Old Style On The Moose’s Tooth

Arriving in Talkeetna to clear, sunny skies was a bit of a surprise to Bull and I. We both expected the forecasted rain and snow showers and a leisurely day sorting through our gear and getting packed for our trip to the Root Canal Glacier, the base camp for our hopeful climb on the Ham ‘n Eggs route on the Moose’s Tooth. We were even more surprised to hear our pilot, Paul, tell us we needed to get ready in an hour. Wow! We were going to get in there this afternoon, an unusually quick turn of events from waking to cloudy skies in Anchorage that morning.

Two hours later we were shoveling snow, making camp just minutes away from the huge bastion of rock that makes up the Moose’s Tooth’s massive South face. The wall is 3,000 feet tall and is spread out along the Root Canal glacier for over half a mile. From the West the corniced summit ridge dances up and down over four different summits culminating on the highest, Eastern summit. Piercing the through the sweeping granite face to the col between the Eastern central summit and the main summit is an aesthetic, thin line of snow and ice rising for 2,600 feet. This obvious line is the Ham n’ Eggs route. Once considered a test-piece of the Alaska Range, now it is a highly sought after alpine classic and the easiest line of ascent to the Moose’s Tooth’s summit. The route now has numerous would be suitors and, though not exceedingly difficult, the actual summit denies most that attempt the route. Many gain the col, only 400 vertical feet shy of the summit, but do make it the final way to the route’s culmination. Stopping at the col and calling it a “modern ascent” is still just another term for “attempt”. Nonetheless, we aspired to climb the route in its entirety. What more we hoped to have the real alpine experience and bivy at the col, giving us a full day to reach the summit and descent the complex route. Climbing the difficult ice pitches with full packs on would not be easy, but we wanted more than just a “cragging” day on this mountain.

Knowing Alaska as I do, I told Bull, my client, that we need not to waste any good weather and should probably get after it tomorrow morning if the weather is clear. Though making camp and dinner took us well into the well lit evening hours, he agreed, eager and intoxicated by the Alaskan air. Not being too worried about time, we made a gentleman’s start at 9:00 am. We roped up right at camp and were starting our first mixed pitch just 30 minutes later. The first bit of climbing: honest, scrappy dry tooling was a good wakeup call and helped set the tone for the rest of the climb. After this, we were able to move together for several hundred feet up steep snow to the base of the ice climbing. While certainly not fat by Ouray standards, there was just enough ice on the short, vertical step to allow passage, though not enough for protection. It was strenuous pulling the slightly overhanging bulges with a full pack, but helped keep one’s head in the game. Thankfully, there was no spindrift for which this route is notorious. More steep snow, some extremely narrow ice runnels, and a few more steep steps brought us to the col after six hours of climbing. The weather was still brilliant as we dug a small platform for our tiny tent along the narrow summit ridge.

The summit blazed in the late afternoon sun and with the Alaskan perpetual dusk on our side, we decided to make our bid for the top that evening. We took light packs and traversed to the base of the smooth, 70 degree ice headwall guarding the summit slopes. Being glacial, this was the thickest and hardest ice we had climbed yet. It was calf burning terrain, but it was brief. This was followed up by a few more ever steepening snow pitches then some cornice meandering towards the distant, true summit. The summit of Denali, Mount Hunter, Mount Huntington and the stunning peaks along the Ruth Gorge all were out in their alpenglow glory. Just one day after arriving, we were on top of the Moose’s Tooth! Bull and I were elated in our efforts and the rewards of our labor. Remaining was our descent back to our base camp the following day.

After a restful night’s sleep, we woke to another fine day. Fine enough that we decided to make the short, easy trip over to the peak’s Eastern central summit before starting the long series of rappels down the ascent couloirs. Two summits and 13 rappels later, we were back on the Root Canal glacier and walking the short distance back to our camp.

We wisely allotted a week for this climb. The weather is often fickle and we certainly did not expect to get up our route so quickly. We enjoyed a snowy rest day talked over the possibility of trying another route on the South face. Rising up between the Western and West central summits lies another deeply inset, narrow gully. The route ascending this couloir to either the West or the West central summit is called Shaken, Not Stirred. Much narrower, more sustained and significantly more difficult than Ham n’ Eggs, Shaken was a route we needed to take very seriously if we were to get up it. It would be much too narrow and difficult for us to realistically climb with full packs, ruling out the possibility of a bivy. We would have to climb fast with day packs, summiting and descending the route’s 3,000 continuously vertical feet in a single push.

After two and a half full rest days, we woke up at 3:00 am and headed over to the route’s hidden entrance. From the get go, we knew that this was a much different beast than Ham n’ Eggs. A pitch of spicy, delicate mixed climbing led to another of ice just 6-8 inches wide up a vertical corner. The “easier” sections of this route were still real climbing and we did not move together through any of it, belaying every single foot of the climb for 20 60-meter pitches. Pitches 11-15 were perhaps the wildest of the climb, threading up an extremely narrow chimney (at times, a foot wide) with ice that was capped in several places by large, overhanging chockstones. Surmounting the chockstones involved strenuous, thinly protected dry tooling and footless climbing. These proved to be the route’s crux. The narrow col above pitch 17 provided a good, albeit windy, place for a brief rest before climbing the corniced ridge on out to the West summit and end of the route.

Though blessed with good weather throughout the climb, the summit was veiled in clouds allowing us only fleeting, limited views of the Ruth Gorge right at our feet. We descended exactly as we came up and made 20 rappels down the narrow cleft to the glacier below. A 13 hour round trip was good enough for us. We managed to stand atop three of the four summits of the Moose’s Tooth and climbed two incredible routes inside of six days. We left very sated.

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