednesday

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The Undertow

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We bailed from halfway up this picture