A quick hit in the range to climb Bacon and Eggs and Mt. Frances
A multi-day springtime excursion in the Eagle River Valley.
Last winter my esteemed colleague John Sykes and myself blazed through a pair of appearances on local programs Alaska Insight and Talk of Alaska with Lori Townsend. After our whirlwind media tour it was back to digging around in snow pits and skiing powder for us.
Links to both our appearances are below.
October ‘22 delivered some great ice conditions to the Anchorage Front Range. Dana Drummond and I were able to get out and take advantage of them on South Yuyanq Chex. The MCA Scree had a writeup of the route we did. This is it, with some more photos.
After a fruitless mid October Nabesna climbing trip I took a stroll up toward Rabbit Lake to see what was happening in the mountains around town. As I sat in the snow looking through binos at South Yuyanq’ Chex I was surprised to see some ice I had never noticed before. Maybe all this autumn rain was good for something! I started hatching a plan to get up there to check it out.
Two days later, despite the ominous forecast, Eric Wickenheiser and I walked into Rabbit Lake under gathering clouds. The trail was dry at first, and we made good time until under Ptarmigan Pass where we began to deal with increasing wind and snow and eyes staring back at us in the beams of our headlamps. The local moose population was enjoying the wind breaks in the alder as much as we were, and displayed little interest in ceding the trail to us any earlier than they were planning to step out already. We ate snacks until they moved on.
When we got to the bottom of the face, the spindrift was already starting to pour out of the line. Walking six miles back to the base of the route probably affects decision making. We tied in and started to go up. The terrain on the lower buttress is steep enough that nothing big was building up other than the main gullies, so we felt comfortable exploring the face for a bit on the traverse to the main line. After two pitches we had made it over to the main gully, but it was continuously puking snow at this point and the decision to go down was obvious. As we rapped, we had the interesting effect of getting hit by spindrift coming down from above, and then having it recirculated back on us by ferocious updrafts. The visibility was quite bad. One double rope rap brought us to the ground, and we coiled the ropes and retreated.
A unfortunate vehicular incident gave Eric a mangled truck and some questions about how his body felt from the accident, and during his brief period of convalescence I ended up finding another partner to capitalize on the brief window of time I had to climb the route. I first met Dana Drummond as I was swinging gently at the end of a rope halfway up Cathedral Ledge in NH. Dana, then a mulleted mountain guide, had seen my unsuccessful thrutchings at my attempted route and subsequent airtime from his belay perch, and offered his congratulations. “Nice whip!”. We subsequently became friends and independently both ended up in AK. We have shared many interesting adventures together, it’s hard to imagine a more competent and unflappable partner.
When Dana and I came back five days after my first attempt, our fortunes regarding the weather were good. Calm air and clear skies made the walk in seem easier, but there had been little snow accumulation from the last storm and we still stumbled around below the mountain in the thinly covered talus as we approached. There was enough snow built up at the bottom to make the initial choke in the gully seem reasonable without a rope, and we gained our first 100’ quickly before digging out an anchor. A short scrappy slab pitch gained the traverse ledge system height and a decent spot for a belay.
We traversed left on moderate terrain toward what looked to be the first bit of climbable ice, back to the spot that had been puking snow on the last attempt, where Eric and I had left a rappel anchor and bailed. This time there were no pocket slabs laying in wait on the traverse.
It felt so great to be back again, with mild conditions and no spindrift, swinging tools into snow, ice, turf, and rock. Getting established onto the thin ice proved to be a little challenging. I checked a couple different ways trying to figure out how to get into the groove where the climbable ice was. Dana finally pointed me in the right direction. There were a few committing moves to get onto the ice and then the cracks and gear came again higher up.
Dana climbed a thinly iced slab on the next lead, which deposited us below the pillar I had seen on my recon hike that had tempted me out for this line in the first place. Finally swinging into the ice and getting good sticks felt pretty nice. Despite the somewhat brittle and delaminated nature of it, I felt comfortable with the four short screws I was able to place for protection. At the top I found a place to string together a few decent pins for a belay and brought Dana up.
Now we were on the northern end of the west face, from here the angle eased for a bit. The ropes were stashed in the packs, and we took turns breaking trail up the gully through steep and deep snow. After about 500’ of elevation gain the gully narrowed to a meter or two wide, and a buttress rose up on our right. The line started to swing back out onto the north facing part of the mountain, and we began to encounter enough steep terrain to have the conversation about where to go and when to put the rope back on. A narrow gulley to our right near the top of the main line presented an interesting option, but we decided to continue up to where the snow ended in the main gully at a small rock overhang.
After tying back in Dana was able to find a way to place the lone hex on our rack on his loose and marginally protected lead. Are we crusty climbers? Who places hexes any more? It fit perfect though. Our New Hampshire climbing brethren would be proud.
The clouds were starting to build, but despite the grey skies and wind the conditions were pretty good for alpine climbing. I grabbed a little gear from Dana for the last moderate pitch of loose mixed terrain to the ridge, and then found a nice belay stance overlooking the north face to bring Dana up to. We moved together for a bit on the 3rd class ridgeline with the rope on to get away from falling danger, then unroped, unharnessed, and walked up to the summit.
It was a little cold, the wind was blowing a bit. We snapped a couple photos and headed down toward Hausers Gully, linking up the patches of snow that were deep enough to walk down with crampons on. The pass was as wind scoured as usual, and the descent down to Rabbit lake went smoothly. As usual with these Chugach objectives, the rest of the adventure involved trudging out to the car, once again in the gathering darkness.
We Fear Change is a fun moderate alpine route in the Front Range that is definitely worth doing if the ice comes in. It is likely that the first two traversing pitches could be eliminated with a long direct pitch if someone caught it at the right time when the ice came all the way down. It is great to find these lines so close to Anchorage, and trips like these always get me more excited to keep exploring the mountains and seeing what’s over the next ridge line. Hopefully it is more climbs like this.
We Fear Change (WI4 M4) 1,700’ FA October 30, 2022 Elliot Gaddy and Dana Drummond
Eric wondering if this is a good idea.
Eric is in that spindrift somewhere
Snow covered rock to get warmed up.
Dana says these pitons are fine, don’t even bother looking.
Dana on the second ice pitch.
Snow couloir to upper pitches.
Dana about to do some choss wrangling.
Evening light on the face on our descent.
