Three Days in September

In the darkness of an autumn night our headlights lit up a dirt road through a wood of evergreen and muskeg. Bouncing along and hoping to avoid a flat tire, the front right wheel screeched and our ears rang with the sound. A rock was stuck in the wheel’s dust shield… not much we can do about it right now. Here on the north side of the monstrous Wrangell Mountains and not far west of Canada, we were in a new place and albeit arriving in the night, we could sense the bounding seclusion of the land. Though I’d never been, I knew this would be a great wilderness.

Earlier that morning, we’d been in Anchorage trying to stir motivation for another trip into the mountains. The day before we’d come out of the Alaska Range with not much to show for our efforts. We were alone in the range and hadn’t found what we were looking for. Looking at temperatures in different parts of Alaska, it seemed likely we could climb water ice near the road in Nabesna. So I talked Alex Hansen into it and by midday we were on the road and eastbound to Wrangell-St Elias National Park, a remote park bigger than Switzerland and hosting many of the world’s great peaks, glaciers, valleys, and rivers. On this trip we’d barely scratch the surface of what it holds but it wasn’t our first time in the park. Driving from Anchorage to Nabesna is a journey in itself and all day we enjoyed views of the Chugach Mountains and then the Wrangells. Slowly the road grows quieter and alas signs for the Canadian Border appear. Near that time we took a right and onto a lesser traveled road towards Nabesna as the sun went down. 

Perhaps arriving in the daylight would’ve been a good idea but as always it didn’t go that way and we were confused as to where the climbing was in the dark. Eventually we zoned in on the right place and parked for a car bivi. It was September 27th and quite chilly, maybe fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. We crawled into our sleeping bags and dozed off. Waking in the morning, it was surely still cold but we were ecstatic to look out to the mountains about a mile away and see a beautiful ice flow pouring down a gully in the mountainside directly perpendicular to us. 

Around late morning we were traveling easy ground through low bush towards a drainage to the left of the ice we’d seen from the parking lot. In this drainage lies a few classic climbs and we figured we could climb the “Corridor” WI3/4 sans rope to kick off the ice season. The route is truly a classic- it snakes and slithers up a beautiful cleft in the back of the drainage and is characterized by tiers of water ice that continue for hundreds of meters. It is an exceptional way to enjoy movement and fluidity in the mountains without much commitment. As we turned the final corner of the approach, we could see the first pitch and it looked fantastic. We knew it was going to be a great day out. And so it was! For the entirety of the climb, running water could be seen tucked away behind fresh sticky ice and we moved quickly up the route. I’m not sure where the actual end of the route is but we began our descent after a final alpine-like pitch, I didn’t see ice beyond this. 

In the early evening, we made it back to the car and we sat in chairs beside it, parkas on, and scarfed down an array of treats. Unfortunately we realized we’d forgotten our stove in Anchorage and because of it our food supply was limited. That night we drank cold water from Jack Creek and with a campfire managed to make a pot of water hot enough to prepare two dehydrated meals. Only a handful of minutes after the water finished, the fire was out and we relished in the hot food before hopping back into our sleeping bags for the night. 

Another beautiful morning forced us from our sleeping bags and back into our boots. Today we planned to get out to “Spring Fling” WI3/4, which was the striking ice flow that could be seen from our camp. The bushwhack to it was very mellow and offered amazing views of a frozen morning in the Wrangells. Arriving at the base of the first pitch, it looked excellent and Alex hopped on lead. It was so good I wish we climbed it twice. Similar to the Corridor, the route snakes through a deep cut in the mountainside and my favorite part of the route was behind a corner. Two short tiers of pillared ice was followed by an excellent mixed move by a chockstone. Though only for a moment, the movement was really fun and I brought Alex up to take us another pitch further. As we got higher up the route, the ice fattened by the foot. I led the final two pitches in one long simul pitch, the soft ice sticky enough to move on a single swing nearly every time. We had a great time climbing fast with all the rope out between us and by one o’clock I was at the top of the several hundred meter route and giving Alex a final belay to my stance. We rapped the route using our IonR paired with a sixty-five meter 6.5mm tagline. We made quick time, hoping to drive back to Anchorage through the evening so Alex could contact his mother on a well deserved birthday call from her son!

On the hike out, I was lost in the views of the land around me. The forest, the rocky mountains, the dusting of snow- it all blended in harmony. The silence, the early-winter cold, the half-frozen ground- there was a magic to this place that seems lost upon today’s world of hustle and bustle and concrete infrastructure. I imagined I’d stepped into a time machine and the beauty of the land here was still preserved. 

While climbing road-access water ice this early in the year was an amazing experience, it was the authenticity of this land in which I’d not seen before that made the trip so special. To be able to spend a few days in a place of this character was a gift we could walk away with. On that note we hopped in the car and drove away, arriving back in the busy paved streets of Anchorage some time before midnight. Oh the contrast from the tranquil forests of Nabesna...