Moose's Tooth Solo — Benjamin Lieber

via Ham & Eggs Couloir

Alaska Grade 3+, WI4, 5.6, 3,000ft.

Free Solo on April 14, 2022

It was the first of October 2016 when my mother and I drove our tiny rental car from Anchorage to the small town of Talkeetna under partially gray overcast skies. We’d never been to Alaska and it was just the two of us experiencing this magnificent land for the first time. Who knew what Alaska even was? We surely didn’t. Was it like the books and stories we’d read? Was it really as wild as they say? After just a few days here we were beginning to realize all of that was probably true and we were never going to get more than a scratch off the surface on this trip. Oh well, you’ve got to start somewhere.

And so we did. I told my mom the one thing I absolutely wanted to do on the trip was go on a flight with Talkeetna Air Taxi into Denali National Park. By late morning we were stepping into the ski-equipped Otter with legendary pilot Paul Roderick. I think Paul could tell I was eagerly awaiting the ride and I asked him to point out some of the mountain’s names and routes if he didn’t mind. Buzzing high above the expansive forests we looked down in amazement at the beautiful waterways coming off of the range. Just five months earlier I’d thrown away most of my belongings in Savannah, Georgia and moved to Mt. Rainier to begin a new life- a mountain life. As we entered the range we flew along a monstrous granite massif and I couldn’t possibly believe what I was seeing. Towering granite beyond something I, as a novice mountaineer, could comprehend as climbable. It was guarded by the biggest glaciers I’d ever seen. We were East Coast people. This was something out of a book. Finally as we brushed in front of the highest snow-capped point Paul said over the headset, “This is the Moose’s Tooth, that couloir is Ham & Eggs.”

The Northern Lights over Denali in the morning before starting up the route. Taken by Adam Simmons.

Now it's 2022, I was a different person than back then. That was just the beginning of an amazing journey to becoming a mountain climber- maybe it’s still the beginning today? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that spending time here in 2016 with my mother ultimately went on to shape my life. I moved to Alaska for the summer in 2017 and worked as a glacier and kayak guide in Valdez, eventually I moved here for good and even managed to obtain an Alaska Driver’s License. Am I Alaskan yet? Not sure about that either but I’m working on it. I had long hair back then, down to my shoulders, and I still resembled a lacrosse player more than anything else. Now my hair has sadly gone, my skin a bit weathered by the sun and wind, and perhaps over the six years of living in my car and obscure places has hardened me.

I had a productive winter of cragging around Alaska, mostly in the Knik River Valley where I dedicate much of my time and share a rope with friends older than I whose climbing mileage seems to rub off on me. Conditions were generally good and the motivation was high. Coming off the winter I knew I was ready to head off to the big mountains. Unfortunately my first trip to the range to have a go at a new route I’m focused on was largely unproductive and due to high winds and blowing snow we never even left our basecamp! Friends had other friends coming to town and they’d be heading off on their own expeditions. Slowly it became clear: I was going to solo the Moose’s Tooth. I’d never been and I was teeming with excitement. I quickly packed my bags with my kit and a random assortment of dry foods from my storage unit, I never even went to the grocery store! By late morning on the 10th I was driving alone to Talkeetna for the start of a wonderful adventure…

When I arrived at Talkeetna Air Taxi there were some varying opinions on why anyone would fly to the Root Canal Glacier at that time. A few parties had returned empty-handed after a sizeable snowfall buried the route. I’d been following the weather and felt strongly conditions were going to be great in the coming days. I shared a plane with a party of two who was also going to try Ham & Eggs. One of them had never been to Alaska before and the other was clearly a seasoned veteran. It quickly came out she’d been on 12 expeditions to Wrangell-St Elias! Flying in, the weather was perfect and the exciting landing on the Root Canal Glacier was new to me- I’d never been but at this point had logged well over ten expeditions in Alaska. The route looked pretty good at first glance. I said hello to the two other climbers who were already there and was happy to realize they were guys living in Anchorage who I’d met during the winter on a climb by the ocean. The next day Alan flew in with a client and we were now seven total on the glacier. Being solo and with great weather forecasted for more than a week, I knew I wanted to be patient and let others try their hand at the route before me. I would be happy to break my own trail but it didn’t seem necessary if others were going to climb first. On Wednesday Alan was first to the summit for the season with his client and another party of two summitted shortly after him the same day. Thursday was going to be my day and hearing others had reached the top was encouraging.

That night the northern lights danced overhead, though I never saw them as I tossed and turned restless until my alarm went off. It was about 5:45am when I first poked my head out of the tent. A beautiful bright moon sat calmly between the summits of Mt Hunter and Mt Huntington. The sky was clear and my bag was mostly packed. I could see the headlamps of Marc and Adam making their way up the first pitch.I’d put my boots in the bottom of my sleeping bag overnight with hand warmers in them- they were toasty from the minute I put them on. I come from a childhood of playing team sports so I decided to watch part of the ESPN documentary, “Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks,” on my phone as I tried to eat. Man did that get me fired up! At one point, one of the players recalls the feeling of the playoff rivalry and says, “You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you just want to play.” That was it for me. I threw out my breakfast and started speed walking towards the couloir.

I had a decent pace up the initial snow slope and arrived at the 5.6 rock pitch which is 40 feet in the guidebook. Crampons scratching on rock, nice hands and feet, a few sinker tool slots, it felt good to be climbing. Afterwards a down climb of a few feet leads to a gentle rightward traverse with a boulder move halfway. Further, an overhanging ice mushroom gets you into the couloir proper and on several hundred feet of snow climbing until arriving at a fork. To the left, the two parties the day before had climbed WI4, to the right were the 5.9 variations which hadn’t been done yet. The Joe Puryear guidebook says the first ascent party did 5.9 climbing sort of up the middle after climbing left from in the right fork. I thought that was pretty cool, must’ve been an exciting pitch for them. I went left and up the ice like the others had. The ice quality was pretty variable. I guess if you’re expecting nice water ice you’ve come to the wrong place! This is really alpine water ice and its south facing aspect had made it slightly rotten and airy with loose snow surrounding it. Rather insecure at times for a soloist! At one point I towards the end I was looking to see where others had put their feet and I noticed behind right hip a well-used foot placement in a delicate overhanging snow mushroom. I thought to myself, “What! You monsters have been stepping on this thing! No!” Then I realized it was absolutely the easiest way to continue through the final stretch and nervously placed my foot on it, being sure to not weigh it very much. Higher up I got my foot back on the ice and again looked around for their footing marks. And again behind my right hip! “What! Again! No!!” Welp a moment later and I too have my foot on the mushroom for the second time. I continued up and into better ice that lowered the angle and gave way to another snow slope.

On one of the Ice Pitches of Ham & Eggs. Taken by Adam Simmons.

Arriving at the next ice pitch, I was psyched to be moving into the narrow section of the couloir which consists of several hundred feet of ice steps broken by snow climbing with the granite walls tightly fixed on either side. People had said it was the most fun part- I agree! I imagined this first pitch would be easier than the one I’d just done and halfway up I realized it was not! The pitch began by following a body-wide ice gully and it became increasingly tighter as it got steeper. It would’ve been nice to not have a backpack on actually because it butted against the wall behind me on the right. The most fun climbing of the route came next with the leftward traverse across a knife-like snow/ice arete that gets you centered again in the main runnel. Stepping left and outward away from the couloir a few delicate feet and a nice hook allowed for swinging around the arete into decent ice. A few more neat foot movements and the pitch eased off until turning into a snow climb again. The next several pitches of ice were great- fully steep but for short distances. Arriving at the point in the couloir where it angles right and out of view of basecamp, I took a little break and looked down what I’d come up- what an awesome route!

Now about 1,000ft or so from the summit I had all the actual ice climbing behind me and I turned my headphones up to aim for the top. Four hundred or five hundred feet of steep snow climbing brought me to a wide col that was the top of Ham & Eggs Couloir. Massive cornices hung proudly over the north face and the summit ridge slopes bent their way downward until becoming sheer granite faces that drop all the way to the Root Canal Glacier. For the first time since I started I looked out to the south at the view beyond the mountain. The sky was bluebird and the great Ruth Glacier was well below me flowing towards the forest.

Another few sips of water and I was moving above the col on steepening snow that became ice for a ways. The snow conditions were absolutely perfect and I felt well-attached to the mountain. Sometimes walking, sometimes daggering, I arrived at the final summit boulder which is passed by snow and ice on the left. It became good ice as it got steep and when I stepped over the top the sun hit me for the first time. Low wind, bright sun, a perfect morning- just one lone figure on the ridge. I had always dreamed of experiencing something like this in my life. My view was no longer looking upward, now I looked out to the East across waves of the corniced top which rose gently to the true summit. Walking along the final ridge, I followed the narrow track of the others from yesterday and placed one foot in front of the other as if walking on a tree over a creek. I looked out at the seemingly endless mountains of Alaska that surrounded me. Denali, Hunter, Huntington, Foraker to the west, Silverthrone to the north. I stepped onto the summit and below was the Ruth Gorge, in the distance the Sleeping Lady near Anchorage, behind me now the tracks from which I followed up. This wildly glaciated land surrounded me on all sides from my corniced perch and it was as if I was now a part of the wilderness too. For a moment I felt larger than the mountain itself, but ultimately I felt small and insignificant- just a single creature atop a lifeless tooth of granite & ice.

Stepping off the summit, it was time to go down. The summit ridge descent was straight forward; downclimbing and a rappel or two. Arriving back at the col, a fixed picket from the teams before me started the string of 15-18 rappels back down to the glacier, I didn’t count how many. The route is stacked with existing anchors and it was never a problem finding one. The route was still largely in the shade so it felt pretty safe. Three or four rappels from the bottom I noticed Alan and Alex were staged on the airstrip with their bags packed- I knew the plane must be coming soon! I tried to speed up the final rappels and then hiked briskly across the glacier to them and my camp. We celebrated for a moment and then began frantically packing my bags and taking down my tent. About thirty minutes or so after arriving back at basecamp the plane arrived and my trip was over. We hopped in and flew away.

Overall the experience was full of enjoyment and I flew away with pockets full of memories to hold on to. Climbing the route alone is something I can be proud of and a notch on the Alaska Range belt. Now with hindsight, I can look back and tinker with my approach to climbing alone in this great range and build inspiration and fire to take on more solos in the future. While solo alpine climbing is certainly not for everyone (nor is alpine climbing in general!), it’s something that I fit into and the climb was a quick glimpse into higher potential.

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