Mount Niblock via NE Face

Introduction

Loose rock, one paragraph of 40 year old beta, sugary snow, and very little protection. This is probably the most difficult ascent I have ever done. To climb this face, I had to use almost every single mountaineering skill I've learned to date. There was ice, rock and snow that required gear placement (including one vital piton), lots of 4th class scrambling, body belays galore, and tons of rope management. I could not have done it without a stellar partner so huge shout out to Cameron for joining me on this ascent.

Cameron and I had discussed attempting Skyladder on this date, but after watching the weather, we decided on an objective that would be less prone to avalanche. I found a paragraph in the new David Jones book that described this route and it looked interesting. We made it our new Plan A, and after I had a good look at it late on Saturday night, we decided to give it a shot, not fully expecting it to go.

We made it back to our vehicles 14.5 hours after setting out. The route was tough for me, but for an alpinist with more experience, it might not be too bad. We thought we were doing it early in the season, but given the dry year we have had, we should have done it earlier. If you consider doing this route, do it when there is more snow on the face so the loose rock will be covered. The gullies would be easier to climb if the ice was still frozen as well. Looking forward to getting out with Cameron again. This one was a doozy. I'll be riding this high for a few weeks to come.

Approach

We left Lake Louise at 1:50 am, followed the Ross Lake trail to Minewakun Creek then picked our way up a small trail on our left to the lake. We followed the drainage a ways past the lake until some dried up avi slopes appeared on our right and we made our way up to the base of the first cliffs.

We found a weakness here and soloed up some 4th class mossy rock to a bench. From there, we found another low 5th class weakness in the next band and pitched out the line, placing one nut. This was a trend the rest of the day - very little protection anywhere! This pitch led us into the snowy bowl below the face by about 5:30.

Climb

The snow was not great, but it was also not horrible. We were able to kick a few steps with only the occasional posthole up to the first rockband.

We had planned in climbing the snow all the way up, but the snow that was left in our ascent gully had water running underneath it, so we elected to stay on the loose rock. We felt like miners ripping hand and footholds out of the wall the whole way. It definitely made the rock alot tougher to climb, and inspired very little confidence in any gear we placed along the way.

About halfway up the face, we decided to get back onto the snow as the rock was leading us off route. We crossed the demlaminated snow as quick as possible and got into some firmer packed snow on some old avi paths. Every once in a while the snow would soften and we would have to dig our way over to firmer pack. We soloed a small AI2 ice gully, then got back in the snow to the base of the summit block. This is when things got a little more serious.

In hindsight, we should have taken the gully on the left side of a large black outcropping on the summit block. It was filled with thin ice though, making us decide to circle the block to see what the right side looked like. In David Jones' photo, it looked like the line went on the right side anyway. The snow steepened to about 65-70 degrees on the right side of the block, so we had to belay across a ledge while placing gear in the summit block to get the base of our line. At the base of the line, we dug through the snow to find thin ice. We had to do the best we could to anchor so Cameron could belay me, so we placed to screws in the thin ice. We got all the threads embedded, but the screws were not fully in. It was the best we could do with the gear we had.

I proceeded to climb a line that was probably 5.6 for about 15m. I could not take my crampons off on the slope so I climbed with bare hands and crampons. Several foot and hand holds fell away on me which did not inspire confidence. I have never had to focus on the task at hand so hard in my life. There was no room for error here. I managed to find a spot to place a nut, then climbed above it. Very soon the rock all became downsloping and I had no spots to place gear. A fall here would have been to the ground on top of my partner, so I knew I had to figure it out. I yelled at Cam that I was getting pumped and could not find a placement, and he reminded me to try a piton. I found a spot and was able to quickly pound in a knifeblade. I clipped in and took a much needed rest.

We could not bail as the slopes below were heating up making the snow unsafe and, if I bailed off this piton, we would only have 3 left to rapp off of. Certainly not enough to get down. I had to keep climbing. I tried to continue up the way I had started and got a short way before I was on completely smooth rock. There may have been some crimps, but my hands were so frozen I could not feel them. I realized I had no choice but to downclimb to my last piton, about 3m below. I managed to get back down to it and then proceeded to traverse to my right into a small waterfall and climbed soaking wet 5.2 rock. Good thing I had crampons on, because my boots would have never held on those slippery holds.

At the top, the line became 65 degree snow/ice... again, good thing I had left my crampons on. I had to run out the top with bare frozen hands and my ice tools until I found a small piece of rock I could build a body belay station off of. From there I belayed Cameron up to my position. My piton placement must have been bomber because he was unable to remove it. If you do this line, try to retrieve it for me! We soloed the last bit of steep snow and ice to the false summit.

We pulled ourselves up onto the rock and then had to traverse a short exposed ridgeline to the summit. I have never had to work so hard for a mountain. I let out the biggest yell at the top of this route. What a feeling to conquer something like that!

Descent

After an extended break, we took Spirko's brutal scramble descent down to Lake Agnes. We started by following the south ridge to the Niblock-Whyte col, then descended into the scree bowl on our left. Loose scree and a massive system of ledges made route finding pretty important through here.

Images

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