[This Mountain Profile essay about Katahdin, Maine, originally appeared in Alpinist 84, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store. Only a small fraction of our many long-form stories from the print edition are ever uploaded to Alpinist.com. Be sure to pick up Alpinist 84 for all the goodness!–Ed.]
The early Nineteen Seventies had been an thrilling time in New England for mountaineering. I keep in mind sitting round a desk in North Conway’s high climbing store with associates, celebrating John Bouchard’s 1971 solo first ascent of the Black Dike on Cannon Cliff—a coveted prize, given its standing because the longest and hardest-looking ice route at nighttime and foreboding north-facing nook beneath the Whitney-Gilman Ridge—and spraying about what was doable subsequent. The basic traces on Mt. Washington had been climbed. However everybody was hankering to do the following massive factor and we had been no completely different. We shared ineffective gossip with one another, hoping that somebody would slip up and expose a possible new ice line. We additionally debated issues of apparatus and ethics. I used to be wrapped up within the creation of unpolluted climbing, so all components of fashion had been essential to me. I used to be a staunch dissenter when it got here to utilizing wrist loops on ice instruments, as I considered them as help—and hey, the actual alpine pioneers we lauded didn’t use them. The wool Dachstein mittens we wore made the instruments much more slippery, and it was essential to rub cross-country ski wax on the shafts to get a greater grip.
Since John Bragg was making probably the most progress on new routes in New Hampshire and New York, a small group determined to enterprise farther afield to Katahdin. This may be an actual journey: lengthy climbs in a distant, comparatively unknown and bitterly chilly alpine basin. We had been stoked. However who must be in such a celebration? My good friend and fellow climber Rick Wilcox organized a gaggle that included Frank Lawrence, Dave Walters, Dave Cilley and others.
We arrived at Chimney Pond in February 1973, a motley crew of New England climbers. After the committing sixteen-mile strategy, we had been comfortable to settle within the cozy bunkhouse, which had acquired the stench of years of climbers’ concern and sweat. The cabin was darkish but welcoming as the warmth of the woodstove started to dry out our steaming garments. It was an amazing base for substantial imbibing and informal prepare dinner fests. We ate fancy freeze-dried meals combined with good ole Dinty Moore Beef Stew or Hormel chili. Our best leisure, nonetheless, was listening to Frank and Dave as they explored the surreal world of Xaviera Hollander by means of her memoir The Joyful Hooker. We howled till our sides ached as we ready to discover the icy granite cliffs of Katahdin.
I used to be eager to accomplice with Dave Cilley since he had a repute as a sandbagger and I assumed he can be probably the most enjoyable. Dave had rope soloed first ascents of some rock routes on our native crag, Cathedral Ledge, in New Hampshire. One particularly caught my consideration, a route he named Bombardment. It’s an ideal hand crack that was revealed after he eliminated all of the moss and dust choking it. He cleaned as he climbed (therefore the bombardment) and rated it 5.6. At this time it’s a basic worthy of 5.8+ with a “necky” runout slab on the backside. Dave had a simple grin for nearly any remark, and his eyes went to slits as he contemplated the enjoyable that might be had at any time.
The morning after our arrival at Chimney Pond, Dave and I set our sights on Pamola Peak, which had a brief, steep strategy and a line that appeared like it could be a great warmup, and would enable us to evaluate the firmness of the ice. It was bulletproof, as we quickly found. Our picks bounced off like ball-peen hammers and our ice pitons had been primarily ineffective, fracturing the ice as we drove them in. We had been profitable solely in dislodging massive plates of ice across the entry holes and had been pressured to tie off foot-long gear at simply a number of inches. We completed the day pondering we knew what we’d be in for and slogged again to the cabin.
We bought again to the cabin earlier than darkish, early sufficient to scope our subsequent goal. We dried out our cotton fishnet and Duofold underwear, our heavy wool pants and our sodden mittens. Our overboots and outerwear had been frozen as if we had simply come down off an 8000-meter peak in winter. Gore-Tex wouldn’t be a growth for a number of years; we as an alternative relied on Sierra Designs’ 60/40 jackets, which weren’t waterproof within the slightest. And the Goldline rope we used changed into stiff cable when frozen.
As we contemplated what to climb subsequent, one apparent path to the left of the Armadillo function appeared to have our title on it. It was a full-on line with a steep part two-thirds of the way in which up. The crux remained hidden till we noticed it the following day on our strategy. The thriller for us was the steep part. Fierce winds had shaped horizontal roofs that we must weave round. We didn’t know that low-angle ice would additionally gradual us down, with hard-to-place gear and lengthy runouts. Others on the journey had been considerably incredulous that we’d try it, however we had been dedicated. Not even The Joyful Hooker may preserve us within the cabin on day two.
Dave and I headed out to our route early the following morning at nighttime amid robust winds and bitter chilly—0°F and beneath. It was cloudy down within the basin and we had been engulfed in blowing snow. We discovered our approach to the bottom of the primary pitch and began simul-climbing. We needed to stretch out ropelengths to maintain the rope from freezing as we encountered névé, ice, exhausting snow and soaking moist ice bits on the tops of bulges.
At first we had been capable of simulclimb the low-angle bits and pound in a piton within the ice sections, which we had been positive would shield us if considered one of us pulled the opposite off in a fall. My confidence on this technique shattered, nonetheless, after I observed our drive-in tubular ice pitons bobbing out and in of their holes like woodpeckers engaged on bushes. As a substitute, we turned to solid-stock pound-in or corkscrew pitons, each of which had been time-consuming to take out. Irrespective of how environment friendly we thought we had been being, daylight was draining quick.
We reached the crux pitch in midafternoon, and it was the worst of all nightmares.
Whiteout spindrift avalanches, the chilly temperature and bulletproof ice all made the climbing gradual and progress uncertain as I skirted round the best facet of some horizontal ice roofs. I prayed Dave wouldn’t fall following this pitch: my gear was in questionable, shattered ice, and I used to be belaying above the crux from my seventy-centimeter wooden-shafted ice axe, which I had pounded into the turf forty ft again from the highest of the pitch. Any larger and we’d be again to soloing on unsettled snow. I stamped out a crappy foot stance, girth-hitched the axe and hoped that all the pieces would work out.
It didn’t. Dave fell, and I may hear him clearly as he yelled as much as me. However my phrases of angst and outright concern again to him had been misplaced to the gale blowing in my face. It was a formidable place to speak. As my ice axe shifted ten, then fifteen levels off of vertical, I strained with my legs to haul Dave as greatest I may. Swinging on the rope and flailing together with his axes, he lastly made it out to the best, to safety. Yikes, that was shut! We untied from the rope, and after a number of hundred extra ft of soloing, we had been on the well-known Knife Edge ridge and strolling down the best facet of Katahdin. Wind-scoured ice and the ever-buffeting wind made even mere mountaineering treacherous.
It was pitch black once we arrived again on the cabin to apprehensive faces that appeared as expectant as Shackleton’s crew will need to have felt as he returned from his rowing voyage to South Georgia Island and again. We would have liked some assist to get out of our ice-encrusted garments. Our staff was comfortable to see us after questioning the place we had been out within the void with no headlamps. As we had been peppered with questions, we couldn’t say a lot because it hadn’t sunk in but how fortunate we had been to have had our first massive journey and—extra essential—to have survived it. Dave simply smiled together with his eyes slit shut, having fun with all of it.
