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Mike rehydrating back at camp on the Tusk Glacier after almost 14 hours of climbing.
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By later afternoon was had it down the Shackleton Glacier on the far side of the icefield. Unfortunately, just a few minutes after regaining easy ground at the toe of the glacier, Mike slipped on a wet rock and twisted his ankle. He tried to hobble on, but it was soon apparent that he wasn’t in any shape to do any more climbing, and when we came across this flat expanse of gravel we set up camp. Here’s Mike calling the helicopter company on satellite phone the following morning to let them know we needed a ride out of here.
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This is me a short distance from our camp. In the background is the toe of the Tsar Glacier and the north ridge of Tsar Mountain, the peak we’d hoped to climb. By now the weather was starting to deteriorate.
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I felt badly in need of a rest day, but the forecast was for one more day of good weather before conditions deteriorated, so we decided to set out for the long hike across the Clemenceau glacier to the base of Tsar Mountain. Mike thought we could accomplish this in one day – I later learnt that most other parties spread this out over two or even three days. Here’s Mike crossing the Duplicate Glacier, with Mt. Shackleton in the distance.
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Mike back on the Tusk Glacier on the way back to camp. In the backgound is Tusk Peak; our climb has taken up us the glacier in the middle and back left up the skyline ridge.
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It was only 8:30am when we landed, so we decided to make the most of the day and head up Tusk Peak. Here’s Mike on the bare lower glacier.
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Mike climbing up a short, steep snow gully that leads to Tusk’s south ridge.
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Mike descending the summit ridge on Clemenceau. We were careful to keep a healthy distance from the edge of the ridge.
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Our next objective was Mt. Clemenceau. We rose at 3:30am and by sunrise we were high up on the Tiger Glacier on Clemenceau’s west face. Here’s Mike with Tusk Peak behind him. The guidebook describes this as a “routine glacier ascent”, but it’s become quite challenging in recent years due to glacial recession, and some parties have been unable to find a way around the crevasses.
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Aerial view of Mt. Alberta (3,619m/11,873’), the “hardest, loosest and scariest of all the 11,000ers” (according to Bill Corbett’s guidebook), and still on Mike’s to-do list.
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On the way down we were able to avoid some of the snow-bridges on the Tiger Glacier by downclimbing the loose rock of Clemenceau’s west ridge. Eventually the ridge became too steep to downclimb easily, so we regained the Tiger Glacier and our ascent route. There was a lot of tedious zig-zagging back and forth to get around the crevasses.
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The view from our tent on Tusk Glacier. I’d brought a “bear vault” to keep our food safe from marauding wildlife, but up here we didn’t see another living thing, not even an insect.
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The helicopter coming in to collect us, and a premature end to our trip. Mike’s enthusiasm for climbing the 11,000ers hasn’t diminished, however, and I’m sure I’ll be back here for another attempt on Tsar in a year or two.
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Our landing spot at 7,400’ on the Tusk Glacier between Mt. Clemenceau (in the background) and Tusk. This small, level patch of gravel was the only such spot for miles around – anywhere else and we’d have been camping on bare ice or slush.
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Me leading up to Clemenceau’s west ridge. The weather had been very warm and the snow bridges were in poor condition – one of my legs punched through when crossing the bergschrund.
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Mike at the summit of Tusk Peak, with Mt. Clemenceau in the background. It was barely than 24 hours since I’d left the office in Denver.
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Mike at the summit of Clemenceau. The summit ridge is heavily corniced and there’s a steep drop down the other side. Neither of us was interested in spending too much time up here.
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Once again it was a warm day and by early afternoon the snow-bridges had become very soft. This is a hidden crevasse that I plunged into with both feet, having done the very same thing just a few minutes earlier.
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Aerial view of Mt. Clemenceau (3,658/12,001’). It’s not clear how the surveyors back in the 1920s arrived at that exact height.
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Me climbing up Tusk’s south ridge. It was mostly easy scrambling on loose rock with occasional detours onto the snow, with a few 5th-class moves where the ridge steepens.
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Mike and me at the Cline River Heliport, AB, about 40km east of Saskatchewan Crossing on the Thompson Highway. Mike wastes no time on these trips – he picked me up at Edmonton airport at 6pm the previous evening and we drove straight to the heliport, where we slept on the ground for a few hours before getting up at dawn to be ready for a 7am helicopter ride.
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Panoramic view of Mt. Shackleton and surrounding peaks from Tusk’s south ridge. The air was hazy throughout our trip because of forest fires in BC.
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Aerial view of Mt. Athabasca (3,491m/11,453’) as seen from the flight to the Clemenceau Icefield.
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Mike on the Clemenceau Glacier, with Tusk Peak and Mt. Clemenceau behind him. Crossing this glacier is a monotonous business – it’s an enormous flat expanse that goes on for miles and miles, and there’s almost nothing to gauge one’s progress.