Thursday, May 6, 2010

True Summit of Mooses Tooth!


The Alaska Season is officially in full-effect. I'm back from a successful trip into the Alaska Range with Michael Feldman, a strong Lawyer from New Jersey. Our original objective was to climb the Harvard Route on the elusive Mount Huntington. We flew into the East Fork of the Tokositna Glacier below Huntington's steep West Face and were met with bad weather and massive amounts of snow. We waited 5 days below the face hoping it would stop snowing and settle out but on Sunday the 2nd after approaching the route in the early morning, watching our route get blasted by spindrift, we decided to pack up and move to the lower and south facing routes of the Mooses Tooth.

May 3rd, Michael and I started up the ultra classic Ham'n Eggs Couloir on the Moose's Tooth at 6:30am. The route starts off with some fun mixed climbing on golden granite then moves into many steep pitches of ice climbing followed by steep snow all the way up the 3000'ft face. We continued up the route from where the climbing meets the West Ridge and followed the exposed and heavily corniced ridge to the true summit. Most parties now a day's turn around before the summit after climbing the long couloir in poor style. The Summit Counts! From the top of the steep couloir we spent about an hour climbing and hanging out on the Summit enjoying the perfect weather and some of the best climbing/views of the climb! We climbed the route in 9hrs and did 25 rappels back to our camp in 4.5 hrs giving us a round trip time of 13.5 hrs. A perfect day in the mountains of the Alaska Range!

Enjoy my pictures:Mount Huntington's West Face getting hammered with spindrift.The Mooses Tooth and the Ham'n Eggs Couloir splitting 3000ft of Granite.Michael topping out on the steep ice steps midway up the couloir.
Michael topping out the couloir to the West Ridge of the Mooses Tooth.Climbing to the summit of the Mooses Tooth.Me, Seth Hobby climbing the last steep cornice in the ridge to the True Summit!

Thanks allot to Alaska Mountaineering School, Michael Feldman, and friends Vince Anderson and Mark Cartier for another amazing climb in the Alaska Range!

Stay tuned for more updates from this season in the AK Range. This Seth Hobby with Northern Alpine Guides signing out.