Mt Austerity - East Face
5.6 YDS 4c French 14 Ewbanks V UIAA 12 ZA S 4b British Steep Snow
Avg: 2 from 1 vote
Type: | Trad, Snow, Alpine, 3000 ft (909 m), 10 pitches |
FA: | E. Nester, R. Hall, R. Markley, K. Andrasko July, 1967 |
Page Views: | 343 total · 9/month |
Shared By: | Robert Hall on Mar 19, 2021 |
Admins: | Robert Hall, Mark Roberts, Mauricio Herrera Cuadra, Kate Lynn, Braden Batsford |
Description
3000 vertical feet refers to the differential from our high camp on the Granite glacier to the summit. There are very approximately 10 pitches of climbing: 3-4 of very steep snow and 5-7 of rock on the East face and North ridge. Difficulties on the highly crevassed Turret glacier begin almost immediately.
From a high camp at about 8000 ft on the Granite glacier we climbed up into the Turret glacier. This is a highly crevassed glacier and has probably only been climbed in its entirety to the Adamant-Turret col once. Our ascent(s) to the base of the East face was ( and probably still is) only the second ( and 3rd, we did it twice) times it has been climbed as high as the East Face.
Our first attempt required quite a bit of time to route-find up the glacier and resulted in our arrival at the East face too late in the day. Avalanches descending around, and on top of us, resulted in our prudent retreat.
A few days later we retraced our route and continued up the face ( very steep snow! In fact ....Howard Palmer writes (of the view from the summit on the FA of Mt Adamant: “Mount Austerity, our triumph of the precious year, stood out impressively towards the west.... one of the steepest ice-slopes I have ever seen clasped its northern buttress.* [i.e. the East Face]. ) Several pitches of VERY steep snow followed by two pitches of easy rock ( somehow these 2 rock pitches were overlooked by guidebook writers) gained us the north ridge.
My recollection is 3 to 5 pitches of rock, with some step chopping on ice, rock up to about 5.5 - 5.6, but mostly easy, gained us the summit.
Descent was made by a variant of the std route, rappelling onto the upper granite glacier from a point more to the East of the Austerity-Ironman col than is usual.
"Route Photos" are numbered in sequential order.
* Palmer, Mountaineering and Expeditions in the Selkirks, 1914 , page 337
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